AWOLNATION Cover Scorpions’ ‘Wind of Change’ With Brandon Boyd + Portugal. The Man
It's time to wet your whistle, as AWOLNATION have revealed a new cover of the Scorpions' 1991 rock ballad, "Wind of Change." And singer Aaron Bruno has a couple of guests helping him out as Incubus' Brandon Boyd and the members of Portugal.The Man also turn up on the song. Listen to the cover and see the video in the player below.
"Wind of Change" is the first of a number of AWOLNATION covers that could be arriving this year as Bruno has been using the pandemic downtime to complete a covers collection titled My Echo, My Shadow, My Covers that's on schedule for a May 6 release.
The singer explained to Billboard, "I thought it was an opportunity — since I was all alone, like everybody was — to make a covers album. I’ve always wanted to do that, and these are songs that made me feel like I was escaping from the reality of 2020. And then 2021 and now 2022."
As for having not one but multiple guests on the his Scorpions cover, the musician calls it a happy accident. He initially reached out to Portugal. The Man, but a delay in the turnaround due to the band working on their own record then led him to ask longtime friend Brandon Boyd of Incubus.
"Just when I got Brandon’s vocal, the Portugal guys said, ‘Hey, we’re in town. We want to come over and do the song.’ This is when everything was starting to settle down and people started to get together. I thought, ‘Oh, fuck, I hope they’re both cool with each other.’ I asked both of them separately about all three of us being on the song together, and everybody was really excited about it," said Bruno. "It was a totally strange combination of worlds and a happy accident."
Speaking about the decision to cover "Wind of Change," Bruno says he liked the challenge "mostly because it was a ridiculous idea (laughs), and an enormous attempt at not butchering a classic song." He added, "One of the most fun things about doing a covers record is if anyone doesn’t like the songs, it’s not my fault. I didn’t write it! I chose great songs and just a weird collection of songs that I’ve always wanted to cover at some point in my career. I’m never going to claim that I’m even scratching the surface of the originals, but it was just a fun thing to do."
The original song first appeared on Scorpions' Crazy World album and was written after the band visited the Soviet Union in the late '80s toward the end of the Cold War. The song hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is a gold certified single in the U.S.
Take a listen to the cover below and you can pick up the song via streaming services here.