Bad Wolves have announced a heavy metal cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” that they had hoped would feature a vocal contribution from the country superstar herself before her passing earlier this week. The song will be released this Monday, August 31st.
According to a press release, Bad Wolves reached out to Parton’s management for the legendary singer to add vocals to their version of the song, and Parton had planned to oblige.
Drummer John Boecklin, the only remaining original member of Bad Wolves, pointed out that the band’s new singer Sara “Killboy” Skinner’s love for Dolly Parton inspired them to record the song.
Boecklin stated, “Our singer is a big fan of Dolly and had posted a bunch of videos of her covering ‘Jolene.’ So, we decided to make a Heavy Metal cover version for our next album. On hearing our version, our label CEO Dan Waite sent the finished demo to Dolly’s Manager Danny Nozell with a request for Dolly to guest feature on our version. We heard back that Danny had played the track to Dolly, and that Dolly loved our version, and that Dolly was going to go into the studio and add her vocals very soon.”
He added, “We then sent over the stems for Dolly’s studio engineers to work with. Like everyone, we were devastated of this week’s news of Dolly’s passing. We will honor Dolly’s incredible legacy by donating proceeds from ‘Jolene’ to the Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.”
In an eerie twist, Bad Wolves’ first-ever single was a 2018 metal cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie.” That track was set to feature Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan, but sadly she died the morning she was supposed to head to the studio to record her vocals. Bad Wolves’ cover of “Zombie” went on to be a massive radio hit.
