Thirty-five years ago, on April 21, 1986, Peter Gabriel released his video “Sledgehammer”, from his album So. The video for this track was revolutionary, garnering it several awards and becoming an instant classic. Now, to celebrate this coral anniversary, Canada’s Vinyl Hero has covered the song and is releasing its own music video to pay tribute.

Like Gabriel, Vinyl Hero strives to push the envelope when it comes to creativity in their releases. In their rendition of the video, Vinyl Hero uses high contrast simplicity to echo the artistic flair present in the original.

The band explains their reasoning for choosing this song: “This is a personal favourite of the band and has been part of our live set for a long time and through that time we have really made it feel like it was our own. We’re a rock band, a power trio, and we wanted to make our version sound like a rock band wrote it. It’s more of a rendition than a cover!”

Overall, Vinyl Hero creates music that is gusty, heartfelt, and deep, and every music lover with interests in different genres will appreciate the diversity that they contribute to every single song they produce. For them, creating music was never an issue but when push came to shove, they learned that there’s more to a successful and productive band than just a killer song. To date, they have released two EPs and a single. More will be on the way.

Even as a three-piece, they manage to bring enough ambiance from the intro to hard-hitting and sing-along choruses to make fans of the original and modern-day rock listeners alike throw some horns in the air.