Earlier this year, Into Eternity guitarist / founder Tim Roth recorded a vocal cover of the Harlequin classic "Innocence", a project he undertook at the request of multi-instrumentalist Brad Wagner. Roth issued the following statement at the time:

"This was out of my comfort zone, but now I'm so glad I did it. Thanks to Justin Bender for recording my vocals. Brad played every instrument and recorded the rest, which in itself is amazing, I think."

During a recent interview with BraveWords scribe Carl Begai for the new Into Eternity album, The Sirens, Roth was asked about the Harlequin cover...

"That was because of a local guy here in town," says Roth. "He played and recorded everything himself, and he sings, but not quite like what the song needed. He asked me if I wanted to guest on it and I said 'no' for something like 10 months. I thought that what would happen is I would record it, it would get out on the internet, and people would be laughing at me or mocking m . I didn't want to deal with that. Then one day I just thought 'Screw it, I'm just gonna go and do it.' I drove to our old guitarist Justin's (Bender) place and recorded the vocals in about two hours, sent it back, and the song turned out pretty good."

And nobody has been mocking you, have they?

"No, everyone seems to really like it. It was my own insecurities that got in the way."

"Innocence" was one of those songs you simply couldn't escape from when it was released (in 1980). It was all over Canadian radio for what seemed like  forever.

"I always thought that Harelquin had way better songs, and 'Innocence' never would have been my choice in a million years of the songs to pick. But, I had no choice and this is what I was offered. I went in and did it, I just tried to add a bit more, maybe hold the lines a bit longer. I heard that the guys in Harlequin liked it, but they thought it was too close to the original. That's what I tried to do though, because it's a Canadian classic and who am I to change it? I'm happy with it."

Watch for the full interview with Roth, due to be published on BraveWords soon.