The Offspring and 311 Cover Each Other's Hits (Week in Review)

The Offspring and 311 Cover Each Other's Hits was a top story on Wednesday: The Offspring and 311 are celebrating the kick off of their North American coheadlining Never-Ending Summer Tour by doing special covers of the other band's signature hits.

311 recorded a rocking reggae-infused cover of The Offspring classic "Self Esteem," ( here) while The Offspring injected their signature punk rock energy into a cover of 311 smash "Down." (listen here)

Nick Hexum of 311 had this to say, "'Self Esteem' is my favorite Offspring song. It's a great melody, and the lyrics really tell a story. I like when a singer is vulnerable and doesn't try to act all cool. We've all been in relationships we know we shouldn't be in, so most people can relate. Our first version was more reggae, but we realized that it needed to rock-like the original. We revved it up to be rocking riffs with reggae rhythms. I guess we '311-ized' it. It was a lot of fun. SA kicked ass on this one. The vocal requires a lot of range and he really belted it out. We had to work hard to live up to Offspring's killer cover of 'Down'! I love the way they reimagined it. It kicks ass! I'm glad they really took liberties instead of being faithful to the original roadmap. I love the punk parts and hearing Dexter do SA's raps. Nice job dudes!"

Offspring guitarist Noodles added, "We've always been big fans of the song 'Down'. Parts of the song sound really heavy and almost dark, but it also has a very uplifting message. We knew we'd never be able to groove it the way 311 do so we tried to punk it up a little. We tried to do a Ramones-like version to serve as a companion piece to the Clash-iness of theirs. I don't know if we did it justice but it sure was fun to play and sing." Noodles added, "Wow! Way cool," in response to 311's take on 'Self Esteem'. "The guitars sound great and that bass is certainly in your face. I think what ultimately makes this version great is the way Nick and SA split the vocals and play off of each other. SA taking the high parts while Nick slides in effortlessly beneath him is a perfect example of how harmonies are supposed to work. Nailed it!" See the tour dates - here.

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