This blues rock version of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy will make Joe Bonamassa consider a career change

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By ( Classic Rock ) last updated

A bluesy cover that's good enough to make Slash jealous and raise the ghost of Gary Moore

Shadow & The Thrill
(Image credit: Shadow & The Thrill)

Back in November last year, Shadow & The Thrill won Classic Rock’s regular Tracks Of The Week with their song Sugarbowl.  But this week they’ve pulled out the big guns: a version of Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 Grammy-winning smasheroo Crazy.

If I’m honest, I didn’t think much of Crazy when it came out. I wasn’t really paying attention. Turns out everyone else was: Since then, every fucker’s covered it: Nelly Furtado, The Kooks, Charlotte Church, Texas – all the greats.

Well, you can all stop covering it now, fuckers. It’s been covered by Shadow & The Thrill – aka Tony Cardenas-Montana (known for his guitar slinging for Great White and Slash) and drummist/keyboarderer Brentt James Arcement (of Fiona Apple, Jaded and Live fame) – and it's staying covered.

Shadow & The Thrill’s version is an insta-classic that should be immediately added to your local classic rock radio station playlists, make Joe Bonamassa consider a job in insurance, remind Slash what it’d be like if he had a big hairy-chested blokey-bloke as a singer, and have the ghost of Gary Moore kicking himself. 

In the hands of S&TT, it’s a huge, soulful, swinging blues song, with great guitar playing and an amazing vocal from Tony “The world is yours” Montana (“Brentt told me, ‘If you’re going to do it, you better sing it like it’’s the last thing you’re going to sing on earth’. I took those words to heart”). Gnarly.

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Tom Poak
Tom Poak
Writer

Tom Poak has written for the Hull Daily Mail, Esquire, The Big Issue, Total Guitar, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and more. In a writing career that has spanned decades, he has interviewed Brian May, Brian Cant, and cadged a light off Brian Molko. He has stood on a glacier with Thunder, in a forest by a fjord with Ozzy and Slash, and on the roof of the Houses of Parliament with Thin Lizzy's Scott Gorham (until some nice men with guns came and told them to get down). He has drank with Shane MacGowan, mortally offended Lightning Seed Ian Broudie and been asked if he was homeless by Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch.