Night Ranger Cover AC/DC, Damn Yankees With Ted Nugent’s Help

Online editions of ‘Somewhere in California,’ the new Night Ranger album, now feature even more new music to enjoy, thanks to a pair of AC/DC and Damn Yankees cover songs that are being sold as exclusive tracks through Amazon and iTunes.

The band’s take on ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ by AC/DC, which is exclusive to iTunes, finds Night Ranger playing things fairly straight, retaining every bit of raunch as vocalist Jack Blades turns in a Bon Scott-worthy vocal.

There’s more of a twist to their version of the Damn Yankees track ‘Coming of Age,’ which is being sold by Amazon. Blades takes the vocal, as he did on the original, and his old Yankees bandmate Ted Nugent steps back in to play guitar. But, instead of the original solo, they turn Ted loose to riff out on a huge chunk of his solo hit ‘Stranglehold.’

Drummer Kelly Keagy talked about the ‘Stranglehold’ inclusion during an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock and said that the band suggested the changeup. Reportedly, they told Ted “play as long as you want, we don’t care how long the solo is... just take it and run with it.” This is the Nuge we’re talking about here, so as you can imagine, he needed little encouragement to stretch the new 'Coming of Age' past the eight-minute mark.

Overall, ‘Coming of Age’ is probably the more interesting of the two covers, but you can purchase both songs as individual tracks, so if you’re already gunning to pick up the new album, why not spring for two more classics?

Watch Night Ranger perform 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap'