The AV Club has been running their Undercover video series, in which popular bands come to the AV Club offices and cover a song they pick from a short list of choices, for several years now. The results are always entertaining, and sometimes they cross over into downright off-the-wall brilliance. Such is the case with stoner-psych maestro Kurt Vile's decision to cover Nine Inch Nails' debut single, "Down In It"--a bizarre choice for a guy who made his name playing hazed-out rock n' roll jams on an acoustic guitar, but somehow it works. In the brief interview that introduces the clip, Vile says he selected the song because, out of everything on the AV Club's list, "it's the weirdest thing we could do." He went on to say, "It wouldn't be the song I would really cover, but I got into it anyway--the white rap thing." Vile's vocal delivery is still much more lackadaisical than Trent Reznor's original shouts, but, accompanied by a member of his band on keyboards and drum machines, he rocks out with some nice noisy soloing. Check it out below:
And as a special added bonus, here's an amazing clip of Nine Inch Nails, before they were famous, doing "Down In It" on USA Network's Dance Party USA in 1989. The drummer's kit is ridiculous, Richard Patrick goes off, and the studio audience dances no differently than they'd dance to a new Mariah Carey single. So yeah, essential viewing.