Recorded as a tribute to late singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, Wages has released a cover of “What Will You Say” in celebration of what would have been Buckley’s 50th year of life. Buckley never recorded the song in studio, and only played it live a few times. The Los Angeles-based Wages (Nick Byron Campbell, James DeDakis, Dustin Robles, Matt Rumley) has made this song their own, but tipped a hat to the original. The same pain soaked lyrics – “Mother dear, the world’s gone cold/No one cares about love anymore” – and haunting instrumentals inhabit the track, but Wages have put an alternative rock twist in the tempo of the tune. It is a fitting tribute to Jeff Buckley and speaks to what this band is capable of doing.
Says the band, “For his 50th birthday, we wanted to take one of those songs and record a studio version of it – not as a replacement for anything he would have or could have done, but as an homage.”
