Matthew Bannister has always been a Beatles fan, ever since he discovered his parents’ copy of Beatles Oldies but Goldies. In 2013 he released his rendition of the seminal album Revolver, called Evolver, under his alias One Man Bannister which charted in NZ.
Now he has repeated the exercise with the Beatles album Rubber Soul. His version, Rubber Solo- released via Powertool Records.
When interviewed about the album, the Beatles were experimenting with comedy songs and paying more attention to their song lyrics, which showed the influence of Dylan, who in turn they had inspired to go electric at the Newport Folk Festival, earlier that year. Dylan also introduced the group to marijuana, its influence seen in the fish-eye cover image with its swirly psychedelic writing and heard in the twang of the Indian sitar played by George Harrison on ‘Norwegian Wood’. The band were also experimenting more in the studio, finding new, unusual sounds.
“The point of my covering these albums was not to produce carbon copies, but to use the original songs as starting points for applying a range of different genres and styles” explains Bannister. “Obviously, I kept the melodies and lyrics of the originals, pretty much, but anything else could be changed.”
