News

Isolated Scandinavian Musicians Record Cover of Rocky IV Song

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Apr 10th, 2020 · 11:08 AM EDT

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Robert Tepper wrote an album in the mid-80s called No Easy Way Out, which reached #144 on the Billboard top 200 charts.

The eponymous title track from that disc was Tepper’s biggest hit, and it was famously used in Rocky IV during the montage in which you see flashbacks from previous movies. Tepper, speaking to LA Weekly a few years ago, tells the story like this:

“The big promotional lie at the time was that I had written the song for Rocky IV. That’s not the truth,” Tepper reveals. “Stallone had come to my label looking for music. He heard the song and went crazy for it. He tried to get me to do another song that was specific for the movie, but the timing was too late on that.”

Six months after Rocky IV, Tepper released an album also called No Easy Way Out. It sold well, but he never had another hit as big as the title track. Still, Tepper focuses on the positives that he got out of his involvement with the film.

One of the random side effects of this Coronavirus pandemic is that we’re getting all sorts of collaborations from musicians who are stuck in their houses. One of those collabs is a bunch of Scandinavian hard rock and heavy metal guys recording a killer version of No Easy Way Out, which you can see after the jump:

Here’s the performer list:

• Björn Strid (Soilwork, The Night Flight Orchestra): vocals
• Chris Laney (Randy Piper’s Animal, Zan Clan): guitars, vocals
• Allan Sørensen (Royal Hunt, Pretty Maids): drums
• Morten Sandager (Mercenary, Pretty Maids): keyboards
• Pontus Egberg (King Diamond): bass
• Pontus Norgren (Hammerfall): guitar solo

It’s really good stuff. Cool cover. Strid used to sing some clean vocals in Soilwork but I’ve never heard him do anything like this before.

Here’s Tepper’s original version of the song from Rocky IV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5njjeWC_Oc