HIGH PRAISE: Tess Stevens spooky cover of “Hang ‘Em High” by My Chemical Romance

Hot off the release of her EP Patient 139 released in July, Tess Stevens hasn’t slowed down in the least. Emulating Green Day and The Distillers in her vocal fry, Stevens has a knack for tapping into her most beloved artists. An East Bay rocker with serious punk influence in her veins, Stevens wanted to release a spooky treat just in time for Halloween. It’s common knowledge, Halloween and My Chemical Romance are a match made near cemetery gates, so it’s no surprise Stevens couldn’t resist covering her favorite track, “Hang ‘Em High” off Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.

“Growing up with this music really helped shape who I was and helped me understand that telling a story in a song is very important,” Stevens said. “The gun battle in the song ended up representing my mental health state during this quarantine and working through it through this track, which is one of the most vulnerable I’ve ever recorded was really inspiring and cool. It’s just a red song with an amazing vibe and I took it and twisted up a little bit.”

Adopting similar vocal range and fry, Stevens mimicked lead singer Gerard Way’s style naturally from years spent listening and singing along to My Chemical Romance. Recorded at Modern Tone Studios In the East Bay and mastered by John Naclerio who recorded I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. When asked about the track, he said, “true, raw emotion. That’s the [My Chemical Romance] I know and love, and that’s truly what Tess captured in her cover of ‘Hang ‘Em High.'”

“I am just absolutely privileged to be able to call him a collaborator,” Stevens said. “I tend to work very cinematically with my music so I gave him something like, ‘I want this song to sound like a haunted house in the middle of the woods during a thunderstorm that slowly falling apart with huge huge crowd inside…’ He turned those images into reality.”