John Feldmann is following in the footsteps of Taylor Swift with Goldfinger's latest release.
The long-running ska-punk outfit has debuted rerecorded versions of the songs "99 Red Balloons," "Superman" and "Here in Your Bedroom." As Feldmann tells ABC Audio, he jumped at the chance to put a new coat a paint on the tracks, especially after a clause in his original record deal preventing him from making rerecords expired.
"As I get on with my life, I just wanna own my masters," Feldmann laughs. "I just love these songs so much."
The project also allowed Feldmann to work with frequent collaborator Travis Barker, who plays drums on all three rerecords. Along with the Blink-182 drummer, Avril Lavigne and Biffy Clyro's Simon Neil guest on the new versions of "Here in Your Bedroom" and "Superman," respectively.
On "Here in Your Bedroom," not only does Lavigne give the song an alternate perspective by singing the second verse, but it also represents a "full-circle" moment for the Queen of Pop-Punk.
"[Lavigne] said that the first time she ever stage dove was at a Goldfinger show when she was like 15 or 16," Feldmann shares. "Like, we're playing Toronto, Avril Lavigne is a kid [and] is stage diving at one of our shows, and now she's singing on a song that I wrote when I was 25. It's pretty awesome."
Meanwhile, Neil listened to "Superman" while playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater as a kid, as many others did.
"[Neil] was, like, 'Dude, I grew up on that song, it changed my life, so I'd love to be part of it,'" Feldmann recalls. "So having Simon was incredible."
The rerecords are included on the new, deluxe version of Goldfinger's 2020 album Never Look Back, out now.