Metal Anarchy

Bad Wolves have officially released their cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” You can stream that below. Notably, Parton was set to guest on the track prior to her death and was reportedly a fan of this new take. However, guitarist AJ Rebollo exited the group over Better Noise Music’s decision to release the single.

Drummer John Boecklin commented:

“Our singer is a big fan of Dolly and has posted a bunch of videos of her covering ‘Jolene.’ So, we decided to make a rock cover version for our next album. On hearing our version, our label CEO Dan Waite sent the finished record to Dolly’s manager, Danny Nozell, with a request for Dolly to guest feature on our version. We heard back that Danny had played the track to Dolly, and that Dolly loved our version, and that Dolly was going to go into the studio and add her vocals very soon. We then sent over the stems for Dolly’s studio engineers to work with. Like everyone, we were devastated by last week’s news of Dolly’s passing.

We will honor Dolly’s incredible legacy by donating proceeds from ‘Jolene’ to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. We know that we can contribute to Dolly’s vision of giving access to books and improving literacy.”

Danny Nozell, Dolly Parton’s manager, continued:

“Dolly was a champion of artists pushing musical boundaries. She listened to the Bad Wolves arrangement of ‘Jolene’ weeks ago, gave it her full blessing, and was incredibly excited to collaborate on it. Releasing this track on Monday as a tribute—with proceeds directly supporting her beloved Imagination Library—is exactly what Dolly and her team wanted.”

Ironically, Bad Wolves’ past lineup were in a similar situation when The Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan passed away before contributing to their cover of “Zombie” in 2018. Her husband/manager Don Burton has since vouched for the band and Better Noise Music amid recent controversy:

“When Dolores died, prior to recording with Bad Wolves on ‘Zombie,’ Better Noise Music’s Allen Kovac and Dan Waite reached out say that with our blessing they would like to continue with their plans to release ‘Zombie’, but wanted to donate the proceeds to Dolores’ children.

As a parent, I was touched, and also very surprised when the label and band were true to their word and presented our kids (aged 12, 16, 20, 27 at the time with hundreds of thousands of dollars. A very gracious gesture, which helped with their college costs, and we will always remember the band’s kindness in honouring their pledge and Dolores’ memory.

The similarities here with Dolly Parton loving Bad Wolves version of ‘Jolene’, and sadly passing before recording, is tragic, but once again the Bad Wolves have agreed to donate their proceeds to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, and based on the ‘Zombie’ track record, this could provide a lot of books for young children around the world.”