In December, Hoobastank put out a vinyl reissue of their 2003 breakout album The Reason in celebration of its 20th anniversary. The set is now available on digital platforms and includes a bonus cover of the Rod Stewart song “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
As frontman Doug Robb tells ABC Audio, the cover has been 25 years in the making. He shares that Hoobastank was originally approached to record “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” for the 1999 Rob Schneider movie Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.
“I think we demoed it in our style, and it didn’t work out,” Robb says.
Fast-forward a couple years to the sessions for The Reason and the idea to cover “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” comes up again.
“Howard Benson, the producer at the time, said, ‘Oh, you guys should do it!"” Robb recalls. “It was one of those, like, ‘Just record it so you have it."”
“So we did it, but it wasn’t, like, a full recording,” he continues. “It was just kinda drums, bass. It was very dry, a dry version, like a test run of it.”
That recording then sat dormant for the next two decades, though Hoobastank still kept all of its files. With the 20th anniversary of The Reason approaching, the group decided to revisit the cover.
“The guys basically opened everything up and we went back in and finished what we started back in 2003,” Robb says. “It’s interesting, ’cause it’s got, like, the guts of us 20 years ago with some things that is more us now.”
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