GODSMACK's Five-Year-Old Cover Of THE BEATLES' 'Come Together' Tops Hard Rock Digital Song Sales Chart

According to Billboard, GODMACK's five-year-old cover of THE BEATLES' "Come Together" has landed at position No. 1 on Billboard's Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart, with 11,000 downloads sold (up from a nominal amount) in the week ending March 2.

As a result of the track's 4,972 percent increase to 1.5 million U.S. streams, "Come Together" also entered the Hot Rock Songs chart at No. 11. In addition, the album that GODSMACK's version of "Come Together" appears on, "Live & Inspired", re-entered multiple charts, including Hard Rock Albums (No. 11) with 4,000 equivalent album units, of which 2,000 were pure sales.

The sharp increase in streams and sales is the result of a post on rock web site SocietyofRock.com spotlighting the song.

GODSMACK's video for "Come Together" was directed by Ian Barrett and features footage of the actual recording sessions for the song.

GODSMACK drummer Shannon Larkin stated about the clip: "We love the ['Come Together'] video! It was actually filmed while we were recording 'Come Together'. Normally, the song will be recorded, and then the band will go back in the studio, put their headphones on, and pretend they're recording for the music video. This was real. It wasn't staged or anything. It's really cool. We were in Boston in January, and there were two feet of snow on the ground. We were totally in that vibe at the studio. It was awesome."

Asked what he liked the most about the music video, Larkin said: "I totally like the fact it was done while we were really recording. That's a big deal to me because most people are faking it. I like that I had a BEATLES shirt on. I had no idea we were doing the video that day. Sully [Erna, GODSMACK frontman] had hooked it all up, and he didn't tell us. [laughs] I went to record the song, and they had video cameras there. He was like, 'We're going to film today!' We didn't know if it was going to be for a music video or a DVD. I just thought we're doing a BEATLES song, I'll wear my BEATLES apple shirt. I'm a huge BEATLES fan, by the way. Obviously, all musicians are. They were one of the first bands my mom had turned me on to at a very young age. I particularly like the later version when they all had beards. I had to be rocking a beard because it was wintertime in Boston. I tend to do that. I thought, 'Wow, man, I'm totally in BEATLES mode here."'

On the topic of what GODSMACK brought to the cover, Larkin said: "In 1978, AEROSMITH, who's obviously a huge influence on us as a Boston band, covered 'Come Together' on the 'Live! Bootleg' album. We listened to that version and the original. We knew AEROSMITH added modernity and more rocking sound to THE BEATLES' version. We wanted to bring it into the 2000s with a heavier guitar tone. Tony [Rombola, guitar] wrote a more chunking riff than the AEROSMITH version. We wanted to make it GODSMACK. We approached it like, 'If we wrote the song, what would it have sounded like today?'"