THE WINERY DOGS‘ previously unreleased cover version of David Bowie‘s “Moonage Daydream” can be streamed in the YouTube clip below.

Says the band: “We were saving this for bonus content down the line but decided to share this now with our fans in honor of our hero David Bowie.”

THE WINERY DOGS is the power trio featuring drummer Mike Portnoy (DREAM THEATER, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, ADRENALINE MOB), legendary bassist Billy Sheehan (MR. BIG, TALAS, DAVID LEE ROTH) and guitarist/vocalist Richie Kotzen (MR. BIG, POISON).

Portnoy paid tribute to Bowie by saying: “Just thinking of all the ways David Bowie‘s music affected my life for the past 45 years when I began listening to him. I loved the song ‘Memory Of A Free Festival’ when my dad introduced me to it when it was released; I was about three years old.

‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ to this day is still in my top five albums of all time (along with [THE BEATLES‘] ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, [THE WHO‘s] ‘Tommy’, [PINK FLOYD‘s] ‘The Wall’ and [Elton John‘s] ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’). An absolute masterpiece from the opening of ‘Five Years’ to the closing of ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’. I covered ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’ on my ‘Cover To Cover’ CD with Neal Morse. Hard to believe Ziggy has now been reunited with two of his Spiders From Mars [bandmates]: Mick Ronson and Trevor Bolder.

“As much as ‘Ziggy’ is my favorite Bowie album, my two favorite songs of his did not appear on that album: both ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Life On Mars’ are among my favorite songs EVER. Both of them absolute masterpieces in terms of writing, performance and production. The mellotron on ‘Space Oddity’ and the cellos on ‘Life On Mars’ both still give me goosebumps every single time.

“Two later career memories that really touched me:

“The song ‘Slip Away’ from the ‘Heathen’ album (written for two of my childhood TV faves Uncle Floyd and Oogie) still makes me cry every time I hear it. I am not exaggerating.

“His appearance on Ricky Gervais‘Extras’ was one of the greatest cameos of all time. My fave episode of the whole series.

“Finally… I don’t think many people ever caught this, but look at the shirt I am wearing on the cover of THE WINERY DOGS‘ first album…yep, Ziggy Stardust is right there with me, Billy [Sheehan]and Richie [Kotzen]. And one of the unreleased covers we recorded during that first session was ‘Moonage Daydream’.

“Thank you, David Bowie, for being a part of my entire life. Your music and memory will live with me and millions of your fans forever.”

THE WINERY DOGS‘ sophomore album, “Hot Streak”, debuted at No. 30 on The Billboard 200 chart, having shifted 13,000 equivalent album units in the week ending October 8.

“Hot Streak” was released on October 2, 2015 in North America on Loud & Proud Records via RED (a division of Sony Music Entertainment) and in the rest of the world via earMUSIC.

Fonte: Blabbermouth.net