Here’s the new video from The Dept.9 Sessions EP: our version of Richard & Linda Thompson’s classic “Wall of Death”, originally released on their brilliant 1982 album Shoot Out the Lights.
My version of “Wall of Death” is a duet with my longtime musical collaborator Alice Kos. We’re accompanied by Mike Silverman on drums, Tom Murray on electric bass, Stew Kirkwood on the Hammond B3 organ and Gavin Dunn on the pedal steel. The song was recorded at Dept.9 Studios on January 18, 2026, by Stew Kirkwood, with help from assistant engineers Paul Steffes and Chris Quesnel. The video was captured and edited by Marc J. Chalifoux and his team.
Since The Dept.9 Sessions was released a few weeks ago, this song has been singled out by some notable voices in the music media and picked up by radio stations in Canada, Australia, the United States and the UK:
“One of the great carnival ride songs. What a wonderful rendition from Everett LaRoi and company.”
— Grant Stovel, CKUA Radio Network
“The LaRoi version opens with fantastic organ and guitar work, soon followed by thumping, marching drums. And then we hear the first of LaRoi and Kos’ duet vocals. They sound gorgeous together….it’s damn good enough to not only get my attention but also yours. I think it’s a must-share.”
— Alex M. Theel, Scummy Water Tower (Milwaukee-based music blog)
Richard Thompson has been one of my musical heroes for decades. To this day, he continues to inspire me with his brilliant guitar playing and his lyrical, uniquely quirky songwriting. I’ve seen him play solo and with his band at least four times.
It was my old pal and Idyl Tea bandmate Craig Metcalfe who first introduced me to Richard Thompson back in the 1980s. He included Thompson’s songs on many a mixtape cassette he would make for me while working behind the counter at Edmonton’s much-loved Sound Connection, a fantastic used record store that served the city’s music community for 38 years before closing its doors in 2016. Craig, like so many great record-store employees back in the day, had an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music and turned me on to literally hundreds of bands and songwriters.
Thompson was a founding member of the hugely influential 1960s British folk band Fairport Convention, which became quite well known, playing major festivals and touring on both sides of the Atlantic. The band’s reimagining of traditional British folk songs, sometimes with electric instruments and the swoon-inducing lead vocals of Sandy Denny, created a contemporary musical magic that stands up well alongside other legendary bands of the era, like The Band, led by songwriter Robbie Robertson. (Fun fact: apparently The Band had asked Thompson to join at one point. Wouldn’t that have been amazing?)
After leaving Fairport Convention in 1971, Thompson remained somewhat in the shadows, despite being ubiquitous as a session player and prolific as a songwriter. Record labels often seemed unsure where he fit into the evolving musical tastes of the day.
That changed somewhat when Richard & Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights (which contains “Wall of Death”) was ranked ninth in Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Best Albums of the Eighties. The album received considerable critical attention and found an enthusiastic audience on American college radio. Some of my favourite bands of the day, like R.E.M. and Hüsker Dü, also began citing Thompson as an influence. The more I listened to him, the more I liked him.
R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and Richard Thompson remain two of my biggest guitar influences. Both are highly distinctive players with instantly recognizable guitar tones, who lean into modal melodies and riffs without becoming pretentious or pedantic. Both players are song builders first and foremost; solos and instrumental sections always serve the song, rather than the other way around.
In particular, Richard Thompson’s harmonically “outside” string bending — no one else sounds quite like that. Unlike so many virtuosic folk guitarists who fall prey to cloying perfectionism, Thompson’s playing always manages to keep one foot firmly planted “in the garage”. I love this. The delivery is brilliant, but he doesn’t overwork everything in Pro Tools. He’s not afraid to leave in some rough edges or even occasional borderline sloppiness. Most guitar players are far too insecure to do that. In the end, it adds to the appeal, imparting a certain feistiness and humanity to the guitar lines.
In addition to “Wall of Death”, which Idyl Tea actually covered back in the early 1990s, I’ve performed a number of Thompson’s other tunes over the years, including “Waltzing’s for Dreamers” and “Turning of the Tide”. The decision to include “Wall of Death” on The Dept.9 Sessions came after we spontaneously rehearsed a version of the song for a show in Calgary in 2025. Alice absolutely nailed the vocal phrasing. It felt effortless, and the more we played it, the more I felt we had something worth recording.
Given how much Richard Thompson’s music has meant to me over the years, it was a real pleasure to finally put our own stamp on this song. I hope you enjoy it!
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“Wall of Death” is written by Richard Thompson and published by Beeswing Music (BMG). All mechanical licences have been cleared for the legal reproduction and distribution of our cover recording.