The year was 1986: the New York Mets beat the Red Sox to win the World Series, Slayer released Reign in Blood, and all anyone wanted was an animated, country-fied version of “Danger Zone” sung by Kenny Loggins and a woman providing the voice for a character usually portrayed by Judy Greer. It was a weirdly specific time, but 28 years later, our prayers have finally been answered, thanks to Archer.
We’ve already seen one Top Gun-inspired Archer music video. Now here’s another, with Jessy Lynn Martens temporarily filling in for Greer to voice Cherlene. The song was produced by Drivin’ n’ Cryin’s Kevn Kinney, who spoke to American Songwriter about what it’s like working for a cartoon character.
It was an exciting challenge to redo “Danger Zone” as a country-ish version. What we did was played along with the original in one side of the headphone just to keep the basic tempo and feel. I did this before with Peter Buck when I recorded “Cody Cody,” a Flying Burrito Brothers song.
[Creator Adam Reed] teased us with the fact that Kenny Loggins (!!!) might contribute some vocals on it later, so we wanted to keep it pretty real once again, not get campy. We watched a few of the videos on YouTube of Kenny Loggins show of recent and noticed he used a different key a half step down. Chris auto tuned it down a half and it worked great. We traded in the signature guitar riff for the fiddle licks. We wanted a kind of Fleetwood Mac California-era vibe. Since Kenny Loggins is one of the pioneers of the classic West Coast sound. I had no idea how many times they sing “Danger Zone” at the end, like thirty! I loved it, and then when my manager called me and said I needed to call Kenny Loggins today I freaked a little. (Via)
I hope Kinney’s ringtone is “Footloose,” just like Kenny’s girlfriend. Now let’s take a tractor to the “Danger Zone.”
