(PR) In May of 2010, Peter Gabriel teamed up with Indaba Music to launch a remix contest in the spirit of his critically acclaimed, non-traditional covers record, Scratch My Back. Fans were invited to remix Gabriel's 1980 hit "Games Without Frontiers" in whatever form they imagined.
After reviewing submissions from around the world, Gabriel named up-and-coming artist Japan Aircraft (the stage moniker of Steven McKerlie) of Brisbane, Australia as the winner of the competition in August of 2010. Interestingly, McKerlie plies his trade as a bridge design engineer by day and musician as a hobby.
For his prize, McKerlie was flown out to London, England in late October for a professional mastering session at Gabriel's Real World Studios. Now, his track has been released alongside the original song on an official iTunes release.
In addition to his trip to Real World Studios for the mastering session, McKerlie also received a signed collector's edition Scratch My Back boxset, and a free year long Platinum Membership to Indaba Music.
Scratch My Back is the first part of a series of song exchanges in which Gabriel and other leading artists reinterpret each other's songs. Scratch My Back finds Gabriel performing personalized versions of tunes by David Bowie, Radiohead, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Arcade Fire, and more. Many of these artists, in turn, are recording reciprocal covers of Gabriel songs, which will follow on the forthcoming sequel, I'll Scratch Yours.
