Cameo’s funk-driven track “Word Up!” has been covered by a plethora of different artists since it was released in 1986.

The beat lends itself well to a variety of different styles.

Korn created a nu-metal version of it in 2004, Little Mix put a pop spin on it in 2013, but there is one version of the song which stands all above all others.

Say hello to GUN, the Scottish rock quintet who decided to cover Word Up for their 1994 album, Swagger.

The band were not one hit wonders, by any means, having racked up no less than eight Top 75 singles from their first two albums, but they were not prepared for the worldwide attention they were about to receive.

In some ways it broke them, as pressure from their record label to re-create the success of this hit led them to change their trademark sound on their ill-fated fourth LP and disbanding shortly afterwards, but for a brief moment they were on top of the world.

Here’s the story of how the song came about.

Jools Gizzi (lead guitar): “As much as we loved bands like AC/DC, myself and (vocalist) Mark Rankin also appreciated rap music and dance music. We knew this song by Cameo had already had pretty decent success in the charts when it came out in 1986, but when you hear it in a club, it’s a whole different beast, it just sounds unbelievable.”

One day in rehearsals, the band decided to play around with the structure of the song.

Jools: “We drafted up a rock version of the song which we could use in rehearsal to get in the zone, and that’s where it came alive.

When I made the guitar chords heavier, I joked to (producer) Chris Sheldon that it sounds like Metallica playing a rap song, and we just kept making it heavier and heavier from there, trying to lean in on that joke, I guess.

When we listened back we were just like… oh, that’s cool!

We decided to cut a version of it for the next album, and to this day, we’re very happy with the sound we managed to get on it.”

When it was released as a single in late-1994, the track immediately gained the attention of MTV and found its place in their daily rotation, which helped catapult it to #8 in the UK Singles Chart – far higher than their previous biggest hit, 1992’s Steal Your Fire, which peaked at #24.

They also picked up an MTV Award for Best Cover Version.

Jools: “From there it snowballed.

All the venues sold out, everywhere we went. If I’d written that song, I’d probably be talking to you from a beach in Miami (laughs)!

It just goes to show you, though, how one song can literally change everything. Our lives became quite surreal. I remember meeting Pamela Anderson in a hotel lobby, and she’s sat there telling us how much she loves this song. It was crazy.”

So what did the original creator of Word Up think of all the success they were having off the back of his song?

Jools: “It was written by a man called Larry Blackmon. None of us knew him personally, nor had we ever met him, before we decided to do our version of the song. However, once it became well-known our record company told us he’d passed on his approval for our version, which was nice of him.”

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, however.

Gizzi believes that the worldwide success of the track may have inadvertently led the band down the dark path which resulted in them splitting in 1998.

Jools: “Our then-singer Mark was actually into a lot of rap music. We all were to a degree as we loved Prince and Parliament, but especially Mark, so the fact that the words to the song are a bit unusual didn’t really bother us.

It didn’t seem to bother fans, either, because they shouted them back to us everywhere we played it.

So when it came time to record the next album we decided to explore more of that type of thing, and we tried to create something like INXS’ Listen Like Thieves. We even brought (INXS songwriter) Andrew Farriss in to produce it.

It just didn’t work out.

The demo versions of the songs for that album were much better because, like with Word Up, you could hear us pushing our boundaries musically but still with our trademark hard rock style. However, when we got into the studio the whole album changed, and what came out is still a sore subject for us to speak about.”

The album Gizzi is referring to is 1997’s troubled 0141 632 6326. You can read our 1-star review of that here.

Producer Andrew Farriss attempted to mould the Glaswegian rockers into a straight-up pop band, and the experiment blew up in their faces.

So much so, in fact, that it drove an irreparable wedge between the Gizzi brothers (Jools & Dante, who wanted to stick more to Gun’s traditional sound) and vocalist Mark Rankin, who fully bought in to Farriss’ vision. The band split up shortly after the album was released, and they remained on hiatus until bouncing back with 2012s Break The Silence (without Rankin, who by this time had carved out a career as a record producer for artists including Adele, but he did bury the hatchet with the boys by publicly endorsing their comeback).

Jools: “We’re really happy to be back together now.

We’re determined not to let the same mistakes happen this time around, so we keep full control of our material and make sure each record sounds the way we want it to sound. I’m really proud of what we’ve released since 2012-to-now, but we will always make room in our setlist for the older stuff.

The first time we played Word Up after getting back together, oh man, it just felt amazing. The hairs on my arm were standing, I loved it.”

So there you have it.

That’s the story of Gun’s mega-hit Word Up, which featured on their superb third album Swagger.