Vancouver's Son of James has released a cover of The Chicks' "There's Your Trouble," rebuilt through the band's own Chinese Canadiana lens and pulled from an unlikely source: a Lunar New Year party still in the planning stages.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX87QN1UD5k

The idea took shape mid-commute. "I was driving home from work while organizing Fire Horse Rising, our Lunar New Year celebration built around a country-inspired Kung Fu Saloon, when The Chicks' 'There's Your Trouble' came on my playlist," says frontman Shon Wong. With that event already blending Johnny Cash favourites, line dancing, mahjong and ping pong through the lens of Vancouver's Chinatown, the song landed differently than it ever had before. "Almost instantly, I stopped hearing it as the original recording and started hearing it as a Son of James song," he says.

The reimagining happened fast, and by ear. "When the fiddle came in, I could hear Anna Fang's erhu. When the banjo and pedal steel entered, I imagined Michelle Kwan's guzheng weaving through those parts," Wong says. "Then I started hearing all of our voices, Richard, Adam, Tannie, Yung, and mine, stacking harmonies throughout the song." That drive, he says, became the beginning of the band's version.

 https://open.spotify.com/artist/24hFB2NQe8njITxX8Iezd3

The recording brought together the musicians Wong calls the heart of Son of James: Richard Pinto and Adam Richards on guitars and vocals, Johnny Walsh on stand-up bass, Ed Whelan on cajón, Michelle Kwan on guzheng, Anna Fang on erhu, and vocalists Tannie Lam and Yung Coffey.

Rather than a straight tribute, the cover was built around a single question. "Our goal wasn't simply to reinvent a country classic. It was to ask a different question: what would this song sound like if it had been written in Vancouver's Chinatown instead of Nashville?" Wong says. "The erhu and guzheng don't replace the country influences, they sit beside them, creating a conversation between musical traditions that reflects who we are as Chinese Canadians."

Wong says the finished track holds onto the spirit of the original while carrying a sound distinctly its own. "It's country soul, Chinatown, and a whole lot of Chyna Trucker Funk," he says. "We hope people don't just hear a cover. We hope they hear how music from different cultures can naturally belong together and maybe hear a familiar song in a completely new way."

"There's Your Trouble" follows Son of James' earlier singles "Come On" and their cover of Queen's "We Will Rock You," both drawn from a catalogue built on the same premise: rock, funk and soul instrumentation running alongside the guzheng, erhu, and the sounds of Vancouver's Chinatown. The track arrives ahead of the band's forthcoming album, 'Things I Never Knew.'