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Here’s Lorde at 12 Doing Ronnie James Dio

Lorde School Battle Bands Extreme Belmont

Lorde covers Tears for Fears for the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack, and she recently joined SPIN stars Haim on stage for a rendition of Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough,” but nothing could have prepared us for this: The rap-chart-conquering “Royals” star in an intermediate school battle of the bands, at the age of 12, performing “Man on the Silver Mountain” as recorded by Rainbow with the late, great heavy metal icon Ronnie James Dio on vocals. Yes, Lorde — or rather, Ella Yelish-O’Connor — does Dio in the clip above backed by a band called Extreme made up of fellow students at Aukland, New Zealand’s Belmont Intermediate School. They also cover “Edie (Ciao Baby)” by the Cult and, as Stereogum points out, the Internet’s also dug up an audio clip of the young star singing Pixie Lott’s “Mama Do” for Radio NZ. Check that above, but not before watching the priceless interview that begins at the 7:58 mark above. This might be more addictive than Pure Heroine.

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