Yeah, okay, we'd like to hear David Hasselhoff and Ministry's cover of "Sweet Caroline"

David Hasselhoff, the impossibly handsome star of Knight Rider and Baywatch, will release his first album since 2012's This Time Around. This time around, however, he’s focusing (almost) exclusively on covers, and bringing in a surprising group of collaborators to help him realize his vision. Among them? New Wave heroes A Flock Of Seagulls, indie journeyman Todd Rundgren, country legend (and Benghazi shouter) Charlie Daniels, and Ministry’s Al Jourgensen and DJ Swamp.

Jourgensen is as shocked as you are that he was asked to be involved, telling Billboard last year that it was “the most surreal project I’ve ever been involved with. I didn’t even have to take acid, and I felt like I was trippin’ balls.”

He continued, “David Hasselhoff has a new album coming out, some originals and some covers—and for whatever reason—and this is the part that still perplexes me since I haven’t met David Hasselhoff yet—he decided I would be the perfect person to mix this. So it’s like, “I’m game! I’ll take the challenge. This could be cool,’ and sure enough, man, as soon as I heard it, I felt like I was on some of Timothy Leary’s best MDMA I’ve ever been on!”

Well, Jourgensen’s since met Hasselhoff, as he blessed us all with the below Instagram post last October.

Hasselhoff also covers songs like Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Lips Like Sugar,” The Jesus And Mary Chain’s “Head On,” Modern English’s “I Melt With You,” and Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again,” which is just seriously perfect. The impressive list of collaborators includes Stooges’ James Williamson, Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens, and Marilyn Manson pal Tyler Bates.

Because Hasselhoff knows his audience, he’ll be supporting Open Your Eyes live in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and is pegging its release to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Lest you forget, he played at Freedom Night, the city’s 1989 celebration of the wall’s fall.

[via Consequence Of Sound]