Line of Duty star Vicky McClure has given the thumbs up to Aberdeenshire musician Luke Gunn’s fingerstyle cover of the show’s theme tune.
Line of Duty has become a cultural phenomenon and this year’s season six following the exploits of AC-12 had millions of fans hooked – one of them being north-east musician Luke Gunn who is known for releasing fingerstyle covers of trending songs and theme tunes.
“The recent series has just been so popular,” said Luke. “My partner and I binged the first five seasons in the run-up to season six and as we were watching it, I was listening to the theme song – mainly at the end of the episodes – and it stuck out to me.
“It reminded me of the Game of Thrones theme – the notes are very similar.
“This cover was actually quite quick to compose, it only took me a couple of hours to do the arrangement.”
Signature fingerstyle technique and shooting video
Luke has previously released a cover of the Game of Thrones theme song in addition to the TikTok sea shanty hit, Billie Eilish’s No Time to Die as well as Into The Unknown from Frozen 2.
Known for his fingerstyle guitar technique – the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips – Luke said he always tries to cover hot-topic songs and “jump on the bandwagon” to promote his work.
And with Line of Duty – which is about a fictional anti-corruption unit of the British police – becoming the UK’s highest-rated TV drama in 13 years, Luke also decided to shoot a video to accompany his arrangement of the show’s theme tune.
He said: “I filmed the video just outside The Tunnels in Aberdeen.
“The video didn’t take too long to put together.
“I just filmed it myself using a tripod – I went for three different angles just to make the video more interesting.”
Vicky McClure’s approval of the Line of Duty cover
Luke was delighted when Vicky McClure, who plays Kate Fleming in Line of Duty, “hearted” the preview for this cover on social media.
He said: “She liked the teaser on Instagram. I’m putting the full video up on Instagram today as well and what I normally do is tag the actors and producers to see if I can get any feedback.”
The full-time Westhill musician currently offers Zoom lessons, helping fans all over the world master the fingerstyle technique.
He said: “I’m still doing my lessons online – I constantly get more students, so that’s really good.
“I’m hoping to build a music studio in my garden this summer to help me record music, but also to have separate premises to teach face to face when it’s allowed.”