Tico Torres was also an experienced musician, having recorded and played live with Phantom’s Opera, The Marvelettes , and Chuck Berry . He appeared on 26 records and had recently recorded with Franke and the Knockouts , a Jersey band with hit singles during the early 1980s.
Blue Cheer was once again inactive in the early 1980s. There was another attempt to reunite in 1983, but that fell through. In 1984, Peterson had better luck when he returned with Whaley and Rainier as Blue Cheer and a brand new album The Beast Is Back , which was…
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Blackmore asked Ian Gillan , also formerly of Deep Purple, to replace Dio, but Gillan turned him down. After a series of auditions, Graham Bonnet , former singer/guitarist of The Marbles , was recruited. Powell stayed, but Daisley was fired, and Stone quit the band to be replaced by Powell’s…
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The band broke up in the late 1980s and Wino went west to California to join up with Saint Vitus . Wino recorded three albums, an EP, and a live album with Saint Vitus. Around 1989, the Obsessed reformed and signed to Hellhound Records (Vitus’s then current label), which released…
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Faster Pussycat was formed in Hollywood by Taime Downe during the glam metal and glam punk boom of the 1980s. The earliest incarnation of the band featured Downe and Greg Steele along with Brent Muscat . The name of the band is derived from the Russ Meyer film Faster, Pussycat!…
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The band continued to have success during the new wave of British heavy metal period, playing the Reading Festival in 1980 and then headlining the festival in 1982. They built a particular following in Poland , where they played as the first heavy metal band behind the Iron Curtain ,…
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In 1980, Queen also released the soundtrack they had recorded for Flash Gordon .
The band never achieved great success outside of their own country, but were influential on the Swiss heavy metal movement during the 1980s, influencing Krokus and Celtic Frost . They saw renewed interest in the early 2000s among the European hard rock scene. Their albums have been re-released and remastered…
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Originally rejected by all the major record labels in the United States, the band signed with Columbia Records of Canada, and on March 20, 1980, Loverboy went into the studio with producer Bruce Fairbairn and engineer Bob Rock to record what would be its self-titled debut album .
Pearlman’s association with Black Sabbath led to Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell producer Martin Birch being hired for the next Blue Öyster Cult record. The album found the band returning to their hard rock roots, and although both of the Bouchard brothers and guitarist Roeser all got lead vocal turns, Bloom…
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