He didn’t have to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit to know that he was fighting a losing battle. It was in 1990, a year before Nirvana’s game-changing hit shook the world, when Steve Overland, the singer with FM, realised that his band had missed the chance of becoming rock’s Next Big Thing.
Epic Records, the powerhouse label that was home to the multimillion-selling likes of Michael Jackson and George Michael, had seen huge commercial potential in FM’s brand of slick melodic rock. “They were saying we were the British Bon Jovi, the next Foreigner,” Overland recalls.
FM had the tunes. They had the look, with more than enough hair to compensate for their balding and daftly named keyboard player Didge Digital. And Steve had the voice, smooth and soulful like a young Paul Rodgers. But when the band’s second album, Tough It Out, was released in 1989, Steve had sensed trouble during a meeting he attended with his brother Chris, the band’s lead guitarist, at Epic’s offices in New York.
“There was a really negative attitude from the Americans about working alongside the UK side of the company,” Steve says. “And I remember sitting there thinking: ‘This is gonna go wrong.’ We’d made a brilliant album, we’d delivered it to one of the biggest record companies in the world, and it’s theirs to fuck up. You know, it’s out of our hands.”
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Denne historien er fra July 2024-utgaven av Classic Rock.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Bright Sparks - Undertakers, band managers and museum workers by day, pop-charged rockers by night, The Hot Damn! are a gang you'd want to join.
Gill Montgomery has come straight from the mortuary. Her mortuary, to be precise. Some rockers wait tables, others teach music or pick up temp work. The Hot Damn! frontwoman looks after dead people.“It’s interesting,” she muses, of her day job running a funeral home in South East London. “It’s very hands-on. I think you’re either for it or you’re not.”
Motörhead
“Once we'd cracked the formula of how to work together on Overkill,\" said Eddie Clarke, that's when we really started to take off.” And it was all thanks to Phil Taylor's new drum kit.
LET'S DANCE
Dialling back on the aggressive approach that has helped bring Idles this far, and putting swing to the stomp, their new album is intended to make you shake a leg rather than a fist
Steve Hackett
The former Genesis guitarist’s latest themed’ tour enables him to visit the best of both worlds”.
Monster Magnet
“It's all-energy. It's rock excitement, psychedelic glory and space-rock hooks.” Sounds good to us!
MADE FRIENDS.INFLUENCED PEOPLE
In the 90s they were high flyers, then the fall hit them hard. Having picked themselves up, Terrorvision are back with their first new album in more than a decade, and it’s full of top tunes.
DON'T FENCE US IN
Embracing their roots on record for the first time, Don't call us southern” band The Cold Stares’ seventh album is both a love letter to Kentucky and a Call for unity in volatile times.
"I JUST WANTED TO BE RESPECTED FOR BEING IN A KICKASS BAND."
1976 was a pivotal year for Thin Lizzy. Guitarist Scott Gorham, one half of the band's classic twin-guitar sound, takes a trip down memory lane to the year that was...
Jerry Cantrell
The Alice In Chains guitarist on his forthcoming album and its guests, songwriting, AT, algorithm bots, AIC’s legacy...
THROUGH THICK AND THIN
In 1976, Thin Lizzy were touring Jailbreak in the US and were breaking big. Then disaster struck. Band manager Chris O'Donnell details the roller-coaster year in which they were cruelly robbed of their American dream.