Hair Band History (April 5th)

April 1989: Over two months after the release of their debut album "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich", the video for Warrant's "Down Boys" was receiving heavy airplay on MTV. It would debut on the US Billboard Hot 100 by the end of the month.

April 5, 1986: Van Halen's "Why Can't This Be Love", the first single from the album "5150" and first with Sammy Hagar, hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Mainstream rock chart. Two months later it would peak at No. 3 on the Hot 100.

April 1987: Nearly a year after its release, Poison's "Look What The Cat Dragged In" was certified gold and on its way to triple platinum by 1990. A slow go at first, the "Talk Dirty To Me" single issued in February '87 cranked up the sales. Billboard Magazine ad - April 4, 1987

Remembering Firehouse singer C.J. Snare, who died April 5, 2024 at age 64. R.I.P.

"It’s been one year since CJ’s passing, but his amazing voice lives on forever. We had so many amazing times together. Here’s a photo of us when we got to be in Metal Edge Magazine. We had always wanted to be in that mag, and we finally did it. Rest in peace my brother." -Bill Leverty (April 5, 2025)

April 1984: MTV's regular "Friday Night Video Fights" led to the "Super Friday Night Video Fight Championship" featuring Van Halen's "Jump" vs. Def Leppard's "Photograph". The winner? "Photograph" demolished "Jump" 😬

April 1988: With former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner, Yngwie Malmsteen released his fourth studio album "Odyssey" in North America (May 2nd in the UK). Propelled by Top 20 rock hit "Heaven Tonight", it turned out to be Malmsteen's highest-charting LP on the US Billboard Top Pop Albums chart.

Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force "Odyssey" release information source: [US] R&R radio trade publication ad - April 8, 1988; [UK] Kerrang! - May 7, 1988.

April 1990: A Top 5 rock hit in the US, McAuley Schenker Group's power ballad "Anytime" from their second album "Save Yourself" was issued in Europe. Release information source: RAW Magazine ad - April 4, 1990.

April 5, 1986: Propelled by single "Shot In The Dark", Ozzy Osbourne's fourth studio album "The Ultimate Sin" peaked at No. 6 on the US Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, his first LP to reach the Top 10. It went platinum the following month.

Remembering KISS guitarist Mark St. John, who died April 5, 2007 at age 51. His only album appearance was on 1984's "Animalize". R.I.P.

April 5, 1980: With their debut album in UK record shops, a young Def Leppard launched the "On Through The Night" Tour at St. Albans City Hall in Hertfordshire, England, the first of 146 shows that would take them through six countries.

April 5, 1988: A month before the album hit stores, Poison launched the "Open Up And Say... Ahh!" Tour opening for David Lee Roth in Erie, Pennsylvania. Check out the band's tour rider highlighted by 5,670 cans of beer, 60 buckets of chicken, 2,482 cloth bandaids and 876 condoms... "Love it or hate it, the 1988 combination of David Lee Roth and Poison will be nothing less than the most unpredictable, outrageous, bad-boy, party-hearty extravaganza you've ever seen, or should I say, felt. Hey, it'll be what rock 'n' roll is all about." -Bret Michaels

From Mark Weiss "The Decade That Rocked": "The photographer I shared the studio with" (left behind an Easter Bunny outfit). "It’s your costume (Ozzy) we’re doing an Easter theme for the cover of the magazine. Ozzy screamed, 'Sharrrrron!'"