Friday, June 24, 2011

Artist: Alias, Album: Alias, Song: Haunted Heart

Alias were a rock supergroup formed in the late eighties.  The members were part of two former major rock acts.  Roger Fisher, Steve Fossen and Mike DeRosier were original members of the band, Heart.  Heart were actually from Seattle but a rather twisted tale involving the Vietnam War and a draft dodging guitarist, led to their first major recording, Dreamboat Annie, in Vancouver.  They would win a Juno as a result in 1977.  That same year, President Carter granted amnesty to draft dodgers which allowed the band to return to the U.S..  Getting back to the other half of Alias though.  Freddy Curci and Steve DeMarchi were in a band called Sheriff during the early eighties.  They had a monster hit in 1982 called, When I'm With You, from their one and only self titled release.  The band would break up and two of the members Arnold Lanni and Wolf Hassel, would go on to form Frozen Ghost.  However, when a Las Vegas DJ started playing the song, When I'm With You again.  Capitol Records decided to re-release the album in 1989 and it hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard charts.  Curci and DeMarchi tried to reform the band and when they couldn't, they formed Alias with the former members of Heart.  They released their self titled debut in 1990 and the result was another AOR masterpiece that went gold in the U.S. and platinum in Canada.  Haunted Heart was one of the singles off this release and you can check out the original video on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS9d4jlQuSU&feature=fvst).  The band recorded a follow up album in 1992 but it was never released due to the changing style of music.  However, in 2009, the band finally released the album with EMI.  The new album includes an acoustic cover of the Sheriff hit, When I'm With You.  You can follow the band at http://www.myspace.com/theofficialalias.  The self titled debut and their new release can be purchased from Itunes.  Thanks for reading and enjoy!