The death of their drummer caused the cancellation of the rest of their tour and subsequently spelled the end of Hanoi Rocks’ rise. Razzle was not so lucking and was pronounced dead at the scene. Neil received only minor injuries and was arrested for drunk driving. After picking up their beer and heading back to the house, Neil who was quite intoxicated drove his Pantera into another vehicle. At some point in the evening it was determined that more beer would be needed and Neil, with Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle in tow, took off for a liquor store in Neil’s car. hard rock staples Motley Crue at singer Vince Neil’s house. On December 8th the band was enjoying a night off, relaxing, drinking, and playing with members of U.S. The tour, which seemed to be rocketing the band to inevitable stardom with its critical review and ticket sales, was unfortunately on a collision course with a different destiny. The Los Angeles shows had future Guns N’ Roses’ Slash and Duff McKagan in attendance who have cited Hanoi Rocks as a major influence. The band hit the west coast with full force selling out venues. debut at NYC’s famed Danceteria and proceeded to move across the country towards the glam-mecca of Hollywood. It spawned their only commercial hit “Up Around the Bend,” a cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic which reached a modest #61 on the British charts. Pretty good sales for a band largely unheard of stateside. The album sold close to 50,000 copies in the U.S. The pending brought the band to the United States for the first time to finish up the recording helped along by Ian Hunter (Mott the Hopple), Jack Bruce (Cream), and songwriter Pete Brown. In 1984 Hanoi Rocks released their 5th studio album Two Steps From the Move, from which today’s selection is pulled. To this day Hanoi Rocks is revered in Japan with CDs and early recordings regularly reaching $50+ on Ebay and being shipped overseas. Their visual style of punk-meets glam-meets heavy metal was latched onto by the Japanese youth and is credited with adding to the fashion-oriented music style of what became Japan’s Visual Kei movement. Concert halls were being sold out in minutes, fans were breaking into their hotel rooms to get close to the band, their music was on the radio, on store PAs, and even played in phonebooths. When they arrived in Japan the band could not have expected the frenzy that ensued. Their tour started in India, where they became the first western hard rock band to play in Delhi, and then included tours of Vietnam and Japan. 1983 saw the band’s first tour of Asia to support their 4th album Mystery City. A move many point to as the springboard the band needed for success. The band replaced their drummer with fan-turned bandmate Razzle. Years ’81-’83 were spent recording 3 more albums to critical acclaim (with little commercial success) and very successful touring of England, Sweden, and Finland on their own and with the support of U.K. Now this music blogger admittedly doesn’t know an awful lot about Finland, but with 102 stops, I almost imagine that they played every bar/concert hall in the country twice. The band returned to Finland later that year for a 102-stop concert tour of their home country, which according to reports, still ranks as the longest sustained Finnish tour on record. In 1980 the band relocated to Stockholm, Sweden to begin recording their debut album Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks. Their early performances, punctuated by their unique musical take on the hard rock genre (think Aerosmith meets The Lords of the New Church meets Gary Glitter) and their energetic and eclectic glam-rock, gained them almost immediate fame and a ravenous cult following in Finland. Hanoi Rocks founders, lead singer Michael Monroe and Andy McCoy (both stage names because world audiences wouldn’t know what to do with Matti Fagerholm and Antti Hulkko), were joined by a revolving door of bandmates in their first couple of years with only guitarist Nasty Suicide and bassist Sami Yaffa sticking around. Hanoi Rocks got their start in that rock-n-roll hotbed of Helsinki, Finland (they’re Finnish, it had to be Helsinki right?) emerging from the stylized punk rock scene of that area at the time.
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