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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CREATURES OF HABITS
In the late 80s, FM seemed poised for huge success. By the mid-90s the dream, and the band, was effectively over. Then almost 20 years later a one-off gig offer changed everything...
AHEAD OF THE GAME
Too punk for punk in the late 70s, Oi! elder statesmen in the early 80s, living-legend role models in the early 90s, Cock Sparrer never got credit for what they started. Today, after all these years, they're as strong as they've ever been.
BAD BLOOD AND BURIED HATCHES
After a slow start, by the end of the 70s Canadian trio Triumph were living up to their name. Then came the falling-out, the split, and 20 years of toxicity before they shared a stage again.
REALITY BITES
Chris Goss lit the fuse on the 90s stoner revolution, and worked with bands including Kyuss and QOTSA. Meanwhile, his band Masters Of Reality remain hardly known despite having made some truly great records.
JON BON JOVI
\"There was no Plan B in my life, ever,\" he says. Luckily he didn't need one. He started in covers bands, got the breaks, went on to mastermind one of the biggest and biggest-selling bands of his era, and became one of its biggest rock stars. And there's more - much more...
THE RESURRECTION SHUFFLE
Dio was out, Gillan was gone, Geezer had given up. And Ozzy? Ozzy had declared war... Into the blackness surrounding Black Sabbath came light in the shape of singer Tony Martin, and the next chapter in the band's ever eventful story began.
Chris Spedding
The legendary sideman and session guitarist on a \"naughty\" 70s, discovering the Sex Pistols and being an honorary Beatle.
David Bowie-Absolute Beginners
Taken from an idea through to a finished song in time left over after David Bowie recorded a clandestine demo, it led to a \"functional\" guitarist working with Bowie for the next 10 years.
The Karma Effect
Meet the young classic rock revivalists with a stadium-style approach to shows and songs.
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats
After six years without a new record, they return with one inspired by 70s Italian murder-mystery cinema.