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Firehouse, Slaughter to perform in Pocatello
Topics: music, live music
Posted by Jen1180 Mon Jul 7, 2008 09:38:58 MDT
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    POCATELLO — It wasn’t just grunge music being played over the radio waves in the early ’90s. In fact, if you listened to the radio at all in 1990 or 1991, I can guarantee you heard at least one song by two bands who achieved success at the tail-end of the hair metal era — Firehouse and Slaughter.
    If you didn’t get a chance to see these bands live back in the day, don’t worry, you have a second chance. Both of these bands will be performing at the Bannock County Fairgrounds in Pocatello on Friday, July 11.
    Tickets are $35 and can be purchased at Budget Tapes and Records in Pocatello or at the gate the day of the show. Gates open at 6 p.m. and the show will begin at 7 p.m. with local rock band Snakebones. There will be a beer garden available with valid ID.
    Firehouse formed in North Carolina in 1989. The band’s first album was self-titled and released in 1990. It featured the hits “Don’t Treat Me Bad,” “All She Wrote,” and the ever popular ballad “Love of a Lifetime.” The 1992 release “Hold Your Fire” featured the hits “Reach for the Sky,” “When I Look Into Your Eyes,” and “Sleeping with You.”
    In 1992 Firehouse won the American Music Award for Best New Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Band of 1991, beating out Nirvana and Alice in Chains.
    “We were the tail end of, if you want to call it ‘hair bands,’ that’s what it’s been labeled now, the hair band era. We were the last band to have success,” said vocalist C.J. Snare in a recent interview with the Journal.
    “People always put us in the ’80s but our first album came out in 1990,” Snare said, “It’s really interesting because we’ve been able to do it all these years and it’s cool again to be this type of band. Even though we’re not on the charts we still have a lot of loyal fans.”
    What many fans don’t know is that Snare is a trained pianist.
    “I started playing piano, classically trained, when I was 5 years old. I think I was around 12 when I decided I wanted to be a musician. This is my calling, this is what I want to do,” Snare said.
    Snare said there is truth to the rumors of his solo project.
    “It’s a project I am working on with a guitar player from England. We’ve just finished all the writing,” Snare said.
    He said that he expects the project to be out in 2009.
    Firehouse will have a meet and greet after the show on Friday.
    Slaughter, meanwhile, achieved success in 1990 with the album “Stick It To Ya.” It went double platinum and featured the hits “Up All Night,” “Spend My Life,” and “Fly to the Angels.” The group’s second album, “The Wild Life,” was released in 1992 and featured the hit “Real Love.”
    Although they were dropped from their music label in 1994, the band continue to record. In 1998 tragedy struck when founding member and guitar player Tim Kelly was killed in a car accident in Arizona.
    Recently I was able to interview guitarist Jeff Bland, or “Blando,” who has performed with Left For Dead, Warrant and Saigon Kick, and was hired as Kelly’s replacement.
    Blando knew the guys of Slaughter for several years before Kelly’s passing. He met them while running sound for the band Warrant at a show that also featured both Slaughter and Vince Neil. Slaughter bass player Dana Strum approached him and asked him to run sound for them as well. He did sound for them for a little less than three years before the accident.
    “Tim Kelly and I used to jam together quite a bit at sound checks. When the accident happened, Dana called me and said, ‘Look, we don’t want to go audition a bunch of guitar players and go through the whole procedure. You’ve been with us for three years and you’re like family to us. It makes more sense and Tim probably would have wanted it that way.’”
    He also spoke a bit about life after Kelly’s passing.
    “Walking on the bus for the first time, ya know, it was just a weird feeling walking on a bus without Tim. It was definitely a bummer for sure,” Blando said.
    In addition to performing with Slaughter, Blando and fellow Slaughter member Dana Strum tour with Vince Neil (lead singer for Motley Crue).
    Because Strum and Blando are in both bands, scheduling conflicts sometimes emerge. For example, for next weekend’s show, Strum will be in Florida with Neil. Bass player Pete Sison, formerly of the band Skrape, will be filling in for him.
    Blando is one busy guy. Not only does he tour with two bands, he and his fiancé also  recently welcomed a baby girl. She was a week old on Thursday.
    “Slaughter is mainly all weekend stuff,” he said when I asked him how he has time for all of his projects and his family. “Instead of having a 9 to 5 we have the weekends, ya know, graveyard shifts. We have the weeks to spend with our families and then we fly out on the weekends to play and our home Sunday evening. It works out great that way.”
    Blando grew up in Michigan and was inspired by musical acts such as Led Zeppelin, Ted Nugent and Grand Funk Railroad.
    “In Michigan you had to be a Ted Nugent fan or you got your [expletive] kicked,” he joked.
    As far as the future goes, Blando said that fans can expect a new Slaughter album in the near future.
    “We got together right before Dana and I started doing the Vince Neil stuff and we did probably a three- or four-week session and we’ve got about 28 really good, not songs, but really good demos and some ideas for something to come out soon.”

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