Loverboy

For other uses, see Loverboy (disambiguation).
Loverboy

Loverboy at the Juno Awards 2009
Background information
Origin Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Genres Rock, hard rock[1]
Years active 1979–1988, 1989, 1991–present
Labels Columbia, CMC International
Associated acts Streetheart, Moxy
Website www.LoverboyBand.com
Members Mike Reno
Paul Dean
Doug Johnson
Matt Frenette
Ken "Spider" Sinnaeve
Past members Scott Smith
Jim Clench

Loverboy is a Canadian rock group formed in 1979 in Calgary, Alberta. Loverboy's hit singles, particularly "Turn Me Loose" and "Working for the Weekend", have become arena rock staples and are still heard on many classic rock and classic hits radio stations across the United States and Canada. The band is currently based in Vancouver.

Throughout the 1980s, Loverboy accumulated numerous hit songs in Canada and the United States, earning four multi-platinum albums and selling millions of records. After being rejected by many American record labels, they signed with Columbia/CBS Records Canada and began recording their first album on March 20, 1980. Loverboy's founding members were Mike Reno (previously with Moxy as Mike Rynoski) on lead vocals, Paul Dean (previously with Streetheart and Scrubbaloe Caine) on guitars and vocals, Jim Clench (formerly of April Wine and BTO) on bass guitar (replaced shortly after by Scott Smith), Doug Johnson (b. Dec. 19, 1957 in New Westminster, B.C.) on keyboards, and Matt Frenette (b. Mar. 7, 1954 in Calgary, also formerly of Streetheart) on drums, who replaced Bernie Aubin, who rehearsed and wrote with the band in the beginning but left to join the Headpins before the name "Loverboy" was chosen as the group's final moniker.

1979–83

It has been stated by Reno that their name was chosen due to a dream by Paul Dean. He had come up with the name after spending the previous night with some of the band mates including Reno and their girlfriends before going to the movies. The girlfriends were browsing through fashion magazines, where the guys in the band saw a Cover Girl advertisement. Cover Girl became Cover Boy, and then became Loverboy in Dean's dream later that night. After being told by Dean about the dream the next morning, Reno agreed to try it out and it stuck.[2] The group, with Jim Clench (ex-April Wine and BTO) on bass, made its live debut opening for Kiss at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, B.C. on November 19, 1979. Shortly after this show, Clench was replaced by Scott Smith.

Originally rejected by all the major record labels in the United States, the band signed with Columbia Records of Canada, and on March 20, 1980, Loverboy went into the studio with producer Bruce Fairbairn and engineer Bob Rock to record what would be their self-titled debut album.

Over that summer, the record became a huge hit with eventually over 1,000,000 records sold in Canada alone. The album made its American debut in November 1980, and would go on to sell over two million copies in the USA alone. The band went on a touring spree that year putting on over 200 shows with bands such as Cheap Trick, ZZ Top, Kansas, and Def Leppard.

The band's follow-up album, Get Lucky, released in October 1981 when they were opening for Journey, included the hit tracks "Working for the Weekend" and "When It's Over". It became their best selling album in the U.S., reaching No. 7 on the Billboard album charts[3] and selling over four million copies.[4] In the same year Loverboy received six[5] Juno Awards (Canada's highest award for music) in one year, a record that still stands today.

Loverboy released their third album, Keep It Up, in November 1983. Its first single "Hot Girls in Love" became their most successful to that date, reaching No. 11 on the U.S. charts. The video for the song as well as for the follow-up single "Queen of the Broken Hearts" were hugely popular on MTV, and the band embarked on its first tour as headliners.

1984–89

In 1984 Loverboy recorded the United States Team theme for the 1984 Summer Olympics, "Nothing's Gonna Stop You Now." The song originally appeared on The Official Music of the 1984 Games but not on any of their albums or compilations to date. They would often play it on tour mixing it in during the performance of "Queen of the Broken Hearts".

Also in 1984, Loverboy recorded a song called "Destruction" which appeared on the 1984 soundtrack of a re-edited version of the 1927 film Metropolis.[6]

Lovin' Every Minute of It, the band's fourth album, and the first not produced by Fairbairn (it was produced by Tom Allom, best known for producing Judas Priest several years later) was released in August 1985, with the title single written by Mutt Lange and "This Could Be The Night" co-written by Journey's Jonathan Cain becoming their first and second U.S. Billboard top 10 hits respectively.

In 1986 the band recorded "Heaven in Your Eyes", a song featured in the movie Top Gun, which peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard charts. However, Doug Johnson refused to appear in the video as he felt that the film glorified war, which Doug was highly against.[7]

The release of Wildside, their fifth album, followed in September 1987. While the band scored a minor hit with "Notorious", co-written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, the album sold relatively poorly and the band broke up in 1988 due to the departure of Johnson and creative and personal differences between Dean and Reno.

Dean released a solo album, Hardcore, in May 1989 and a Loverboy greatest-hits album, Big Ones, was released later that same year, in October, to fulfill Loverboy's obligation to Columbia Records. The group briefly reunited in late 1989 to tour to promote it (with Geraldo Valentino Dominelli on keyboards in Johnson's place) but broke up again at the tour's conclusion.

1991–2004

On October 6, 1991 the band reunited to join fellow rockers Bryan Adams, Colin James, Chrissy Steele and Bill Henderson of Chilliwack at a benefit show at Vancouver's 86 Street Music Hall to raise over $50,000 for Henderson's former bandmate, Brian MacLeod, who was fighting cancer and undergoing treatment at a Houston medical clinic. The band reportedly recalled that the concert was the most fun that they had had in years and decided that they wanted to do it again. They went on another live touring spree in Canada the following year before launching a 64-concert tour in the United States in 1993.[8]

The band's record label released their second and third compilation albums, Loverboy Classics and Temperature's Rising, in 1994. Loverboy Classics went Gold by 1998, coinciding with another American tour. During this time Doug Johnson was not with the band; former Trooper keyboardist Richard Sera replaced Johnson in December 1996. Following the releases of Six and Super Hits in 1997, the band continued touring (Johnson rejoined the band in 1998) until November 30, 2000, when bassist Scott Smith was declared dead after being lost at sea.[9]

The band went on to release a live album, Live, Loud and Loose, in 2001, which consisted of refurbished early live concert recordings from the band's intense touring years from 1982 to 1986. 2001 also brought another round of touring, this time dedicated to their late band member Scott Smith.

Since 2005

Loverboy celebrated 25 years together in 2005 and began to perform in selected cities to commemorate this milestone. That tour continued with live concerts scheduled well into August 2006. Also in 2005, Loverboy was one of the featured bands on the American version of Hit Me, Baby, One More Time. They performed "Working for the Weekend" and a cover version of "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias on the show. Currently the band features all the original members except for Scott Smith, who was replaced on bass in early 2001 by Ken "Spider" Sinnaeve (a former member of The Guess Who, Red Rider and Dean and Frenette's pre-Loverboy band Streetheart).[10][11]

In 2006, twenty-five years after its initial release, Get Lucky was remastered and re-released with several previously unreleased songs, including the original demo of "Working for the Weekend".[12]

In a video interview from March 2007, lead singer Mike Reno confirmed that the band finished recording a new studio album released in 2007.[13] The new album is titled Just Getting Started and was released in October, with a clip of the first single "The One That Got Away" available on the band's MySpace page. The band continues to tour throughout Canada and the United States.

The band was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during the 2009 Juno Awards.[14]

On February 21, 2010, the band performed at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics awards ceremony.

In June 2012, the band announced their new album Rock 'n' Roll Revival would be released by Frontiers Records. The band was on tour with Journey and Pat Benatar/Neil Giraldo from July 24 to November 16, 2012. They finished up 2012 on the same tour when Night Ranger took up the reins to replace Pat Benatar.

2013 saw Loverboy tour on and off for at least a few dates during every month of this year, except for the month of March.

While continuing to tour in 2014, it was announced on the official Loverboy home page on June 19, 2014 that the band's newest album of all-original material, "Unfinished Business", was expected to be released on July 15, 2014.[15] The first single was already available for purchase on iTunes and the title of this song was "Countin' the Nights".[16] The band toured during that summer, including at least two free shows. See the tour page on the official Loverboy home page for details.[17]

Media references

In 1990, Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" was featured in an extremely popular Saturday Night Live sketch involving Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze auditioning to be Chippendales dancers. The song was also featured in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, playing on Rock station V-Rock, as well as the video games Saints Row 2, and Shaun White Snowboarding. It is also featured in the 2001 comedy film Zoolander. The song was also featured, in full, at the end of the Rob Zombie film The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. It was used as the background music to a Diet Pepsi television commercial in which a man is asked what else he would like to experience that is youthful, and he chooses his old van from the 1980s. The song also made a brief appearance in the movie Click. The song was even featured in the third episode of "Regular Show", Caffeinated Concert Tickets as well as the film Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. The song was also used in a Toyota commercial featuring NASCAR driver Kyle Busch driving a 2012 Toyota Camry while singing to the song.

In 1995, Elf Power's record Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs featured a song named "Loverboy's Demise" which describes a Loverboy concert.

Several of their songs were featured in the 2001 cult comedy Wet Hot American Summer, which takes place in August 1981. In 2006, "Turn Me Loose" was featured in the action movie Crank starring Jason Statham.

An early episode of South Park ("An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig") made multiple references to a fictional Loverboy song, "Pig and Elephant DNA Just Won't Splice."

In Aqua Teen Hunger Force's episode Revenge of the Mooninites, Err uses the "Foreigner belt" to "Turn Master Shake Loose" to "Hot Girls in Love" because he's "Working for the Weekend". When it didn't work, it was revealed that "those are Loverboy songs, and Loverboy has always sucked." (although Carl said that he saw them at the Madison Square Garden in 1985 and they "kicked ass".)

"The Kid is Hot Tonight" is featured on the soundtrack of MLB 2K9 by 2K Sports and was included in the closing scenes of an episode of cartoon "American Dad," titled "Office Spaceman," Season 3, Episode 56, May 4, 2008, Production Code 3AJN13, where character Roger posed for a PlayGirl magazine photo shoot.

In an episode of Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, Brad Sherwood remarks to a character called 'Hover-boy', "I loved your album Get Lucky!"

In the 2006 independent film A Dog's Breakfast, there is a Loverboy poster on the childhood bedroom wall of Marilyn (played by Kate Hewlett).

In the 15th episode of season 5 on 30 Rock, "It's Never too Late for Now," Scott Adsit's character Pete Hornberger tells Frank Rossitano he was in the band Loverboy for 3 months before leaving the band for a college scholarship in "TV Budgeting." The episode includes a brief clip in which Adsit has been digitally inserted into the music video for the song.

In the 9th episode of 5th season of Scrubs, Todd imitates Mike Reno's performance of "Working for the Weekend" while attending the air-band 'Cool Cats' audition in the beginning of the episode.

In November 2013, Will Ferrell, as the character Ron Burgundy, performed Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" on Conan calling it the campaign song for embattled Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

In 2012, a humorous commercial for Mr. Lube oil change shops featured the song "Turn Me Loose"

Members

Current Members

Former members

Timeline

Discography

Main article: Loverboy discography

See also

References

  1. ↑ Deming, Mark. "Loverboy". Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  2. ↑ "Loverboy's Mike Reno is still 'Lovin' Every Minute Of It'". Goldminemag.com. 2012-12-23. Retrieved 2014-08-22.
  3. ↑ Adam White & Fred Bronson (1988). The Billboard Book of Hits. Billboard Books. ISBN 0-8230-8285-7.
  4. ↑ "RIAA statistics for Loverboy". Riaa.com. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ "Loverboy info at". Discogs.com. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  7. ↑ "On The Wildside-Loverboy (Canadian Musician, December 1987)". Web.295.ca. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ Archived October 31, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ Archived April 21, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  11. ↑ Voices of Classic Rock & Rockforever.com – Presents – MIKE RENO Archived January 11, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  12. ↑ "purchase info for "Get Lucky" remaster". Amazon.com. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  13. ↑ "Mike Reno interview from CAFKA, Mar. 2007". Youtube.com. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  14. ↑ "Sarah McLachlan, Loverboy to be honoured at Junos". CBC News. November 20, 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2008.
  15. ↑ "Loverboy - Official Loverboy Website". Loverboyband.com. Retrieved 2014-08-22.
  16. ↑ "iTunes - Music - Unfinished Business by Loverboy". Itunes.apple.com. 2014-07-15. Retrieved 2014-08-22.
  17. ↑ "Loverboy - Concert Tour Dates - Official Loverboy Website". Loverboyband.com. Retrieved 2014-08-22.

External links

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