I was ripping a couple of Heart CDs last night (filling in a hole in my collection that I’ve needed to fill for years), and I learned two interesting things about them that I really should have already known.
First, Heart and Steely Dan share at least one thing in common. They both started as relatively unknown bands, until in each case two fronting musicians joined the group. In both cases, the name of the band became associated with the two new members, even after the original members left and a completely different backing band (or in the case of Steely Dan, a rotating cast of professional session musicians) came in.
Second, speaking of original backing bands, this is the one that really surprised me. I was looking through Heart’s allmusic.com entry, and the names of some of the original band members looked familiar. I looked them up, and it turns out that three of them (Steve Fossen, Roger Fisher, and Michael Derosier) got together with a couple of guys from Sheriff (Freddy Curci and Steve DeMarchi) and formed a little group called Alias, which is one of my “pet” AOR bands (one that I still enjoy). Small world. 🙂