Sounds From The Junkshop #98 - American Heartbreak

 

"While our egos grow/While the bullshit flows/It goes on and on and on/Get my coat I've had enough, take me out of this place..." - American Heartbreak - Somebody

Similar to Broken Teeth who we covered on here a few weeks ago, American Heartbreak were formed out of the ashes of a group of '80s Sunset Strip also-rans who came together to well and truly surpass themselves by creating something special.

The group was put together by guitarist Billy Rowe who'd previously had five minutes of almost-fame with his late '80s San Francisco turned Sunset Strip band Jetboy. Jetboy were a weird one - a prime example of a group who by all rights should have been world-beaters but somehow the sum ended up being a fair bit less than the parts. They were formed as a sort of New York Dolls influenced glam-punk band (as the name suggests) by Rowe and fellow guitarist Fernie Rod, mohawked frontman Mickey Finn and bassist Todd Crew who'd been in an early G'n'R line-up before Duff McKagan joined. Crew would unfortunately pass away from an OD and the band pulled off a huge coup by bringing in none other than Sami Yaffa from Hanoi Rocks to replace him. When they were signed up by a major label, Elektra, it seemed that the world was theirs for the taking.

Unfortunately, Jetboy's 1988 debut Feel The Shake was a huge disappointment and arguably torpedoed them before they'd even had a chance to get started. I could be wrong here but it bears all the signs of a major label signing a band then turning them into something completely different - see the Rock City Angels and Throbs Garbage Days Revisited entries from days gone by for other examples of this. Except while in those two cases, at least the transformation worked (or kind of did in the Throbs' case), with Jetboy it was a case of turning a promising group of Ramones/Generation X style pop-punks into a generic late '80s hair metal band and the album just lacked any sort of memorable tunes to land a killer blow.

To be fair to 'em, Jetboy stuck it out for a few years and their second album Damned Nation in 1990 was a little bit better with tunes like Chevy Heavy and Stomp It Down (To The Bricks) at least being half-decent but by then the damage had long been done and the grunge nuclear winter was on the horizon. Jetboy would be dropped and stagger to a halt some time around 1991-92. As the '90s wound to an end, Rowe would end up reissuing a series of lost tracks albums for the band and the much more punky and raw versions of the album tunes plus the ones that never made it on to the records on there kind of show where they would've gone if they'd managed to steer the course. If only...

On the back of this, Rowe would end up putting a new band together in the form of American Heartbreak together with Mindzone bassist and nowadays host of the very excellent Rock 'n' Roll Geek Show podcast Michael Butler and singer Lance Boone. American Heartbreak were, I think, probably the nearest thing that the US produced to their own version of the Wildhearts so it's not much of a surprise that I gravitated towards them after hearing about them on Sleazegrinder at this time. Boone was an excellent vocalist, attacking the songs with a good mix of spite and venom and Rowe had a good line in penning angry but thoughtful lyrics.

At their best such as on Somebody and Superstar, American Heartbreak came across like a missing link between Cheap Trick and the Manics (they had a song called Richey James and another called Methadone Baby which was a bit of a giveaway) - yes, the sound had the glam rock DNA on it but there was a ferocious Generation Terrorists style punk anger underpinning it which really gave them a unique and excellent sound.

The group would pick up plenty of acclaim for their debut Postcards From Hell (picks - Dead At Seventeen, Please Kill Me, Wish You Were D.E.A.D.) and would move across to Liquor and Poker (also home of the Backyard Babies at the time) for their sophomore self-titled album which saw them break out the big production and angsty arena anthems (Raise Up Your Hands, Last Of The Superheroes Of The 1970s) like a 21st century version of the Electric Angels. It got some good mentions in Classic Rock magazine and should have been the one to break them big. It didn't.

Soon afterwards, American Heartbreak would go on hiatus - Rowe would go back to a reformed Jetboy and take Butler with him. I remember a few people on the Sleazegrinder messageboard at the time wondering why and saying it felt like he was taking a step backwards. I guess when it comes down to it, the harsh truth is that there was just more money to be made on the revival circuit than banging their heads against a commercial brick wall with American Heartbreak. Jetboy would do a comeback album, Born To Fly, in 2019 which I was completely unaware of until writing this retrospective. I may give it a spin - hopefully it'll be closer to their second album quality-wise than their first.

Rowe can also be found nowadays playing guitar in Buckcherry, having replaced Keith Nelson there a few years ago (which quite honestly seems like a bit of a waste of his talents given how poor that band's output has been in recent years) while Butler still has his Rock 'n' Roll Geek Show podcast which is well worth a listen. I've no idea what happened to Lance but hopefully he's still out there making music somewhere - the guy was a good frontman and it's a shame he never really got his due for it. Anyway, I heartily recommend both of American Heartbreak's full albums and their odds 'n' sods live/rarities collection You Will Not Be Getting Paid - their angry angsty take on glam rock showed a whole different direction that the sleaze rock movement could've gone down but sadly chose not to. More fool them.