THE HOOTERS are back.
Actually, they never went away in the first place.
But to help celebrate DJ Pierre Robert's 20th anniversary on the air at WMMR, the Hooters re-released "Amore" in CD format, and reunited to played an anniversary show at the Spectrum in November.
At that show, "Amore" broke all previous sales records at the Spectrum, selling 700 copies in one night. (Only Weezer had come close to this record, selling 400 copies of its CD.)
Tower Records in the Northeast was happily surprised that "Amore" was the store's top-selling record at Christmastime.
Not bad for an independent record released almost 20 years ago.
It's been 20 years since the Hooters were the rage of the music world with songs like "And We Danced" and "All You Zombies," riding a wave of high-haired, club-thumping pop rock spurred by famed bands like Duran Duran, Culture Club and Flock of Seagulls.
In their brief, electric rise to pop stardom, this group of Philly boys went from playing school cafeterias to taking stage as the opening act at 1985 Live Aid, to being named Rolling Stone magazine's best new band in 1985.
And they lent lyric talent to Cyndi Lauper, whose song "Time After Time," co-written by one of the Hooters, won the fresh female singer a Grammy nomination in 1984.
Since their meteoric rise to pop fame, the nucleus of the Hooters, Rob Hyman and Eric Bazillian, have been busy writing songs for Joan Osbourne, Robbie Williams, and Taj Mahal. Today, Hyman is finishing construction on his studio in Conshohocken, and Bazillian recently released another solo CD, "The Optimist." Bazillian has another solo record all ready to go.
The Hooters aren't just a band, but a longtime collaboration between Hyman and Bazillian, who met as undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania.
Before they were the Hooters, they formed a band called Baby Grand, and had two major-label releases (that sank without a trace).
"We decided to go back to the basics," Hyman remembered, "just get out and play and build an audience and not even pursue a record deal until we felt we were ready."
Their manager, Steve Mountain, planted the idea of playing high schools after the band had played every club north and south of Philadelphia. The high school move turned out to be brilliant.
Hyman and Bazillian didn't really mind hauling huge lighting rigs and eating loads of lasagna in atmosphere-free cafeterias, because they got to play for very enthusiastic crowds.
And how did it feel getting all that teen adulation?
"Well, you know, it was great," Hyman said. "It was exciting to be received that way. We were serious musicians, even though it was pop. We weren't into it to be teen idols. We were older than that. There was Hootermania, with screaming and everything."
Bazillian admitted, "We were already old. I was like 30 then. I was married. I wasn't looking for action from high school girls. It was just a gas, and incredibly exciting. The teen idol thing got old, definitely. For most of it was healthy and wholesome, there were very few psycho killers we attracted. I loved to tell the story, but nothing really happened."
Well, nothing out of the the ordinary for a rock band playing night after night. "Things did occur," Hyman said, "but nothing controversial. We had a good time, let's put it that way."
Bottom line is, the band didn't do anything that would have gotten them arrested, and everyone dug playing to the underage crowd. Hyman said, "I thought I had good taste in high school. When you're a teen is when you develop your musical taste and identity. We did find ourselves, maybe from the '80s, from the videos, pushed in a certain direction. You know, there was this Duran Duran look and style. I was more into Musician magazine than Seventeen. You can't tell the audience what to think."
Of course, not everyone was happy to be caught up in the throes of Hootermania. Joe Paone, 31, who grew up in Northeast Philly, recalled: "I remember sophomore year, being in my room listening to the radio, waiting for Zeppelin to come on, and having to suffer through 'South Ferry Road,' over and over again."
Oh, the pain of adolescence.
Larry Kay was an editor at Magnet before co-launching the magazine Carbon 14 and Steel Cage Records, home to local bands with a lot more grit, like the Stuntmen, Limecell, and the 440s. Though he's embarrassed to admit it, he saw the Hooters a few times back in their heyday.
"They played the zoo once, I was there. I probably saw them first at a WMMR block party on South Street, I was in high school, it was probably in 1979 or '80. They were considered to be ska, which wasn't even a term yet. They tried hard, but there were more girls screaming at Eric and Rob than people grooving to the music. This was when Philly was trying to be more musically independent, with Robert Hazard and all that. I endured them on the radio for years, after that, but they were a new band and for any band to get airplay at all was unique. I didn't even know what WKDU was. Those were dark times for me."
He's kidding, a little.
Even though these kids screaming at Hooters shows have grown up (Bazillian joked, "I see them now and ask, 'Do your parents know you have two kids? Are they aware?' "), they haven't forgotten. Bazillian and Hyman always wanted to release "Amore" on CD, but never knew the right time.
It began to seem that the right time would never come. Until the Pierre Robert anniversary show.
Finding the master tapes was a challenge for the band. The condition of the tapes (vintage 1983) was also less than great; they played fast and slow.
Producer Phil Nicolo knew what studio trick to pull off. The tapes needed to be baked, literally, in an oven.
"Phil took the reels of tapes, and baked them for 8 hours at 140 degrees," Hyman recalled. "A lot of old albums stored on tape disintegrate. This is the truth. We were freaking out and nervous. He said, 'Trust me.' And it worked, they sounded great."
Bazillian is glad they kept the album's original, Warholian art work, with one minor change, correcting a spelling error. "When we put out 'Amore,' I lived with . . .my name being misspelled," he said. "Brazillian, not Bazillian. I felt like a jerk."
So, now what? Well, the CD is in stores. The Hooters do want to play shows, but haven't yet figured out where and when.
As Bazillian puts it: "It's 2002, do you know where your band is?"
