SURGICAL STEEL formed in 1981 with Greg Chaisson (BADLANDS, STEELER) on bass, Jimmy Keeler on guitar, Steve Wilson on vocals, John Aquilino (SCHOOLBOYS, ICON) on guitar and Bob Milan (ARLEQUIN, RIP N TEAR, BOB WELCH) on drums. The band went through a few line-up changes, but first started recording with Jeff Martin (RACER X, BADLANDS, MSG, LETHAL X) on vocals, Paul Kosanovich on guitar along with Jimmy, Greg and Bob.
After doing some demos, SURGICAL STEEL first complete recording was the track “Rivet Head” that was featured on the Metal Blade Records compilation “Metal Massacre II”. The band would catch the attention of The Metal God himself Rob Halford (JUDAS PRIEST, FIGHT) where he and the band SURGICAL STEEL would become very good friends.
Now Metallic Blue Records is releasing for the first time on CD SURGICAL STEEL recordings on two volumes, this one titled “Crank It Up!“, remastered, with a very good sound quality.
The album features arguably the 2 most melodic hard rock SURGICAL STEEL songs on it, starting off with the title track “Crank It Up!” and “Tonight”. The songs “Power To Rock” and “Rock And Women” and reminiscent to many tracks off the JUDAS PRIEST album “Turbo”. JUDAS PRIEST would actually record a song on the “Turbo” album about their times hanging out with the guys in SURGICAL STEEL at the club ‘Rockers”, with their song “Wild Nights, Hot Crazy Days”.
The band would go on and record several more songs with Jeff Martin on vocals (coming out later through Metallic Blue Records), before Jeff departed to join Pual Gilbert (MR. BIG) to form RACER X.
SURGICAL STEEL would recruit vocalist Derek Kendal who was previously in the band HOOKER with Scott Travis (HAWK, RACER X, JUDAS PRIEST). They also added Rik Fox (W.A.S.P., STEELER, SIN) on bass. The band would have more line up changes with Derek on vocals, where they would record several more songs (also coming soon from Metallic Blue Records), including recordings with the last line-up featuring MEGATTACK guitarist Parrish Hultquist.
In 1985, Surgical Steel made it to the silver screen. Looking in the Arizona area for a metal band, Surgical Steel was picked to be the “big band” in the story about Leif Garrett’s garage band making it big. The 1985 movie is called ‘Thunder Alley’, a cult classic. The soundtrack featured most of the songs the band released private in 1984, only a few copies.
Finally, all that music is available here.
Surgical Steel had it all…. spikes, leather, big hair and plenty of Final Net Superhold for everyone, but also very good songs mixing American Hard Rock with early ’80s U.S Metal.
Highly Recommended
1. Crank It Up! (02:35)
2. Tonight (02:50)
3. Hotwire (05:23)
4. Power to Rock (03:51)
5. Rock and Women (04:30)
6. Gimme Back My Heart (03:47)
7. Surrender (03:36)
8. You Were There (03:57)
Surgical Steel – Crank It Up! 2025 Remastered, MP3+FLAC
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