As requested, here’s “3 Chords And The Truth / The Ultimate Collection“, the best-of collection including unreleased tracks from BIG BANG BABIES. Featuring guitarist Keri Kelli (Alice Cooper, Skid Row, Warrant, Saints of the Underground), BIG BANG BABIES were the hottest thing rocking the Strip in the early 90s, and they’re still rocking in the hearts of fans worldwide via this CD including material taken from their 2 indie albums plus 3 unreleased songs.
This compilation released by Perris Records has been re-mixed by genius Mike Slamer (Steelhouse Lane, Streets, City Boy) and you can find 12 lovely Power Pop/Glam Rock anthems with influences from bands such as Cheap Trick, Poison, Enuff Z´Nuff, etc. Fans of Pretty Boy Floyd might also recognize the song ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ as they later re-recorded the smash hit, here you can find the original version and it’s a great Glam rocker with a catchy chorus.
For many people Big Bang Babies were way better than Poison. Even better than Warrant. Why did those two bands find fame and fortune while Big Bang Babies did not? Timing, I think. Big Bang Babies just arrived too late. A few years earlier and perhaps they would have been just as successful, they certainly deserved to be.
Poison only dreamed of writing songs as great as the Big Bang Babies’ songs, but by the time the band’s self-released record came out in 1992, Nevermind had obliterated opportunities that the band most certainly would have cashed in on just a few years prior.
By 1992 any chance of getting signed by a major label or even noticed beyond the Sunset Strip was history for a band that looked and sounded like Big Bang Babies. That’s a tragedy because their songs are insanely good. Just listen to “Come On.” Big Bang Babies sound incorporated Hard Rock, bubblegum Pop and Glam, with a Punky attitude.
Their song that probably would have garnered them the most attention if it had come out a few years earlier is the aforementioned ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’. It’s catchy as hell. I think MTV would have given its flashy video (because there would have been one) a few spins in 1988/1989.
Something was happening on the Sunset Strip in the Nineties, something decidedly different from the alternative revolution that MTV was propagating. The bands that remained on the strip took the glam image to its furthest extreme and shamelessly indulged their pop sensibilities, I’ve often seen what they were doing referred to as “bubblegum.”
Call it what you want, they definitely explored extremes. Bands like Heart Throb Mob, Queeny Blast Pop and Tryx cultivated a style and image that was beyond over the top and a sugary pop rockin’ sound that made no apologies.
Big Bang Babies fit with those bands but they also maintained a connection to the earlier Sunset Strip vibe that Poison had co-opted and transplanted from clubs to stadiums.
Big Bang Babies had broken up by the time their second album was released in 1994 and apparently guitarist Keri Kelli put it together himself without the consent of the rest of the band. The CD is called Black Market and regardless of how the project came together the songs are goddamn brilliant. Check out ‘8 Arms’.
How could anyone resist that song? But the big rock albums of 1994 were Green Day, Live, NIN, etc. ‘8 Arms’ in the context of the musical climate of 1994 was “alternative” because “alternative” had become mainstream.
In 1992/1993 a band like Big Bang Babies were the rebels. Big Bang Babies were the real thing.
The cynical view of the “hair metal” years is that those bands were just in it for the money. I disagree, I think most of the “hair metal” bands just loved rock and roll. They wanted to be rock stars for a variety of reasons. Most of the members of those “hair bands” had shunned societal expectations and risked it all to pursue a dream. Many had a romance with rock and roll that their pretentious and elitist detractors could not relate to.
Those who deemed “hair metal” low class and beneath them did not begrudge the similar flamboyant extremes of David Bowie or the New York Dolls because they were allowed to like David Bowie and the New York Dolls. This idea that all “hair metal” was disingenuous and all “alternative” music was honest and heartfelt is just plain bullshit.
Back to the topic at hand, the ballad taken from Big Bang Babies second album, ‘Hear You Say’, is an awesomely well-written song and almost certainly would have been a massive hit five years earlier.
With the original albums pretty hard to find, “3 Chords And The Truth / The Ultimate Collection” is a great, welcomed release – although also hard to find now, go to Eonian Records seems they have some copies – and Mike Slamer’s remix / remaster makes wonders.
Big Bang Babies singer Kit Ashley now goes by Charlie Overbey, he still makes music and has a radio show. Guitarist Keri Kelli went on to play with Alice Cooper, Slash, and numerous others.
This is what rock music are all about… great fun and a lotta catchy hooks. A must have for fans of sugar sweet late 80s-style Glam Rock.
Highly Recommended
Tracklist:
01 - 8 Arms.
02 - Hear You Say.
03 - Stop The World.
04 - Everybody Loves My Baby.
05 - Bliss (Maguro Tataki).
06 - Everybody Needs A Hero.
07 - Saturday Night.
08 - C'mon.
09 - Love Drug.
10 - Youth Of Today.
11 - Winter Wonderland.
12 - Bubble Gum Town.
Big Bang Babies – 3 Chords And The Truth:The Ultimate Collection (1999)
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