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There are rock bands and musicians whose fate is marked by bad luck ... The Four Horsemen can be considered rock's cursed men; their story is reminiscent of that of Lynyrd Skynyrd: how they made Southern rock and how they had their career interrupted by sudden deaths which marked their premature artistic end.
But let's take a few steps back: 1987, Hollywood, California, the Four Horsemen were formed by Welsh bassist Kid Chaos (real name Stephen Harris); Chaos had played in Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction and (briefly) The Cult, but moved to Los Angeles, changed his name to Haggis, switched to rhythm guitar, wrote a bunch of songs, and formed the band with Frank C. Starr (one of the greatest front men to ever grace a stage), Dave Lizmi (a very talented guitarist with classic solos driven by tube amps), bassist Ben Pape and drummer Ken Montgomery, known as Dimwit (originally from Canada, as big as the mountains that gave him birth, Dimwit was an absolute beast who had also played in the legendary Canadian punk band D.O.A.).
In 1990 the band, after signing for Rick Rubin's Def American, was ready to go to New York to record their first album ("Nobody said it was easy" ... one of the most beautiful and exciting albums on the hard rock scene) and the success was just around the corner ... but Frank C. Starr was arrested on drug charges and ended up in prison for six months but despite all the album it was completed.
“Nobody said it was easy” fit perfectly with the whiskey-drinking, poker-cheating, tattooed metal biker aesthetic so gloriously prevalent in the early 90s and so it seemed like this was the start of success for The Four Horsemen, but, shortly after, the band members began to argue, and then reunited in 1994 and recorded "Gettin' pretty good ... at barely gettin' by ..." a new album which saw important changes in the line up: they left guitarist Haggis and bassist Ben Pape, replaced by Pharoah (a.k.a. Mike Barrett); furthermore, the monumental drummer Ken "Dimwit" Montgomery, who died of an overdose a year before the album's release (the album and the song "Song for absent friends" will be dedicated to him) was replaced by his younger brother (the former -Black Flag and Danzig drummer) Chuck Biscuits (a.k.a. Charles Montgomery), although Randy Cooke was credited as drummer on the album for contractual reasons.
The band therefore remained in the hands of the two founding members: the guitarist Dave Lizmi, who will play all the guitar parts, and the great vocalist Frank C. Starr, but, shortly before mastering, in November 1995 a drunk driver hit the singer while he was riding his motorcycle along the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, causing him a bad head injury following which he went into a coma; the rest of the band went on tour to promote the new album (with Ron Young of Little Ceasar on vocals) but it didn't last long, just as hopes for Frank C. Starr were also short-lived: he died on June 18, 1999 without having never woken up from a coma again.
In "Gettin' pretty good ... at barely gettin' by ..." the raw sound of the debut, indebted to the best AC/DC and ZZ Top, gives way to a more mature and refined southern rock; the start of the album is entrusted to a cover by Rick Derringer, the groovie "Still alive and well".
The title track is an example of the new course undertaken by the band: fuller sounds with piano introductions and backing vocals, including female ones, as in the pure Lynyrd Skynyrd tradition and the rough voice of Frank C. Starr leading the game, with solos and a powerful section rhythmic.
The roar of a car introduces the rock'n'roll boogie "Hot Rod", while "Back in Business" is the continuation of "Rockin' is ma' business", contained in the previous album.
Of all the operations born in the vein of retro-rock at the beginning of the nineties, the parable of The Four Horsemen turns out to be not only among the least understood and ephemeral, but also the one against which fate seems to have been particularly ferocious; they weren't very original but they had the aptitude and nerve to succeed; their name could easily rival that of the Black Crowes, but instead they remained a meteor with a cruel fate.
00:00 Still alive and well
04:10 Gettin' pretty good at barely gettin' by
08:14 Drunk again
12:51 Livin' these blues
17:06 Song for absent friends
23:26 Keep your life
27:20 Hot rod
32:08 Rock my universe
35:53 Back in business again
41:36 Hit the road
46:39 Keep on keepin' on
52:07 My song
54:41 What the hell went wrong
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