Badlands (American Band) - Decline and Breakup

Decline and Breakup

While Voodoo Highway was being recorded and produced, band tensions began to rise. The band also refused to co-operate with Atlantic Records, who demanded a songwriter (Desmond Child) be hired to help write songs with the band. Lee refused and stated "They'd rather make money touring than releasing an album they did not believe in." Meanwhile, Gillen had been writing his own material that the band could supposedly use and had called Atlantic to tell them he had three or four songs ready and that all had potential to be hits. However, the band had other ideas and refused to record them. Gillen called Atlantic again and told them that the band were not interested and that they needed to pressure the band into recording the songs. The band continued to refuse claiming the songs were of an average standard.

Due to changes in the musical climate at that time (the fizzling out of heavy metal, and subsequent rise of alternative rock) and band drama, Atlantic subsequently dropped them shortly after their second album was released. In addition, the dispute over the recorded Gillen material led him to quit the band with claims that Lee was a lazy musician, unlike his former band mate Tony Iommi. Lee hired Debbie Holiday from the band Stiletto to replace Gillen on their UK tour; however, Badlands drafted Gillen back in to complete the tour before finally exiting the band.

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