Gerard Mc Mahon - 1980 - 1999

1999

McMahon's song Is That You was the first track on Kiss' Unmasked (1980).

Encouraged by Billy Joel's former manager Irwin Mazur, in 1980 McMahon decided to promote his own recording career. He assembled a group of accomplished musicians - Gary Mallaber, John Massaro, Kenny Lewis and two of the musicians he had engaged for Gerard, guitarist Steve Sykes and keyboard player Al Campbell - collectively called Kid Lightning, returned to the studio and recorded the album Blue Rue. After the album was completed, McMahon's band was dropped from Columbia Records.

Invited to Los Angeles by Warner Bros. for a showcase, McMahon quickly impressed Hollywood's film elite - David Geffen, Joel Schumacher, Cameron Crowe, Jerry Bruckheimer. Already experienced in major TV commercials, McMahon began film work. McMahon wrote and recorded seven songs for film producer Jerry Bruckheimer's film Defiance.

"Gerard's a triple threat, he's a writer, he's a producer and he's a performer...it's very difficult to find someone to deliver all that" —Nigel Sinclair, Producer – Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

McMahon is known to have said that writing songs for films and TV shows was a "great new creative outlet"

During the '80s, McMahon wrote songs for such films as Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Spring Break, All the Right Moves, The Lonely Guy, Grandview, U.S.A. and Hardbodies, among others.

McMahon's next album, No Looking Back was released by Warner Bros. in 1983, after which McMahon signed with the Atlantic Records label and in 1986 released Foreign Papers.

McMahon scored a hit in 1986 with "Cry Little Sister".