Nick St. Nicholas - Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf

In 1967, The Sparrow folded and St. Nicholas joined a Los Angeles-based group called The Hardtimes, who soon renamed themselves T.I.M.E., which supposedly stood for Trust In Men Everywhere. After only one album, St. Nicholas left T.I.M.E. and rejoined his former Sparrow bandmates (vocalist/guitarist John Kay, drummer Jerry Edmonton and organist Goldy McJohn), by replacing original bassist Rushton Moreve in Steppenwolf at the height of the band's popularity.

St. Nicholas has several Gold and Platinum records to his credit playing and contributing on four Steppenwolf albums: At Your Birthday Party, Early Steppenwolf, Monster, and Live. He performed on many television shows as a member of Steppenwolf, including appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers, American Bandstand, Playboy After Dark, Beat Club, Della, Upbeat, and The Steve Allen Show. St. Nicholas was fired from Steppenwolf in 1970 and was replaced by new bassist George Biondo.

John Kay's autobiography, Magic Carpet Ride largely attributes St. Nicholas' firing to sneaking on stage in nothing but bunny ears and a jockstrap at a show at the Fillmore East on Easter weekend 1970, and Kay writes that this was St. Nicholas' final show with the band. Subsequently, many articles and documentaries have propagated the myth that the Fillmore "bunny ears" gig was Nick's last. In truth, the Fillmore gig where St. Nicholas appeared with the bunny ears occurred Easter weekend of 1969 and Nick was in the band for a full year after that incident. St. Nicholas found out about his firing in mid-1970 when he discovered the band rehearsing with their new bassist, George Biondo, while Nick was still with the group.

According to Steppenwolf keyboardist Goldy McJohn, St. Nicholas was dismissed for a number of reasons:

The fuehrer (Kay) fired him wearing dresses in Steppenwolf with that bleached blonde hair, being out of tune at gigs ... lots of reasons. I liked the bunny ears, but John made such a stink about it at the Fillmore East, you'd think he was in charge. Everyone else was on acid in the audience and this great big guy got up and told Kay to let Nick tune up and everybody cheered. Stealing John Kay's limelight has and always will be his modus operandi, in other words.

During St. Nicholas' hiatus from Steppenwolf, he replaced Dickie Peterson in Blue Cheer alongside Ruben De Fuentes on guitar and Terry Rae on drums. The band both toured and recorded during this time, but the songs weren't released until Live & Unreleased '68/'74 was released in 1996.

After Kay and Edmonton's version of Steppenwolf disbanded in 1976, St. Nicholas reformed the group with McJohn and guitarist Kent Henry, who had recorded the guitar tracks on the For Ladies Only album in 1971. There were several versions of this band touring at the same time for which St. Nicholas was not responsible. During this turn, St. Nicholas' Steppenwolf included drummers such as Steve Riley and Frankie Banali. St. Nicholas stopped touring with Steppenwolf when his lease on the band's name expired in 1980.