Reunion and Breakup
On April 16, 2010, The Rockets were honored at the Detroit Music Awards with the Distinguished Achievement Award. Two former members of the Rockets (Jim McCarty & Johnny “Bee” Badanjek) performed that night with their current band, The Hell Drivers. Shortly after that performance, and after receiving numerous requests from fans who attended The Hell Drivers local club shows for songs from the Rockets, the band decide that it was time revitalize the name, "The Rockets".
On July 2, 2010, the Rockets played their first official reunion show at the Stars and Stripes festival in Mt. Clemens, Michigan in front of 10,000 fans.
On August 21, 2010, the Rockets played their second reunion show opening up for The J Geils Band at the DTE Energy Music Theater. After opening for their old tour mates, comments made in several publications around town touted the Rockets / J. Geils show as the "best of the summer".
The band is now presently sorting through an enormous catalog of songs, most of them written by Badanjek, in anticipation of recording a brand new Rockets album.
On October 1, 2011, it was announced on the Rockets Facebook page that Jim McCarty had decided to quit the band (though no official reason was stated as to why), thus ending the existence of the band and any possibility of the Rockets recording and releasing any new material.
On April 14th, 2013, the message "We're not done yet" was posted on their Facebook page. May 29, 2013 it was announced on Facebook that The Rockets are currently rehearsing heavily with new members for a bigger, badder, better sound and working up a whole bunch of new songs. Though no official line-up has been confirmed, it now appears as if the 2011 break-up was only a temporary thing.
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