April Wine - The 1980s Peaks and Valleys

The 1980s Peaks and Valleys

April Wine's first decade had seen the band go from Canadian success to international recognition and a hard rock force to be reckoned with. Expectations were high following the success of 1979's Harder ... Faster. The Nature of the Beast leaped from record stores in January 1981. Fan reaction was phenomenal and sales soared. Riding on the popularity of the smash hit singles "Just Between You and Me" and "Sign of the Gypsy Queen", the album hit multi-platinum success back home in Canada, and was the first April Wine album to reach platinum status internationally as well. The album was an instant classic. Songs like "All Over Town", "Bad Boys", "Future Tense" and "Crash and Burn" were all crowd favourites. April Wine embarked on an exhausting support tour that saw them playing to their largest crowds ever, and filling arenas everywhere they went.

Rather than continuing their ride of popularity and success, April Wine came to an abrupt but temporary halt following the tour to support The Nature of the Beast. Myles Goodwyn, the band's songwriter, producer and promoter, was starting to feel the exhaustion of constant touring and recording. The band took a much needed rest.

After an eighteen-month hiatus, April Wine returned. Refreshed and ready to roll again, the band released their tenth album, titled Power Play. The album contained songs like "Enough is Enough", "If You See Kay" and "Anything You Want, You Got It". The latter would become the band's opening number on the supporting tour, while the "Enough is Enough" video started receiving frequent rotation on MTV. The Power Play tour in 1982 was to be the largest tour in April Wine's history, complete with a huge stage and a lighting show that fans had come to expect from the band. Fans, hungry to see them after being off the road for two years, flocked to concerts in huge numbers. However, even though it had decent sales, Power Play was not met with the same critical acclaim their prior two albums had generated. Both the album and its singles charted well on Billboard's lists, but did not have the same staying power that earlier albums and singles had achieved. Despite still being a popular concert draw, the failure (as the band saw it) to match the success of their previous albums was a letdown.

Things would go from bad to worse within the band during the recording of the follow-up to Power Play. The album writing and recording took much longer than any of their earlier albums. During the process a rift started between certain members of the band. At this time, Myles Goodwyn moved himself and his family from his native Canada to the Bahamas, further distancing himself from the rest of the band. April Wine's eleventh album, Animal Grace, started out with a quick rise on the charts, but it fell off just as quickly as it entered. The single "This Could be the Right One" also suffered the same fate. In 1984 the band got together for its announced "Farewell Tour".

The 1984 tour was successful enough to spawn another live album, One for the Road. Goodwyn then began working on what was intended to be his first solo album in 1985. However, April Wine still contractually owed Capitol Records one more album. Greenway joined Goodwyn in Nassau, along with Montreal session musicians Daniel Barbe (keyboards), Jean Pellerin (bass), and Marty Simon (drums, percussion), to record what was supposed to be the band's final album, Walking Through Fire.

In September 1985 (later in certain countries), the album Walking Through Fire surfaced under the April Wine moniker. Fans weren't convinced by the name, though, as only Goodwyn and Greenway had returned. The other members had long since taken their leave and gone their separate ways.

Myles Goodwyn and Brian Greenway both released solo albums following the band's break-up. But for the most part things were quiet in the April Wine camp for the remainder of the 1980s and early 1990s.