Pat Travers - Rise To Popularity

Rise To Popularity

During 1977 Travers added a second guitarist to his band, changed drummers twice including using Clive Edwards, and by the time Heat In The Street was released in 1978 had put together the Pat Travers Band. This grouping featured Travers on vocals and guitar, Pat Thrall on guitar, Cowling on bass, and Tommy Aldridge on drums and percussion. The band toured heavily, also supporting Rush on their Drive til You Die tour in support of A Farewell to Kings. The band's next release was a live album entitled Live! Go for What You Know, which charted in the Top 40 in the United States and included the tune "Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights)" (composition of the song credited to Stan Lewis), which climbed even higher on the charts, entering the Top 20. "Snortin' Whiskey" was a major American radio hit from 1980's Crash and Burn and Travers began the 1980s as a hot item in the hard rock music scene.

Unfortunately for Travers, things soon began to slide downward in August 1980, and by mid-1981, after an appearance before 35,000 people at the Reading Music Festival in England, both Thrall and Aldridge announced they were leaving the band to pursue other projects. Travers and Cowling forged on with drummer Sandy Gennaro and released Radio Active that same year. A co-headlining tour with Rainbow followed, and the two bands performed in major arenas across North America. Although the tour was Travers' most successful road outing, the Radio Active album barely made it into the Top 40, reaching only number 37. It was much different than Travers' previous work, with more emphasis on keyboards than heavy guitars. Disappointed with the lack of sales, Polydor dropped Travers from their roster, and he in turn sued the record company on grounds that he was under contract with them to record more material. He won the lawsuit, and was able to release Black Pearl in 1982. This release also featured more mainstream music rather than the hard-driving rock Travers had recorded earlier, and included the hit single "I La La La Love You", featured prominently on mainstream Top 40 and album oriented rock stations, and in the 1983 movie Valley Girl. Hot Shot was Travers' last major label release of original music, and was a return to a harder-edge style of rock than his previous two albums had been. One of Travers' best-recorded projects went basically unnoticed and is best remembered for the single "Killer". It was during this time that Travers also released Just Another Killer Day, a 30-minute home video featuring music from Hot Shot that was a sci-fi type short story about sexy alien women searching for information on music here on earth. In 1984, Travers was again supporting Rush--Alex Lifeson is one of Travers' many admirers, and Neil Peart got along well with Tommy Aldridge.

Before the release of Hot Shot, longtime bassist Cowling left the band, and Travers would work with several different bassists until Cowling's return in 1989. Also at this time Jerry Riggs joined the Pat Travers Band, and he and Travers created a guitar team that fans considered difficult to rival. After Hot Shot's release in 1984, Polydor made plans to issue a greatest hits package, and then ended their relationship with Travers.

The latter half of the 1980s were quite grueling for Travers. Having entered the decade at the top of the music game, he found himself in 1986 without a record contract and being forced to earn a living once again playing nightclubs and touring constantly. By 1990, he had gained a deal with a small European label and released School Of Hard Knocks. Totally ignored by radio, the project was solid and contained some of Travers' best material. A full-length concert video Boom Boom – Live At The Diamond Club 1990 was shot in Toronto to be released in audio version as CD Boom Boom next year, but Travers was still not able to return to the success he had ten years earlier, working only on indie labels, as with Lemon Recordings.