Glam punk pioneers Jetboy take you to do some Crate Diggin’ on their new album which finds them covering artists that inspired them, including surprises like Hall & Oates, Boz Scaggs, Supertramp, and Gary Wright.
Jetboy never quite got the same level of love and respect like their early Hollywood scene peers, Guns N’ Roses, Faster Pussy, and LA Guns. Although they played shows alongside them all, they always marched to the beat of their own drummer. At times they were too punk rock for the glam fans, with lead singer Mickey Finn’s giant mohawk leading the way, but they were also too glam for the punk crowd, even though they had some great early punk-influenced songs like “Don’t Mess With My Hair.” Now, more than three decades after the release of their debut album Feel The Shake, we really get to find out what makes Jetboy tick with Crate Diggin’, a covers album that reveals what songs and artists inspired them to make the music they do.
Founded in 1983 by guitarists Billy Rowe and Fernie Rod, Jetboy continues to fly the flag for their own style of rock n’ roll in 2023 with the same fire and fury they brought 40 years ago. Long recognized as one of the early perfecters of glam punk, Jetboy was one of a handful of bands that broke out of the Los Angeles music scene in the late '80s. While their adopted home of Hollywood was loaded with bands, San Francisco had but one true leader at the time, and that leader was Jetboy. When they released their debut, Feel The Shake in 1988, it looked like they were poised to be the next band to make the jump from the Hollywood clubs to the arena stages overnight. But it didn’t work out that way for the band.
After a second shot at the brass ring with their 1990 album Damned Nation didn’t make them stars, Jetboy began to fade away with a lot of their contemporaries as grunge laid waste to the scene they helped create. But also like a lot of their peers, they never fully went away. Through lineup changes and decades of musical fads coming and going, they continued to release new records, including their most recent, 2019’s Born To Fly. And just a few years before that, nearly 30 years after its original release, a special deluxe version of Feel The Shake, was released, giving fans a new chance to relive the moment that got it all started.
As rock fans around the world continue to revisit the music that helped to shape their youth, they also look to fill in the gaps with bands they may have missed or had not given a real shot the first time around. Jetboy songs like “Feel The Shake,” “Heavy Chevy,” and “Stomp It (Down To The Bricks),” may not be as well-known as some of their peer’s hits, but they’re always remembered fondly by those of us who dug them at the time. And with lovers of '80s glam hard rock discovering them anew every day, it continues to give the band life.
Founding guitarist Billy Rowe and vocalist Mickey Finn continue to lead the band to this day, and now they invite you to go Crate Diggin’ with them and discover where some of your favorite Jetboy songs of yesteryear came from.