Wish You Were Hair: A Tribute To Glam Metal

'80s tribute act Powerstryde are headed to The B.East, in Brunswick East, this Friday, 7 August for a balls-to-the-wall throwback party of the highest order, as is their wont. To get you in the mood ahead of their show, we've put on ye olde retro-spectacles to revisit the glam-soaked era of hair metal's prime, an era where leopard-print pants were dead sexy and the words "little girl" were used to describe fully grown adult women with way too much impunity and frequency...

For a while there in the ‘80s before Kurt and his flannel-toting grunge gang came through with their large nihilism-based broom and swept them into a closet marked ‘History’, the music world was dominated by one of the strangest scenes ever known to man. Known variously as glam metal, sleaze metal or even pop metal — but most commonly referred to under the one almighty catch-all phrase, hair metal — the movement was characterised by big riffs, catchy rock songs, strange leather outfits, a proliferation of make-up but mainly by big hair, and lots of it. You didn’t have to be a great band if you had that LA look, and it seems looking back that many hair metal bands were defined by having a good press shot rather than a killer single or album. Indeed, some bands from the era are to this day remembered more for their look rather than their music, including:

• NITRO
   
• BRITNEY FOX
   
• CINDERELLA
   
• SHOTGUN MESSIAH
   
• TUFF

But of course some bands in this volatile period actually thrived musically as well as on the hair front, but even the big names had to let their locks flow freely lest they be upstaged by lesser lights with a handle on the hirsute.

Here are just some of the biggest manes from up near the top of the heavy metal food chain:

VINCE NEIL

The Mötley Crüe frontman’s haircut was so flamboyant that it led Aerosmith to pen Dude Looks Like A Lady about him (yes, that Aerosmith, humiliating right?). He has often ‘joked’ that it was his long, blonde hair that prompted Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx to recruit him as frontman for the Crüe, but obviously he was drafted for his mad musical chops.

DEE SNIDER

The Twisted Sister frontman is best known for singing the anti-authority anthem We’re Not Gonna Take It, but in actuality he hosts a long-running, nationally-syndicated radio show on over 200 radio stations titled ‘The House Of Hair’. This man effectively defines himself by his (admittedly amazing) poodle perm even though he was a key player in fighting Tipper Gore and her abominable PMRC when they wanted to launch a parental warning classification system for rock albums. For one incredible week Snider’s hair dominated the US Senate, in effect taking over world politics.

SEBASTIAN BACH

The Skid Row mainman always favoured long, wavy tresses and that whole androgynous look, and once actually uttered the immortal phrase, “I am the man who put the hair in hair metal”, although he (perhaps fancifully) attempted to temper this assertion by adding, “My voice as gotten me everything in life, not my hair”. Sure Sebastian, whatever helps you get to sleep at night…

DAVID COVERDALE

Started out as the singer for Deep Purple, but it was during his stint out front of hard rockers Whitesnake in the ‘80s that his hair really came to the fore; his Urban Dictionary entry opens with the descriptor; “A British rock star who has a miraculous talent for singing, as well as a knack for teasing his hair up higher than it should ever naturally go”, before describing his most successful Whitesnake era as his “freebase cocaine and hairspray” period. Further viewing: interesting visual analysis in the YouTube thesis ‘ Whitensake’s Popularity and David Coverdales’s Hair’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy7YirvI_rs

BRET MICHAELS

The Poison singer is the saddest of hair metal figures in that he spent decades defining himself by his amazing locks but is now going bald (and presumably spending a fortune on toupees, transplants and bandanas). Apparently on his killer reality TV show Rock Of Love the lucky ladies were forbidden to touch his ‘do (although this is unlikely to have raised many dramas). Recently quoted as saying, “my hair is combined of my hair and the finest extensions Europe has to offer” (we assume he’s referring to the continent and not the sublimely hirsute Swedish metallers).