Rocktober 2: Hardline

"Hot Cherie"

Hardline came onto the scene with the release of their debut album Double Eclipse in 1992, after hair metal had begun its slide out of the public consciousness, and I if I heard any of their music back then, it didn't make any impression on me. I came across them relatively recently, all things considered, around 7-8 years ago. Our friend Cricket was moving, and Brandi and I were exchanging help with said move in return for a bed Cricket was getting rid of. Of course, we didn't have a vehicle appropriate either for assisting with a move or for transporting a bed, so we rented a pickup truck for the day and headed 50 miles north to do our work and make our trade.

On our way, I discovered that our rented truck was equipped with SiriusXM. I'm sensitive to other people's general aversion to this particular strand of rock, warranted or not (and, to be fair, Brandi likes a lot of it), so we listened to something else on the drive up. After we loaded up the truck, though, Brandi opted to ride with Cricket, so I tuned the dial to the Hair Nation channel and cranked it up. There it stayed for the remainder of my trips back and forth, as well as when Brandi and I headed back south with our new bed. Needless to say, most of what they played was familiar, but there were a handful of songs I had forgotten about, as well as this gem, which I didn't remember ever hearing before. A useful SiriusXM feature is that the radio displays the title and artist of the current song, so I filed Hardline and "Hot Cherie" away in my mind, and I soon added the album to my collection. (I still buy CDs, by the way. How old am I?)

Here in 2019, I'm still just the tiniest bit obsessed with this song. It's a great "play loud with the windows down in the car" song. Also, whenever we're out for the night and Brandi takes a notion to fire up TouchTunes, I always make sure this makes it into the playlist—it's kind of impressive each time how people are like, "oh yeah, this song," and then bust out the air guitars.

It's worth mentioning that Journey members Neal Schon (guitar and keyboards) and Deen Castronovo (drums) were also part of Hardline for that first album. Singer Johnny Gioeli is the only original member still in, but the band is still around. They've put out four albums in the last ten years, including one earlier this year. I freely admit that I have not yet listened to any of this more recent output, but I will at some point—this is exactly the sort of thing I keep a Spotify account for.

As a sidenote, that day driving the rented pickup was my first real experience with SiriusXM, and even though we don't have a compatible radio, every once in a while I'll take them up on a free trial offer or even subscribe for a month so I can stream Hair Nation and geek out. And even if hair metal isn't your thing, the Beatles Channel is pretty great, too. (I contain multitudes.)