Episode 8: White Heat - We Never Heard Of You Either (1989)

Have you ever found a band with so many successful creative minds working on the production side of a project but yet the album wasn't that commercially successful? Well that is the story of the band White Heat. Signed by CBS Records in 1989 and appearances by well known musicians such as Gil Moore (Triumph) and Rick Santers (Santers) and produced by Terry Brown (Rush, Dream Theater, Cutting Crew, Eye Eye, Blue Rodeo), Steve Webster (Billy Idol, Strange Advance, Parachute Club, Honeymoon Suite) and Mark S. Berry (Psuedo Echo, Kool and The Gang, Duran Duran, Animotion, Lee Aaron, Haywire and Burton Cummings) it was based on the amount of successful and talent and brilliant minds in this project that this album would be an instant commercial success. Somehow it disappeared very quickly once it was released. A music video for the song "Rolling With The Thunder" allowed the single for "Crazy For You" to chart on the Canadian top singles from November 4th 1989 to December 9 1989, peaking in the mid 70's on the RPM top 100, and most importantly "Rolling With the Thunder from December 23 1989 to February 10 1990 peaking at number 6 on the CANCON charts. While these songs did chart it is entirely possible that the marketing side made some wrong choices where as the wrong combination of songs was sent to Radio stations is a possibility why this album did not fare too well. The song "When You're Gone" wasn't promoted to Radio stations at all - and should of been a top 20 hit at the time given its well written lyrics and production. The song Listen Closely - produced by Steve Webster would of been another top hit for the group and I personally think it would of been way more successful than "Rolling With the Thunder". Regardless of the marketing choices the label and producers made it is a great album in the vein of INXS, Def Leppard and Psuedo Echo. While not available on streaming platforms currently you can find all the music on youtube including the music video for "Rolling With The Thunder" or purchase the CD or cassette from websites like discogs or ebay. Check it out!