3 Bands You Thought Were Hair Metal, but Were They Really?

Hair metal is a funny way to describe a music scene. Plenty of bands not associated with 80s glam metal have (or had) great hair. From The Beatles to Oasis, Led Zeppelin to Soundgarden, rock and roll mops have graced many album covers, magazines, TV screens, and stages.

Videos by American Songwriter

So it must be more than hair and metal that makes a band hair metal. Hard rock bands with a glam aesthetic emerging from West Coast clubs might be a good way to locate hair metal. But what about Jane’s Addiction? Or Mother Love Bone? Is Bon Jovi hair metal, or did “Livin’ On A Prayer” just happen to catch a wave at the right time?

The bands on this list are often lumped in with other hair metal groups, but in many ways, they are very different from Cinderella, Dokken, or Ratt.

Def Leppard

Def Leppard’s second album, High ’N’ Dry, shares more DNA with AC/DC’s Highway To Hell than anything by Poison or Mötley Crüe. Both albums were produced by Mutt Lange, who had a knack for making hard rock accessible. By Pyromania, guitarist Phil Collen had replaced Pete Willis, and Def Leppard recorded its first masterpiece.

Collen had previously played in Girl, a glam rock band also featuring future L.A. Guns vocalist Phil Lewis. But Collen has short hair. There wasn’t a hair metal band on the planet that published a classified ad looking for a new lead guitarist with the following demand: Must have short hair. Pyromania is classic British rock and roll, but what about “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, you ask? What about it? Hysteria also references Lou Reed, East African experimental percussion, and electronic music. In 1992, after many hair metal bands began to fade, Adrenalize sold 8 million copies.  

Guns N’ Roses

L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose gave Guns N’ Roses its band name. Both bands were part of the Los Angeles glam metal scene, but Guns N’ Roses didn’t seem like the others. When Duff McKagan first spotted Axl Rose singing for L.A. Guns, he compared Rose’s intensity to Henry Rollins fronting Black Flag.

McKagan was a punk rock kid from Seattle, which probably explains the punk roots heard on Appetite For Destruction. “Mr. Brownstone” and “It’s So Easy” still sound dangerous. The glam of New York Dolls may have been an influence, but so was early Aerosmith. Then there’s “Paradise City” and its Southern rock opening. Rose multi-tracked his voice into a hard rock choir. Sweet, summery, blissful. But the song turns darkly with Slash’s sinister guitar riff. That’s when the unhinged singer that McKagan first saw at the Troubadour with L.A. Guns appears. Guns N’ Roses only got bigger with Use Your Illusion I and II, released one week before Nirvana’s Nevermind. Regardless of pop culture’s shift toward grunge, Guns N’ Roses still packed stadiums.

Skid Row

Skid Row certainly shares a lot with hair metal bands. But Sebastian Bach could also sing like Rob Halford from Judas Priest. Even on “Youth Gone Wild”, Skid Row was grittier than, say, White Lion. Still, the power ballads made Skid Row famous. “I Remember You” and “18 And Life” put Bach on the cover of magazines, but even those songs had a darker edge to them.

For the second album, Slave To The Grind, Skid Row made a straight heavy metal recording. If they were once associated with hair metal, this record would distance those comparisons. Skid Row went heavy, and the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. But unlike Guns N’ Roses and Def Leppard, Skid Row wouldn’t survive the popularity of grunge and alternative rock. The band’s third album, Subhuman Race, stalled commercially, and eventually Bach left.

Photo by Anton Corbijn/Oriel PR