Love and Rockets (band)

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Love and Rockets were an alternative rock band formed in 1985 by former Bauhaus members Daniel Ash (guitars, saxophone, and vocals), David J (bass and vocals) and Kevin Haskins (drums, synthesizers) after Peter Murphy was not interested in reforming Bauhaus. Ash and Haskins had recorded and performed in the band Tones on Tail in the interim.

Despite their previous band's goth status, Love and Rockets moved away from that genre, as demonstrated by their first minor hit being a cover of the Motown classic "Ball of Confusion," though the genesis of that song is unsurprisingly quite disguised. Their first album release, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven (1985), leaned more towards psychedelic music and Beatle-esque pop. Their second release, Express (1986), continued in that vein. It included the dance hit "Yin and Yang (the Flowerpot Man)." The 1987 follow up Earth, Sun, Moon had a folkier sound and spawned the minor hit "No New Tale to Tell."

In 1989 the band released a self-titled album that presented a more AOR sound. The second single from the album was the T. Rex-inspired song "So Alive." It became a surprise hit, reaching No. 3 on the American singles chart, a feat no Bauhaus-related band or artist has achieved before or since.

After a grueling tour schedule in support of their big hit, Love and Rockets took five years off before returning to the studio together. The result was a move to a much more electronic sound that had more in common with the Orb than their rock or goth roots. Their label, RCA Records, dropped them, unable to comprehend the change, and not seeing a follow-up hit to "So Alive." They signed with Rick Rubin's American Recordings to release Hot Trip To Heaven (1994), followed in 1996 by Sweet F.A.. Lift came out in 1998 on Red Ant Records, and the band disbanded in 1999.

The band's name was derived from the comic by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, which Gilbert later mocked in his book Love and Rockets X, where there were several different bands named "Love and Rockets" for a period.