'80s rock music was characterized by big hair and bigger amps.
Oh, and don’t forget spandex.
Like any musical fad, hair bands didn’t last forever.
From cameos in cult classics like “Wayne’s World” to helming ridiculous reality TV
shows, here’s what happened to these famous ‘80s hair bands.
Guns N' Roses were stratospheric in the late 1980s and early '90s, consistently smashing
chart and tour records.
Despite the band's success, its two leading egos, vocalist Axl Rose and guitarist Slash,
simply couldn't get along.
In 1996, Rose brought in his friend Paul Tobias to play rhythm guitar, prompting Slash to
leave the band in October of that year.
Q Magazine reported that drummer Matt Sorum called Tobias the "Yoko Ono of Guns N' Roses."
Axl Rose continued touring under the name Guns N' Roses, even though he was the only
original member of the band, and began work on the electronic-infused record, Chinese
Democracy.
The album racked up over $13 million in recording costs by 2005, according to The New York Times,
before finally being released in 2008.
No thanks was given to Dr. Pepper, which Exclaim says offered everyone in America except Slash
and Buckethead a free drink if the album came out that year.
In 2012, Luxwing reported that Rose said the band would never reunite "in this lifetime."
Four years later, Guns N' Roses did, in fact, reunite for the aptly named Not in This Lifetime...
Tour.
The tour ended up stretching into 2019 before the band's tour plans were halted due to COVID-19.
In 2016, Slash told Ultimate Classic Rock,
"We all were pretty positive [the reunion] would never happen, so it's still sort of
blowing our minds".
Mötley Crüe was the quintessential glam rock hair band in the early '80s, but come
1987, their legacy almost came to an end.
Despite being declared legally dead in the ambulance, Sixx was revived with two shots
of adrenaline by a paramedic who just so happened to be a Crüe fan.
The group went sober in 1989 and released their most successful album, Dr. Feelgood.
In 1992, Ultimate Classic Rock reports that lead singer Vince Neil left the band, but
returned just a few years later in 1997.
Mötley Crüe went on to tour for nearly two more decades, culminating in a worldwide farewell
tour with Alice Cooper in 2015.
"Motley fans are still gonna be Motley fans, whether we're #1 or, ya know, 101."
The band signed a "cessation of touring" contract that year, with a vow that they'd never tour
again.
Yet, four years later, Netflix released The Dirt, a biopic based on the group's 2001 autobiography.
The popularity of the film convinced the band to literally blow up the cessation of touring
contract.
In Summer 2022, Mötley Crüe will begin a stadium tour with Poison, Def Leppard, and
Joan Jett.
After a hugely successful 1980s, British hair band Def Leppard faced tragedy at the beginning
of the 1990s.
Loudwire recounts that guitarist Steve Clark died in January 1991 due to a mix of prescription
drugs and alcohol.
The band continued to tour at a rampant pace, with iHeartRadio reporting that they broke
a Guinness World Record in 1995 for performing three concerts on three continents in a single
day.
In the U.S., Def Leppard was hugely popular, especially among women.
Guitarist Phil Collen recounts in his memoir, Adrenalized: Life, Def Leppard, and Beyond,
that a total stranger even approached him in an elevator and initiated a sexual encounter
with him unprompted.
Def Leppard released their biopic, Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story, in 2001 and continued
releasing hit albums.
They recorded a cover for Paul McCartney's tribute album and did shows with Taylor Swift,
Kiss, Journey, Cheap Trick, and many other popular artists.
After a 2019 Las Vegas residency, the band made plans to link up with Mötley Crüe,
Poison, and Joan Jett for the Stadium Tour which would be postponed until Summer 2022
due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After becoming one of the top hair bands of the late '80s, Poison sent 20,000 CDs to U.S.
troops during the Gulf War.
According to Moondance Jam, this act earned them a "thank you" from then-Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney.
According to Tone Deaf, guitarist C.C.
DeVille and lead singer Bret Michaels got into a fight backstage at the 1991 MTV Video
Music Awards.
The guitarist was subsequently fired, but got his job back five years later.
Around that time, Michaels was hooking up with Canadian actress Pamela Anderson, with
a sex tape of the pair surfacing on the internet in 1998 according to MTV.
The band continued to tour and make records, frequently breaking off to make their own
solo albums.
At a 2006 show in Atlanta, Philly Voice recalls that Michaels and bassist Bobby Dall got into
a fight onstage, with Michaels throwing his mic at Dall and the bassist slamming his guitar
into the singer.
If you think Michaels is dramatic enough to be featured on reality TV, he'd be in agreement.
Since 2006, Michaels has appeared on three seasons of VH1's Rock of Love, where women
competed for his affection.
He also appeared on Celebrity Apprentice 3, and won.
Poison has continued to tour, and they're scheduled to open for Mötley Crüe and Def
Leppard in Summer 2022.
"It is gonna be, not just the stadium tour, it is the party of the summer."
After recording karaoke and road trip anthems like "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin'
on a Prayer" in the 1980s, Jon Bon Jovi and his band continued to rock out and stay supremely
popular.
In 1991, the band was going through the kind of rift that most hair bands were facing at
the time, and Forbes recalls that Jon fired management and took over the band himself.
Then, the band flew off to a Caribbean island to discuss their feelings and group dynamic.
NME says that the band continued to stick together, except for bassist Alec John Such,
who was later fired.
"It got to the point where if you can't carry your weight it's not fair for the rest of
us.
We couldn't sacrifice what we sounded like live.
We could cover it up in the studio."
After their hugely successful 1995 tour, Bon Jovi took a four-year hiatus to work on solo
stuff before returning with the 2000 hit, "It's My Life."
Bon Jovi kept on releasing albums in the 2000s, virtually all of which were chart-toppers.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bon Jovi has played more than 2,600 concerts in more
than 50 countries for over 34 million fans.
The band's 15th album was supposed to come out in May 2020, followed by a world tour,
but Jon Bon Jovi told Howard Stern that everything is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The band released the album "2020" in October of that year and began touring again in 2022.
KISS pretty much owned the 1970s and early '80s, but in 1983, they felt it was time to
wipe off their makeup and ditch their costumes.
Fans weren't impressed, but singer Gene Simmons told Rolling Stone he felt the spirit of the
band lived on.
Tragically, drummer Eric Carr was diagnosed with cancer in 1991 and died at the age of
41, so the band's lineup was in a complete state of flux.
At the 38th Grammy Awards, Ultimate Classic Rock recounts that rapper Tupac Shakur shocked
the world by introducing KISS in their full makeup and costumes yet again.
USA Today reported that the band's 1996 reunion tour, in full costume, grossed $43.6 million,
and they performed another reunion tour in 2000.
KISS went on tour with Aerosmith in 2003, and headlined the Rock the Nation Tour alongside
Poison.
After a few years of sporadic shows, they returned to world touring and have more or
less kept it up since.
Their latest rendition of a farewell tour was supposed to play over 180 shows and gross
some $200 million.
After several years of delays, KISS is back on the road for their, quote "final tour ever",
in 2022.
Despite frontman Dee Snider's insistence that Twisted Sister is not hair metal, we're going
to include them in this list anyway.
In the mid-'80s, Twisted Sister was making bangers like "We're Not Gonna Take It" and
"I Wanna Rock."
By 1987, different members left for different ventures, and the band officially disbanded,
according to Guitar World.
Only Snider remained in the public eye by joining a couple lesser-known metal bands
and, eventually, becoming a radio and TV personality.
Later, in 2001, bassist Mark Mendoza even went so far as to say that he wanted Snider
dead on an episode of VH1's Behind the Music.
When the band finally reunited for a 9/11 benefit concert later that year, they performed
sporting their '80s-era costumes, acknowledging that few people would be interested in any
new music.
Twisted Sister went on to play different festivals around the world to crowds often bigger than
in their early days.
This success was good news for Snider, who Fox News reports was broke by the mid-'90s.
In 2015, drummer A.J.
Pero died of a heart attack in his sleep, and the band subsequently announced their
final tour.
In a feat nearly unprecedented by their peers, they seem to have actually meant it.
Their last show was in November 2016.
By 1991, shock rocker Alice Cooper had recorded 19 albums, and not all of them were good.
Yahoo writes that he openly refers to his 1980s records as "blackout albums" because
he was so messed up on drugs he couldn't recall recording them.
In the 1990s, Cooper was still making records with his band and performed on recordings
by some of rock's biggest stars.
Apart from making music and touring near-constantly since the 1960s, Cooper liked to cross pop
culture lines.
He popped onto the set of Wayne's World in 1992 and made cameos in The Simpsons and Tim
Burton's adaptation of Dark Shadows.
He was even in a Marvel comic.
"I was not aware of that."
In 2014, Cooper was an opening act on Mötley Crüe's final tour.
The next year, he performed in the supergroup Hollywood Vampires with Johnny Depp and Joe
Perry.
In 2018, Cooper played Herod in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert,
which earned positive reviews from The New York Times.
By the end of the 1980s, Van Halen had already switched out vocalist David Lee Roth for Sammy
Hagar.
After the replacement, Van Halen continued to hit number one on the charts until 1996.
According to Guitar World, Hagar left the band at that time following spats with Eddie
Van Halen while recording the Twister soundtrack.
Without a singer, guitarist Eddie Van Halen and his brother Alex ended up recording "Respect
the Wind," which was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the Grammys.
The band switched singers a couple times, and subbed in Eddie's son Wolfgang for bassist
Michael Anthony.
In 2007, Roth finally returned, and Van Halen continued to play sold-out shows across the
globe.
Throughout their career, they were one of the best-selling bands of all time, selling
more than 80 million albums worldwide and charting 13 Billboard number one hits.
In 2019, the band released yet another box set.
Tragically, it would be their last.
On October 6, 2020, the LA Times reported that Eddie Van Halen died of cancer after
first announcing his diagnosis in 2001.
After his father's death, Wolfgang Van Halen tweeted,
"He was the best father I could ever ask for.
Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift."
Ozzy Osbourne has chided '80s glam rock bands before, but the so-called Prince of Darkness'
1986 album The Ultimate Sin is a quintessential hair metal record according to Sputnikmusic
and many others.
Following his successful solo split from Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne went on what was to
be his last tour in 1993, poignantly titled the No More Tours Tour.
Needless to say, it wasn't his last tour.
He continued to play live, including at his wildly successful Ozzfest.
By the next century, a new generation of fans got acquainted with Ozzy Osbourne through
his MTV reality shows.
The Osbournes first did a show called The Osbournes from 2002 to 2005.
They also did a show called Battle for Ozzfest, and Sharon Osbourne appeared on The X-Factor
UK.
They also released a show on the Travel Channel called The Osbournes Want to Believe about
paranormal activity.
Ozzy announced yet again that he'd stop touring in 2018 with the No More Tours Tour II.
According to Blabbermouth, Ozzy says he'll still play gigs but not world tours, though
the second No More Tours Tour has stretched into 2022.
At age 71, Ozzy released yet another solo album, Ordinary Man, and Louder reports that
his wife Sharon thinks he has more albums in the works.
Credited as being one of the founding glam metal hair bands of the 1980s, Ratt recorded
four albums to mixed critical reviews.
In the early '90s, the band came out with their fifth album and continued to tour, but
guitarist Robbin Crosby struggled to keep up due to a heavy drug addiction.
"I wish to God I had any idea what I was dealing with."
After he returned from a tour in Japan, he checked into rehab.
In 1994, Ultimate Classic Rock explained that Crosby was diagnosed with HIV, which eventually
developed into AIDS.
In a 1999 interview for VH1's Behind the Music, Crosby reflected that addiction and HIV had
cost him his band, exorbitant amounts of money, and physical intimacy.
Crosby died in 2002 of a heroin overdose at 42 years old.
A mishmash of the original band members reunited for a tour in 2007 and released a new album
in 2010.
It would be their last to date.
According to Blabbermouth, founding lead singer Stephen Pearcy announced in 2018 that he'd
continue Ratt with bassist Juan Croucier.
The band saw a surge in streams and exposure recently thanks to a GEICO commercial about
new homeowners that love their house despite their "Ratt problem."
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available.
Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact
SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).