Alive Honeymoon Suite
Album info
Album-Release:
2024
HRA-Release:
16.02.2024
Album including Album cover
- 1 Alive 02:41
- 2 Find What You've Looking For 03:15
- 3 Done Doin Me 02:52
- 4 Not Afraid To Fall 02:53
- 5 Tell Me What You Want 03:01
- 6 Give It All 02:46
- 7 Love Comes 03:20
- 8 Broken 02:40
- 9 Livin Out Loud 03:01
- 10 Does't Feel That Way 03:39
- 11 Love Changes Everything (Bonus Track) 04:12
- 12 New Girl Now (Bonus Track) 03:35
Info for Alive
"Alive" is produced by notable American producer Mike Krompass, whose songwriting and production credits include artists like Meghan Trainor, Steven Tyler, Theory of a Dead Man and Smash Mouth. His expertise combined with the bands celebrated melodic rock, powerful vocals and memorable guitar riffs, is sure to make this a timeless record of unforgettable rock anthems. HONEYMOON SUITE was originally formed in 1981 by lead vocalist and guitarist Johnnie Dee from Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Following the departure of the original lead guitarist, Derry Grehan, also from the Niagara Falls area, joined the band. Johnnie and Derry decided to re-build the band at that point and recruited Dave Betts on drums, Ray Coburn on keys, and Gary Lalonde on bass. They hit the road hard playing 6 six nights a week and writing songs with the hope of scoring a record deal. In 1983, the band entered a demo of “New Girl Now” to a homegrown contest put on by Toronto rock station Q107. They won that year and this led to a multi album deal with WEA Canada after being signed by Bob Roper.
The band recorded their debut self titled album which was released in July, 1984. The album was an instant success, and with the help of massive airplay, several videos on MTV and MuchMusic, it went on to sell over 300,000 units in Canada alone. Since their debut release, HONEYMOON SUITE has released a total of seven studio albums with over 1 million units sold worldwide driven by the success of a string of hit singles such as "New Girl Now", "Burning In Love", "Wave Babies", "Stay In the Light", "Feel It Again" and "What Does It Take", to name a few. The band has won numerous awards including a Canadian Juno for group of year in 1986, triple platinum sales in Canada with the first 3 albums, and platinum sales for the greatest hits cd 'The Singles', released in 1989. They also received an award in June, 2015 for 100,000 + performances on Canadian radio for “Burning In Love”, “New Girl Now”, “Wave Babies” and “What Does It Take”. They have toured extensively in the US, Canada and Europe with acts such as ZZTop, Heart, Billy Idol, Journey, Bryan Adams, Saga, Loverboy, Jethro Tull and .38 Special to name a few.
HONEYMOON SUITE has also enjoyed many of their songs being placed in film and TV shows such as Miami Vice and Bones, and movie's such as Lethal Weapon and One Crazy Summer. During the 1990’s, the band went through several lineup changes, but in the early 2000’s, the original lineup of Johnnie, Derry, Gary and Dave was re-formed, along with the addition of keyboard player Peter Nunn, and is still intact to this day. Fast forward to 2020. Derry & Johnnie, armed with a surplus of new original songs, reached out to fellow Canadian producer/songwriter MIke Krompass based in Nashville, TN. Mike, a long-time fan, was all in to co-write and produce a new HONEYMOON SUITE album for his new record label. They got to work and before long, they were joined by Dave, Gary and Peter cutting bed tracks for studio album number eight. The first single, “Tell Me What You Want” was released in October of 2019 along with a groundbreaking new video and response was immediate from fans and radio alike. A second single called “Find What You’re Looking For” was released in June, 2020. The song was an immediate hit on AOR Rock Radio in Canada, charting in the Billboard Top 30, the first time in 19 years for HONEYMOON SUITE! The band are excited for their upcoming February release and with no sign of slowing down, HONEYMOON SUITE plan to continue to create new music and tour year-round thanks to a legion of loyal fans.
Johnnie Dee, lead vocals
Derry Greham, guitars, keyboards, backing vocals
Dave Betts, drums
Gary Lalonde, bass
Peter Nunn, keyboards
Honeymoon Suite
Johnnie Dee and Derry Grehan, the principal and founding members of Honeymoon Suite, met when introduced by manager Stephen Prendergast in 1982. Deciding to work together, they formed Honeymoon Suite with Grehan’s former Steve Blimkie And The Reason’ band-mate Dave Betts on drums, plus an anonymous keyboard player and bassist.
In 1983 they decided to enter the Homegrown Contest put on yearly by Toronto’s Q107-FM radio station so Prendergast approached his friend and producer Tom Treumuth to produce a song for them. Based on the buying public’s response, “New Girl Now” won the contest and Bob Roper at WEA Canada was so impressed with the song and response that he signed the band right away.
Personnel conflicts eventually arose and the keyboardist was replaced with Toronto bred Ray Coburn. Although a session player named Brian Brackstone played bass on the album, the band soon found themselves a permanent bassist named Gary Lalonde. Originally scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day, the milestone first album was released in June of 1984.
Throughout 1983 and 1984 Honeymoon Suite toured Canada and the US, consistently headlining club gigs and opening for such acts as Billy Idol, April Wine, Laura Branigan, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, and Bryan Adams. In 1984 the band was nominated for the ‘Most Promising Group’ Juno Award but did not win.
Propelled by the success of more singles from the album, 1985 saw the band begin to headline gigs throughout Ontario and the rest of Canada. A highlight was the presentation of an award at the 1985 Junos. By this time the first album had achieved platinum sales status. Almost 22 years later the album has now sold over 400,000 units in Canada alone.
Honeymoon Suite’s second album was released on Valentine’s Day 1986. ‘The Big Prize’ featured a rare appearance by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. It went platinum in Canada almost immediately and started selling steadily in the US. Tours in the States that year included opening stints for Heart, .38 Special, ZZ Top, Journey, Starship, and Saga. The band also headlined a sold-out show at the Kingswood Music Theatre just north of Toronto. Ray Coburn left and was replaced by Toronto whiz-kid keyboardist Rob Preuss (formerly of the Spoons). 1986 also saw the band win a gold award for ‘Best Live Act’ at the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, the ‘Group Of The Year’ Juno and headline more dates in both Canada and some northern States.
For album number three, the band went to Los Angeles in the winter of 1987 to record with Ted Templeman (Little Feat, The Doobie Brothers, Van Halen), and while there Dee was hit by a car at L.A.X. airport breaking his leg in several places and requiring surgery for a ten inch pin to help the leg heal properly. While recovering in hospital, Doobie Brother Michael McDonald was brought in to help out with the recording sessions; he wrote lyrics and sang back up on one song. The results of all the hard work was ‘Racing After Midnight’, a slightly harder-edged more guitar oriented album that spawned a European tour with Status Quo and a headlining tour of Canada.
Problems then surfaced with long-time management company Head Office and after the group left the fold, keyboardist Ray Coburn returned to the band in time for WEA to release a ‘best-of’ compilation in 1989. Betts and Lalonde then took their leave and Coburn, Dee and Grehan began writing together again.
The trio returned to the studio in 1990 to craft ‘Monsters Under The Bed’ with Paul Northfield producing. The album featured Steve Webster ( from Billy Idol’s band) on bass and Jorn Anderson on drums. Singles like “Say You Don’t Know Me” and “The Road” did well in Canada. Some US success did come their way as songs got placed on TV’s ‘Miami Vice’ and two movie soundtracks, ‘Lethal Weapon II’ and ‘One Crazy Summer’.
In the very exciting news department the original band has reformed and is currently on tour all summer and fall! Touring activity along with other honeymoon suite info can be found at honeymoonsuite.com
In other recent activity a new Best of album has been released on Warner in Canada as part of their Essentials series. A new Best of Honeymoon Suite DVD featuring all their videos and live concert footage is also scheduled to be released by Warner this fall.
Songwriting has also wrapped up for a brand new studio album that will be recorded this fall and arrive early in 2008. A European/Japanese deal has already been signed with the prestigious Frontiers label and negotiations are now underway for a North American release.
This album contains no booklet.