![]() ![]() Fortunately, Tesla's music was sturdy enough to hold up when its roots were exposed, and one of the covers - 'Signs,' an idealistic bit of hippie outrage by the Five Man Electrical Band - became another Top Ten hit, as well as the band's highest-charting single. The idea behind 1990s Five Man Acoustical Jam was virtually unheard of - a pop-metal band playing loose, informal acoustic versions of their best-known songs in concert, plus a few favorite covers ('60s classics by the Beatles, Stones, CCR, and others). In keeping with their unpretentious, blue-collar roots, Tesla responded to stardom not by aping the glam theatrics of their tourmates, but by stripping things down. ![]() Double-platinum sales figures followed as another single, 'The Way It Is,' also enjoyed some degree of airplay. 'Love Song' hit the pop Top Ten and pushed The Great Radio Controversy into the Top 20. The first single, 'Heaven's Trail (No Way Out),' was another hit with hard rock audiences and set the stage for the second single, a warm, comforting ballad named 'Love Song' that substituted a dash of hippie utopianism for the usual power ballad histrionics. However, it was the 1989 follow-up effort, The Great Radio Controversy, that truly broke the band. It produced a minor hard rock hit in 'Modern Day Cowboy,' reached the Top 40 on the album charts, and eventually went platinum. After playing several showcases in Los Angeles, Tesla quickly scored a deal with Geffen and released the debut album Mechanical Resonance in 1986. At their management's suggestion, the bandmates renamed their group after the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, who pioneered the radio but was given only belated credit for doing so. They did produce one of the era's more respectable bodies of work, however, including three consecutive platinum-selling albums.Īlthough Tesla took shape in 1985 in Sacramento, CA, the musicians (vocalist Jeff Keith, the underrated guitar tandem of Frank Hannon and Tommy Skeoch, bassist Brian Wheat, and drummer Troy Luccketta) had logged several years together under the name City Kidd. ![]() Despite the refreshing lack of posturing, Tesla was hit just as hard as the rest of the pop-metal world when grunge arrived in the early 1990s. ![]() Although Tesla emerged during the glory days of hair metal, the band's music was equally indebted to contemporary blues and '70s-style hard rock, a fusion that helped differentiate albums like The Great Radio Controversy from its contemporaries. ![]()
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