With some top-drawer tunes, Paul Stanley producing and Kiss’s management behind them, New England seemed, and felt, poised for stardom. Cue bad luck and trouble.
When John Fannon thinks back to the heady days of 1979, when his band New England looked poised to become the next big thing in American rock, he remembers the precise moment when he believed that the dream would become a reality.
It happened as the band were travelling from their home town of Boston, Massachusetts to a gig in Denver, Colorado. Their debut single, Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya, a melodic rock anthem with a sky-scraping chorus, had just been released. It was a track made for radio, and DJs in Boston were playing the shit out of it. But for them to hear their song ringing out on an FM station near Denver, so far from homethat was something else.
“When those power chords came blasting through, it was a special moment,” Fannon recalls. “We knew we were getting airplay all over the country, but this was our first experience of hearing it outside of Boston. We all pulled off the roadour caravan, cars, tour bus and truckand were dancing and cheering on the side of the highway. I will never forget that feeling of joy, excitement, happiness. On top of the world!”
In that moment, New England had so much going for them. Fannon, the guitarist and lead singer, was a brilliant songwriter whose love for The Beatles was evident in a sound akin to a hard-rocking Electric Light Orchestra. On the band’s self-titled debut album, Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya was one of many songs with genuine hit potential. And on a business level, the band had a powerful connection to one of America’s biggest rock acts – they were managed by Bill Aucoin, the savvy tactician who had guided Kiss to superstardom. Kiss guitarist and vocalist Paul Stanley co-produced New England’s album alongside Mike Stone, famed for his work with Queen. And for their first nationwide US tour, following that headline show in Denver, the young band would play to thousands every night, opening for Kiss in arenas. As Paul Stanley tells Classic Rock now, all these years later: “New England was a terrific band, and Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya was a real tour de force, a great, great song.”
But for John Fannon and the other three guys in New England, the joy they experienced as they danced on the side of the freeway near Denver would be short-lived. Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya would climb to No.40 on the US Billboard chart, but no higher. The album would peak at No.50. And at a critical stage, their career would be derailed in the most unlucky and unlikely of scenarioswhen their record company went bust after gambling on an album by, of all people, the Pope. No matter how great New England were, and how well-connected, the band failed to make it big.
“The book on New England is bittersweet
