The first supergroup formed specifically for a movie soundtrack
Supergroups can be a great idea.
Look at the Travelling Wilburys, Cream, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, even Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and This Mortal Coil, which are all bands you can class as supergroups, clearly proving, when a good group of musicians join forces to create something new, the results can be plenty worthwhile.
What about when the cause is for a movie? Such as when Harry Potter assembled a dreamy supergroup in the form of Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey of Pulp, Jonny Greenwood and Phil Selway of Radiohead, as well as Jason Buckle from All Seeing I and Steven Claydon of Add N to (X), as the The Weird Sisters, qhich saw the rockers don some rather campy outfits, although they only made one appearance in the franchise, specifically Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Other supergroups have assembled for the sake of a movie, of course, and not just for fun, like The Looters in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, which saw members of The Clash and the Sex Pistols join forces with Ray Winstone. Sometimes artists will group to form a major part of the narrative, and in other instances, they merely collaborate for a one-off addition to the soundtrack, which was the case for arguably the first supergroup that assembled in 1989 called The Dudes of Wrath. You might not have heard of them, but you’ll recognise the members.
So, which movie soundtrack formed the supergroup?
Emerging after Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, the movie in question was Shocker, which was his supernatural take on the slasher that fell short of its predecessor, but thanks to his earlier success, he was able to reel in the help of some pretty big names for the soundtrack, which is arguably more impressive than the visuals their work accompanied.
Legendary songwriter Desmond Child, who penned hits like Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ and Kiss’ ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’, got on vocals, also joined by Kiss’ Paul Stanley, and on guitars were Vivian Campbell of Dio and Def Leppard fame and Guy Mann-Dude, while Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe provided drums, Rudy Sarzo from Whitesnake played bass, and alongside them were Alice Cooper’s guitarist Kane Roberts and Michael Anthony of Van Halen to add some backing vocals to the mix, making for a respendent display of ‘80s hard rock.
It was a pretty impressive mix of big names, especially considering that the movie wasn’t much of a success, and I bet half of those band members can’t even remember playing on the soundtrack. They recorded three tracks for the movie, ‘Shocker’, ‘Shockdance’, and ‘Shocker (Reprise)’, while tracks from Megadeth, Iggy Pop, and Dangerous Toys also rounded out the film’s selection of musical accompaniments.
I’m not surprised that The Dudes of Wrath was a one-time thing, but for any hard-rock nerds, listening to members of bands like Kiss, Van Halen, and Whitesnake play together is probably their idea of a wet dream.
