Outselling The Beatles to bust: What happened to The Knack?
From the contagious riff to the hip-swinging rhythm and cheese-oozing final section, ‘My Sharona’ by The Knack is one of the most famous early power pop moments. Yet, the quartet’s time in the sun was fleeting, and shortly after they achieved an international number one hit with their 1979 debut single, the wheels would quickly start to fall off.
Despite frontman and guitarist Doug Fieger’s earlier success with the Michigan-based band Sky, where they even collaborated with producer Jimmy Miller, known for his work with The Rolling Stones, he disbanded the group in 1973. Like many musicians of his generation, he relocated to Los Angeles with hopes of forming a new group that could transform his life.
During the early stages of his career, Fieger began crafting a collection of demos, several of which later featured on The Knack’s 1979 debut album, Get the Knack. It was during this pivotal period that he crossed paths with lead guitarist Berton Averre, forming a songwriting partnership, and recruited drummer Bruce Gary, whom he had been acquainted with for years. As The Knack prepared for their inaugural performance in the summer of 1978, bassist Prescott Niles joined the lineup just a week before the big debut.
Fieger and the group shopped their demos to several record labels, but they all slammed the door shut. However, things would soon change, and The Knack would be the hottest new exhibit in town. Just months after debuting live, they played a series of exciting shows on Sunset Strip and jammed with legendary musicians Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and even former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, which was a clear indication of the major leagues they were about to enter.
A stark change of fortunes ensued, and the group were at the centre of a label bidding war, with many of those who had turned them down now ruing the spurned opportunity and circling like vultures fixated on the plump carrion beneath. The Knack eventually settled on Capitol Records and took home the most considerable signing-on fee in the label’s history, a significant point when noting that they had housed the likes of Nat King Cole, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles’ US operations.
Thanks to the immense success of the number one hit ‘My Sharona’, which the 25-year-old Fieger wrote about his 17-year-old girlfriend, Get the Knack also shot to the top of the charts. Reflecting just how big their lead single was, ‘My Sharona’ became Capitol’s fastest-selling debut since The Beatles’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ in 1963. However, in another sign of things to come, the band’s second release, ‘Good Girls Don’t’, only peaked at 11 in the US charts.
The Knack’s rapid ascent sparked significant backlash, reminiscent of what would likely be labelled as industry manipulation today. Critics and observers were particularly irked by the band’s nostalgic 1960s aesthetic and sound, with some accusing them of outright plagiarism due to perceived similarities between their album cover and that of Meet the Beatles. This led to harsh criticism, with detractors going as far as branding them as mere imitations of the iconic Liverpudlian quartet.
Both the band and label denied these accusations, but Fieger acknowledged that their similarity to The Beatles was only due to their original intention of harking back to the days of the British invasion. He tried to ease this crisis by noting that The Knack’s fans were too young to have enjoyed the heady 1960s. A somewhat misjudged answer, critics slammed the frontman, commenting that he was misrepresenting the era to those who had no idea about it.
On top of this, the ubiquitous marketing on behalf of Capitol made The Knack incredibly uncool very quickly. They were up against it, with some of their songs about teenage girls establishing a creepy character in an era where punk had helped spread feminism and regarded the old days as nothing more than a gross period to be forgotten. Even celebrated artist Hugh Brown started the “Knuke the Knack” campaign. It was a different world, and The Knack had no place in it.
Despite the hate, The Knack released their second album …But the Little Girls Understand, in early 1980, and although it went gold at home, it paled in commercial revenue and critical acclaim compared to its predecessor. According to Fieger, all the material for both albums was written before the debut was recorded and was intended to be a double album, but the writing was on the wall. The singles had failed to make an impact on the charts or listeners. This was the 1980s; innovations were all around, and people didn’t have time for apparently manufactured tokens from an outdated era.
After a long year of touring the world, the band fell apart and went on a hiatus in the spring of 1980. They then re-entered the studio in the summer of 1981 to record Round Trip, but when it arrived in the autumn, the record flopped miserably. Fieger was the first to realise that time had passed them by and quit due to intense internal friction on New Year’s Eve 1981. In mid-1982, The Knack, who had been trudging on without their driving force, called it a day.
The Knack would reunite in the decade’s second half and released six albums in total. Still, they never recaptured their early buzz, despite ‘My Sharona’ enjoying a resurgence in 1994 after being included in Reality Bites and Run-D.M.C. sampling the song’s riff in ‘It’s Tricky’.
Tragically, the story of The Knack would end with the death of the 57-year-old Fieger on February 14th, 2010, after battling two brain tumours.
