Hanoi Rocks The Tragic Story Of The Band & Death Of Razzle

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Today we take a look at the legendary Finnish Band Hanoi Rocks who influenced countless greats like Guns N' Roses, Skid Row, Motley Crue in addition to the tragic death of drummer Razzle

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Hanoi Rocks frontman Mike Monroe was born as Matti Antero Kristian Fagerholm in 1962 in Finland. His father was a famous radio and TV personality. Monroe would reveal in his autobiography thatsHis real first exposure to rock n’ roll was seeing Black Sabbath perform a show in paris on TV and that memory would stay with him for the rest of his life. Also influencing monroe at a young age was the first wo concerts he ever went to as a kid which was the band slade and sweet. And in 1976 Monroe would play in a band called Madness and he just happened to share the same rehearsal space and drummer with guitarist Andy Mccoy Who played in a punk rock band named Briard. It was there that the two met and started talking and started hit it off and Monroe at one point almost joined Mccoy’s band, but was told he had to cut his hair. While Monroe was against cutting his hair, the seeds of Hanoi Rocks were being carefully planted as he would tell Louder Sound “the punk thing was great, but you can join our punk band if you cut your hair. What? To be in punk fashion. Im not going to be a slave to fashion he’d remember so i said no and me and andy talked about putting a real band together the way we thought a cool rock band should be and that’s how Hanoi started.After skipping the army I wasn’t going to cut my hair just to be in a band he’d say

Monroe eventually left home and moved to Stockholm, Sweden and started another punk band called Nymphomaniac. The band would quickly fell apart and Michael moved back to Helsinki. By the summer of 1979 monroe was back again in Sweden and would meet future hanoi rocks rhythm guitarist Nasty Sicide through Andy McCoy. Andy was in a new band at the time named Pelle (pellay) Miljoona but was still interested in forming a band with monroe. Riding the bus one day Andy suggested the band name "Chinese Rocks" named after the Johnny Thunders song and then "Hanoi Rocks" and well the rest was history.

And Hanoi Rocks would be formed in 1979, but funny enough Mccoy wasn’t in the first incarnation of the group because he was still playing in his other band. But Mccoy did have an understanding with Monroe that he would eventually join Hanoi Rocks. The only members of the classic lineup who were in the first incarnation of the band were mike monroe and nasty sicide. The band soon hit the Finnish club circuit playing a mix of Cheap Trick, MC5 and The Police covers along with songs Monroe and Mccoy had written. At one of the band’s early shows a fellow named Seppo who was responsible for bringing iggy pop and the stooges to finland was in attendance and showed an interest in managing the band. We’ll talk a little more about him later.

When Mccoy was ready to join the group they would relocate to Sweden and have drummer gyp casino and bassist Sami Yaffa joining the band. This is where things got difficult for the band. Most of the members were literally living in the street as Monroe would tell loudersound

When we started Hanoi Rocks we were homeless. I had a few hundred Finnish marks, not much, when I left home and ended up in Stockholm. So me, Sami Yaffa and Nasty Suicide were living on the streets for the first six months, begging for change. We’d beg enough to get a hamburger to share, or a bottle of wine to forget about the hunger. We befriended other homeless people. We’d sometimes go to a bar and I’d chat up some girl, and when she’d invite me to her house, I’d say: “Do you mind if my friends come along?” Then when we got to the house we’d head straight for the fridge. He would go on to reveal that
Andy would live with his girlfriend during the time and Gyp had an apartment during their time in Sweden. It was life on the streets that would eventually shape the group’s attitude, image and sound. And According to Monroe, Sweden was merely a stopover for the band whose final destination was London, England because as he saw it that’s where the centre of the music scene seemed to be at the time. He would go on to reveal to Loudersound that the band got no love from their home county saying

Later that same year the band headed into the studio to record their debut record titled Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks. Originally released only in the Scanadanvian countries, the album became a top 5 hit in their Finland