Warrant
Warrant are an American Hair Metal/Arena Rock band originally from Los Angeles. Formed in 1984, it took three or four years for the classic line-up featuring Jani Lane (lead vocals, main songwriter), Joey Allen (lead guitar), Erik Turner (rhythm guitar), Michael Nelson (bass guitar) and Steven Sweet (drums) to stabilise.
Establishing themselves as the number three band in the Hollywood rock scene behind Guns N' Roses and Poison, the band had their breakout hits with the multi-platinum album Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and the single "Heaven", which got to number two in the American charts (although it peaked behind Milli Vanilli, which is more or less the same as being the number one song) and reached their peak success with Cherry Pie and the eponymous hit single, an arena rock anthem that soon became their Signature Song.
However, changing trends in rock music served to undermine the band's career. Like a lot of hair bands, Warrant were displaced by the rise of Grunge, and after one last hit (the album Dog Eat Dog) their popularity declined. Since then, they've continued to perform and record either with or without bandleader Jani Lane, who died of alcohol poisoning in 2011.
This band features examples of:
- Auto Erotica: From "Cherry Pie"
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Swingin' to the bass |
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- Bawdy Song: A large part of their discography.
- Black Sheep Hit: "Cherry Pie". It's not really atypical of their style, but it was a song the label wanted them to write and became a much bigger hit than the band expected it to (Jani Lane wrote the lyrics out quickly on an empty pizza box).
- Chorus Only Song: "Cherry Pie". It's more or less the American equivalent to "Pour Some Sugar On Me", to which it bears a suspiciously similar resemblance.
- Cluster F Bomb: "Ode To Tipper Gore".
- Cover Version: Of "We Will Rock You".
- Double Entendre: "Cherry Pie" has several:
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Swingin' in there 'cause |
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- Fully Automatic Clip Show: "Ode To Tipper Gore", a collection of profanity from live concerts.
- Hair Metal: They were one of the last new hair metal groups that managed to become very popular immediately before grunge killed the genre off in the 1990s.
- Intercourse With You: Frequent feature of their lyrics.
- Interrupted Intimacy: From "Cherry Pie"
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Swingin' so hard |
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- Making Love in All The Wrong Places: Again, from "Cherry Pie"
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Swingin' on the front porch! |
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- Power Ballad: As with all hair metal bands, they had several such songs. "Heaven" and "I Saw Red" were their most popular.
- Revolving Door Band
- Special Guest: The Cherry Pie album had a few friends performing on some songs. For example, the guitar solo on the title track is played by Poison guitarist C. C. DeVille.
- Three Minutes of Writhing: The woman in the "Cherry Pie" video.
- Video Full of Film Clips: The video for their cover of "We Will Rock You" contains clips from the 1992 boxing movie Gladiator.