Sweet Pain

Who? Well, Sweet Pain was a "hair band" that released an 8 song self-titled album on Combat Records back in 1985.

The album was practically doomed to fail from the start since Combat Records was a label filled with predominately heavy bands (thrash metal, hardcore and the like). I have no idea why Combat signed this "glam" band (if you want to call them that).

Sweet Pain was like the poor man's Poison or something. They weren't particularly pretty (or handsome) and it seemed they over-compensated for their looks by piling on layers of colors, bandanas, scarves, etc.. to better fit the mold they were trying to pour themselves into with their music and lyrics.

Though I've never seen or heard this mentioned in an interview, the bass player for Sweet Pain was none other than Kelly Nickles of L.A. Guns fame. (I wonder if he's trying to keep it a secret) [sorry Kelly] In fact, one of the songs L.A. Guns recorded, "Shoot For Thrills (Into The Night)" was actually released by Sweet Pain three years earlier (and appears on this album) since it was written by Kelly.

Obviously, Sweet Pain never "made it", Kelly joined L.A. Guns, and the rest, as they say, is history.

My friend Scott and I actually liked the band (and we'd soon find out we were virtually alone in that).

In fact, we went (purposely) to a club called Sneakers in our area to see them - and this was when we realized what huge freaks we were for liking the band. To this day I like this album, if you don't take it (or yourself) seriously and don't expect more than it is, you may as well. Well, probably not - and it's too late now anyway.

Anyway, we frequented area clubs literally every night and probably would have been at Sneakers anyway, but the truth is we went purposely to see Sweet Pain live. I honestly don't remember if there was an opening act or not - and my best guess is there was maybe 150 people in the small club that night...

Sweet Pain takes the stage. Corky Gunn (the singer) was wearing a pink baseball cap with roughly a foot long bill on it, and more scarves than I've ever seen on one person before. With this sight, people start walking out. The lights came up and the first few notes rang out - and before the band reached the chorus of the first song, literally half the audience was gone! (I kid you not) By the end of the second song, I would guess there were 20 people in the club. Also, if I remember correctly, about 15 of those people were friends of ours and would have been hanging out even if there was no band. Go figure. Quite honestly, the band was as good as we expected them to be. I felt bad for them, if nothing else, they were entertaining.

Anyway, that's the story of Sweet Pain from my experience with them..

Front of album cover Click to enlarge in a new window Close new window to return to this page

Back of album cover Click to enlarge in a new window Close new window to return to this page

Sweet Pain was:
(as listed on the inside sleeve of the album)

The songs: