Background
Rose Tattoo formed in Sydney in 1976 by Pete Wells who wanted a tough slide guitar based band. They recorded their debut single,"Bad Boy for Love" with Angry Anderson on lead vocals,Mick Cocks on rhythm guitar,Ian Rilen on bass guitar,Dallas "Digger" Royall on drums and Peter Wells on slide guitar during mid-1977. [2] [3] Rilen,the song's writer departed to form punk rock group,X,prior to its release in October 1977. [4] [5] The single was produced by Vanda &Young (ex-The Easybeats,AC/DC's producers) and peaked at No. 19 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart. [2] [6] To cover Rilen's departure,Cocks switched to bass guitar,then Chris Turner (ex-Buffalo) was brought in. [2]
Anderson's one-time bandmate,bass guitarist Geordie Leach was recruited to replace Turner and record their self-titled debut LP,Rose Tattoo,which reached the top 40 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in November 1978. [6] The album,produced by Vanda &Young,was released in some markets as Rock N' Roll Outlaw from their second Australian single,"Rock N' Roll Outlaw" which did not reach the top 50. [2] [6] Leach left the band in May 1979 to be replaced in October by guitarist Lobby Loyde (Purple Hearts,Wild Cherries). The band toured the United States,recorded an unreleased album in Los Angeles, [4] and then toured Europe (including UK),but by September Loyde had left and Leach had returned. [2]
Early in 1981,"Rock n' Roll Outlaw" started to chart in Europe,peaking at No. 2 in France,No. 5 in Germany and No. 60 in UK. [2] The line up of Anderson,Cocks,Leach,Royall and Wells toured Europe from April. Three years after their debut the band issued the follow-up album, Assault &Battery in September,which reached the top 30 in Australia. [2] [6] Both Rock N' Roll Outlaw and Assault &Battery peaked at No. 1 on the UK heavy metal albums chart. [2] Eight bonus tracks were added for the 1990 CD edition for Repertoire Records.
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