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Artist
Alcatrazz
12+ albums
heavy metalhard rock80smetalrock
about
Alcatrazz was a heavy metal band formed in 1983 in Los Angeles by Graham Bonnet. The band's initial line-up consited of Graham Bonnet (vocals - ex-Rainbow / Michael Schenker Group), Yngwie Malmsteen (guitar - ex-Steeler), Gary Shea (bass - ex-New England), Jimmy Waldo (keyboards - also ex-New England) and Clive Burr of Iron Maiden fame. Burr was reportedly only in the band for a week, and left upon discovering the band was going to be based in the United States, as opposed to his native England. Burr was soon replaced byJan Uvena (drums - ex-Alice Cooper / Pointer Sisters). Shea dubbed the group "Alcatrazz". For the first album, the bulk of the material was written by Bonnet and Malmsteen, with Waldo contributing to several tracks. The band's debut album, "No Parole from Rock 'n' Roll" was released in late 1983 on Rocshire Records. Decent support was given by MTV to the lead single, "Island in the Sun", which showed a heavy Rainbow influence. Despite the commercial nature of the song, it received little radio play. The album nonetheless spent 18 weeks on the Billboard charts and peaked at No. 128. A second video released in 1984 for "Hiroshima Mon Amour" became popular in Japan. Rochsire then released '"Live Sentence" (1984), a concert recording with songs from both concerts of the recent tour of Japan at the Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo on January 28, 1984. Being discontent with the sonic qualities of the recording, Malmsteen tried to prevent the release of the album but f
