Little Caesar burst onto the LA scene in 1987, big things seemed inevitable for a band who had the winning combination of being managed by Jimmy Iovine, A&R’d by John Kalodner and produced by the one and only Bob Rock.
Their unique blend of soulful, yet ballsy hard rock was a perfect reflection of the musical climate that spawned them. They first appeared on the 1989 Metal Blade Street Survivors compilation which lead to them signing with DGC Records under Geffen.
However, within weeks of the release of their self-titled 1990 debut, their label was sold. In the mix-up all their records were lost in transit to the new distributors and the bean counters anvil came down on a band who were just getting going. Such is the rough and tumble music business.
Never to let a thing like a label shuffle get in their way, the band hit the road off the success of their cover of Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools and toured with bands as varied as Jane’s Addiction, Kiss, Iggy Pop, Billy Idol, Social Distortion and Lynyrd Skynyrd. They also headlined their own tours across America and scored heavy rotation on MTV.
In 1992 they released their second album, Influence, and toured Europe for the first time. The tour drew rave reviews and they sold out the famous Marquee Club in London.
That same year Ron Young appeared in Terminator 2 as a tough talking biker that gets into a fight (and inevitably is thrown out of a window) by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Just as they got going again, like so many hard rock bands, they were stopped in their tracks by the grunge wave and ultimately disbanded for over a decade, re-emerging in 2001 for a string of high profile shows at the House of Blues, the California Speedway for NASCAR, and the Rock The Bayou Festival in Houston TX.
The band went quiet again, until 2009 when they released their fourth album Redemption and returned to Europe and the UK. In 2012 they released American Dream and performed at the Hard Rock Hell festival in Wales that December.
They returned once again to Europe in 2013 appearing at The Download Festival alongside such acts as Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Rival Sons, and Queens Of The Stone Age, and in 2016 released the double live album Brutally Honest.
In 2017, the band returned to the UK and Europe, toured the US, and entered the studio to work on their Golden Robot Records debut.
And now the wait is almost over for fans of the band in Milton Keynes - they play The Craufurd Arms on Thursday (Feb 22).
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