Shows: 494
Earliest: Jun 4, 1980
Latest: Sep 23, 2022
[
WikiPedia] Hanoi Rocks were a Finnish rock band formed in Helsinki in 1979 by singer and multi-instrumentalist Michael Monroe (Matti Fagerholm). They were the first Finnish band to chart in the UK and were also popular in Japan. By 1984, the band was considered to be on the verge of an international breakthrough when they released their first major label album for CBS and headed for their first US tour. The tour was cut short when their drummer Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley died in a drunk driving incident with Vince Neil behind the wheel in December 1984. The band never recovered from the loss and announced their split in June 1985.
After their initial break-up, lead singer Michael Monroe became the first Finnish artist to chart on the American Billboard 200 in 1989. Monroe and original lead guitarist Andy McCoy reunited in 2001 with a new lineup that lasted until 2009, releasing three studio albums during this period. Although musically closer to traditional rock and roll and punk rock, Hanoi Rocks has been cited as a major influence in the glam metal genre for bands such as Guns N' Roses, Skid Row and Poison.
According to Finnish radio and TV personality Jone Nikula, who was the band's tour manager in the 2000s, Hanoi Rocks's albums have sold between 780,000 and 1,000,000 copies around the world, mostly in Scandinavia and Japan.
The original line-up (Michael Monroe, Andy McCoy, Nasty Suicide, Sami Yaffa and Gyp Casino) reunited at Monroe's 60th birthday concert on 23 September 2022 at the Helsinki Ice Hall.
In 2020, Jeff Mezydlo of Yardbarker included them in his list of "the 20 greatest hair metal bands of all time". In 2023, the band released a 40th-anniversary re(al)mix edition of their 1982 album Oriental Beat, remixed by Petri Majuri. In late 2024, Monroe and Yaffa announced four European shows to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Two Steps from the Move (1984), performing the album in its entirety.
