Krokus’ 1983 Headhunter: Brilliant or Bogus?

[Tommy2Tone84]

IIRC, these guys were a bunch of dirty Swedes. F*ck Anvil. Krokus were the real deal.

Their 1983 release Headhunter is a hair metal masterpiece imo, with a heavy whiff of NWOBHM that should have risen to the top above laughable American clowns like Motley Crue, WASP and Quiet Riot at the time. They were a band that dropped off my radar during their follow up The Blitz. I was a fool to fall for the likes of Motley Crue like so many of us did at the time. Any of the hardcore Krokus fans out there, I salute you.

It sounds like Dee Snider is jealous of them in a single, white female kinda way. Which tracks with Dee. I guess I would be too if I were Dee, leading a clown band sailing aimlessly on the sea of cheese like he was in 1983. Dee can’t sing like Marc Storace either. Marc had a cool Bon Scott quality about him only he was a better singer than Bon. Fernando Von Arb was as good as any. I always wanted to see them open for the Scorpions in concert as a ten year old rube in 1983.

Krokus’ Eat The Rich > Aerosmith’s Eat The Rich

Marc was allegedly offered the AC/DC gig after Bon’s death in 1980. Can any metal dorks out there confirm that? I want to say I’ve read about that in various places before, including here.

[HueyRamone]

IIRC, these guys were a bunch of dirty Swedes.

You recall incorrectly.

Marc was allegedly offered the AC/DC gig after Bon’s death in 1980.

Not only was he not offered the gig, ACDC refused to share stages with Krokus due to them biting their sound

[Tommy2Tone84]

IIRC, these guys were a bunch of dirty Swedes.

You recall incorrectly.

Marc was allegedly offered the AC/DC gig after Bon’s death in 1980.

Not only was he not offered the gig, ACDC refused to share stages with Krokus due to them biting their sound

Dirty Swiss then

Maybe I’m thinking of another singer. I thought another guy was in the running besides Brian. I’m too lazy to go look it up.

I hear a lot more than just AC/DC in their songs. I hear UFO, Motörhead and Scorpions to name a few. It’s not like they were Dirty Looks or Rhino Bucket.

Everyone swings from Kix’s nuts on here but I would argue Kix lifted their sound a lot from Krokus.

AC/DC later shared stages with White Lion. So there’s that.

[Love_Industry]

IIRC, these guys were a bunch of dirty Swedes.

You recall incorrectly.

Marc was allegedly offered the AC/DC gig after Bon’s death in 1980.

Not only was he not offered the gig, ACDC refused to share stages with Krokus due to them biting their sound

Dirty Swiss then

Maybe I’m thinking of another singer. I thought another guy was in the running besides Brian. I’m too lazy to go look it up.

I hear a lot more than just AC/DC in their songs. I hear UFO, Motörhead and Scorpions to name a few.

But you don't hear any Bon Jovi, Mötley, Priest and Leppard in Krokus's music like Joe Elliott did?

[Black Stuff]

Love Krokus! HH kicks all kinda azz!

[keyofgee]

dee was pissed because he said his wife made clothes for Krokus and never got paid for it. I thought they were a good band. Even though I had to play the shit out of ballroom blitz in crappy dives when it came out, the rest of their material was kicking butt. Even "Our Love" was stellar.

[Tommy2Tone84]

You recall incorrectly.



Not only was he not offered the gig, ACDC refused to share stages with Krokus due to them biting their sound

Dirty Swiss then

Maybe I’m thinking of another singer. I thought another guy was in the running besides Brian. I’m too lazy to go look it up.

I hear a lot more than just AC/DC in their songs. I hear UFO, Motörhead and Scorpions to name a few.

But you don't hear any Bon Jovi, Mötley, Priest and Leppard in Krokus's music like Joe Elliott did?

LMAO. I’m a big fan of Joe’s. He’s a childhood idol of mine. But he’s delusional Af often times.

[Tommy2Tone84]

dee was pissed because he said his wife made clothes for Krokus and never got paid for it. I thought they were a good band. Even though I had to play the shit out of ballroom blitz in crappy dives when it came out, the rest of their material was kicking butt. Even "Our Love" was stellar.

They are a footnote but better than most. They were older too. Their first album came out in 1975. I admire their grit.

[Michael Hotts Ghost]

To me, it was somewhere in the middle between brilliant and bogus. They had a couple tunes here and there, namely, Eat The Rich and Screaming In The Night. Ballroom Blitz was just OK. Otherwise I wasn’t a fan.

The album they did that had Schools Out on it was pretty lame too. That image was whack..

As lame as Mötley Crüe was, they sent Krokus home on a stretcher.

[Love_Industry]

dee was pissed because he said his wife made clothes for Krokus and never got paid for it. I thought they were a good band. Even though I had to play the shit out of ballroom blitz in crappy dives when it came out, the rest of their material was kicking butt. Even "Our Love" was stellar.

They are a footnote but better than most. They were older too. Their first album came out in 1975. I admire their grit.

Not so gritty when you see that Chris Von Rohr was the only member left on Headhunter from the original line-up. Trivia, he was the *drummer* on their debut.
Krokus always had a revolving door of line-ups, don't think anyone played on ALL their albums - Von Rohr missed a few after Headhunter and Storace and Von Arb weren't on the early ones.

[Hellsinkey]

Marc was allegedly offered the AC/DC gig after Bon’s death in 1980. Can any metal dorks out there confirm that? I want to say I’ve read about that in various places before, including here.

https://blabbermouth.net/news/would-kro ... e-it-a-try

Here Marc tells the story.

[Sleek]

That one record is near perfect. They were definitely following the trend of the times, but went and got Tom Allom to produce and just nailed it.

Their earlier records were a LOT more AC/DC, so I can see where the rub would be. I mean, if you did not know it was Krokus, who would you think this track was?

https://youtu.be/l2iL2A0_zg4

[WentEast]

I agree. HH is as good as any of the really good (maybe not great/perfect) albums of that era, but these guys could write songs and their lyrics were good for non English speakers.

I think a great intro to them is the live album from a few years later, especially the live version of Long Stick Goes Boom

https://youtu.be/s6owkP446cg?si=ia1UBZXQe0GMH2OT

and the non-album track Lay Me Down (which, ahem, they didn’t write but still a good tune).

https://youtu.be/fwJwgbvCOuQ?si=00UwhE-_sguqcrFS

[Hellsinkey]

They even admit on their As Long As We Live dvd, that they went to see AC/DC live and decided to change their style. Their first three records (before Storace) are very different.

[Hellsinkey]

dee was pissed because he said his wife made clothes for Krokus and never got paid for it. I thought they were a good band. Even though I had to play the shit out of ballroom blitz in crappy dives when it came out, the rest of their material was kicking butt. Even "Our Love" was stellar.

They are a footnote but better than most. They were older too. Their first album came out in 1975. I admire their grit.

Not so gritty when you see that Chris Von Rohr was the only member left on Headhunter from the original line-up. Trivia, he was the *drummer* on their debut.
Krokus always had a revolving door of line-ups, don't think anyone played on ALL their albums - Von Rohr missed a few after Headhunter and Storace and Von Arb weren't on the early ones.

Yes, the band line up changed a lot. At one point Von Rohr was the singer or Von Arb played bass.

[Tommy2Tone84]

Love Krokus! HH kicks all kinda azz!

F*ck yeah!

The Blitz has grown on me over the years too.

I like them better than Accept.

[Tommy2Tone84]

To me, it was somewhere in the middle between brilliant and bogus. They had a couple tunes here and there, namely, Eat The Rich and Screaming In The Night. Ballroom Blitz was just OK. Otherwise I wasn’t a fan.

The album they did that had Schools Out on it was pretty lame too. That image was whack..

As lame as Mötley Crüe was, they sent Krokus home on a stretcher.

Motley didn’t send anyone home on a stretcher. They made Quiet Riot look like Zeppelin at the US Festival. Meanwhile, they looked like amateur hour that day.


Motley’s image wasn’t whack? They were a poor man’s KISS. Tommy Lee even stole Eric Carr’s electronic Simmons pad bit for his drum solo.


Twisted Sister were clowns but atleast they were a good live band.

As lame as Ratt is, I’d take them over Motley theses days.

[tooth]

Brilliant, I had it on cassette & vinyl. For whatever reason, I knew the song "Winning Man" when it came out. At that time, the budget used record bins always had a few Krokus records so, as a result of my budget, I became a Krokus fan. Metal Rendez-vous through HH seemed solid enough back in the day & I see they have 18 studio records overall. I'll have to do a deep dive at some point. Krokus was one of the concert tickets I held onto during the pandemic as they were supposed to come to the US for a farewell.

[Tenacious_Dio]

Bought a used Krokus "Best Of" cd, a few years back.

Four out of the ten tracks were covers.

[Ozzy Stradlin]

Krokus, regardless of the lineup, are a much better band than Twisted Sister ever was, for my ears.

[pieceofme]

Very meh band and album.

Motley Crue Shout at the Devil absolutely smokes Krokus.