Great White

Of the eight offers that followed the Out of the Night EP, Great White took EMI America's; the label then had Queensrÿche on its roster. Michael Wagener, who had worked on the EP, produced and engineered the album at Total Access Recording Studios. The band's manager, Alan Niven, knew him well: visiting from Germany, Wagener had spent several months living in the Manhattan Beach house Niven shared with Don Dokken, and his calling card was his work with Accept and Dokken. Jack Russell sang, Mark Kendall played guitar, Lorne Black bass and Gary Holland drums, and the assistant engineers were Michael Lardie, later a member of the band, and Wyn Davis, who would produce its next album. Three songs came over from the EP: "Out of the Night", which opens the record, "On Your Knees" and "Dead End", which closes it. Dokken shares the writing credit on "On Your Knees" and Niven on "Stick It" and "Bad Boys", while "Substitute" is a cover of Pete Townshend's song. Kendall has said the band was then trying to sound like Judas Priest or the old Scorpions, and although the album fell short commercially, he still singles out "Hold On" and "Streetkiller". Russell's later verdict was that the first record was too heavy and the second too soft. EMI America released Great White in February 1984. By 3 March it was on Billboard's rock albums list, and MTV had added the "Stick It" video at the end of February; the song reached number 56 on the rock tracks chart, and the album peaked at number 144 on the Billboard 200 in a 12-week run. The band supported Whitesnake in Europe and toured the United States and Canada with Judas Priest, but EMI America dropped them after this one album, and Niven has since been blunt about both the record and the relationship with the label. A Japanese LP, EYS-81643, was released the same year.