Like many of the best songs, it was almost by accident that Derry Grehan churned out what would become a hard rock classic with “New Girl Now,” writing the song in a short half-hour burst at his kitchen table while noodling on the guitar.
He was in his early 20s and was studying music production at Fanshawe College in London, Ont.
In 1982, when he hooked up with singer Johnnie Dee to form Honeymoon Suite – named after Niagara Falls where the band members are from, and what’s sometimes referred to as the unofficial honeymoon capital of world – the previously shelved song was put to good use.
“It was written in my kitchen in probably about half an hour, and then I put it on the shelf for several years and brought it out when I got into Honeymoon Suite,” Grehan explains. “Johnnie said we should do that song.”
It became the lead-off track and primary single when the band released its self-titled debut album in 1984.
Overnight the band made the transition from relative obscurity to massively successful and famous.
“We had been working towards that for a long-time. Once I met Johnnie Dee I knew that I had a great singer and I had a few songs and knew that we had a core of a really great band. We just hacked it out in the bars for a couple years as a cover band and then got our deal. It was a dream come true,” Grehan says.
At the same time, Honeymoon Suite’s dream of musical stardom was also coming true for many other North American rock bands in the 1980s.
Their rise to prominence happened to coincide with a fruitful period in the music industry, one where bands were receiving ample label support and the public was still hungry to hear and purchase new music.
“I’m glad that we came out when we did,” Grehan says “That was back in the day when a label signed a band … and they stuck with you for a few albums and you could do an album and a video and sell like three- or 400,000 albums and then go out and tour.”
But even though times were booming, rock bands still had to bring the chops.
For Grehan, who was influenced growing up by such guitar players as Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore and Eddie Van Halen, the pressure was on when it came time for the band to record its follow-up album.
“There was a lot of pressure,” he says. “Having a triple-platinum record right of the box – a lot of pressure on me being the main writer, I was writing all the time on the bus and in the hotels. And then we just got to it.”
What came out of those sessions was 1986’s massive The Big Prize.
The record was produced and engineered by powerhouses Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock, who would go on to work with the likes of Bon Jovi, Metallica and Mötley Crüe soon afterwards.
“They were hungry just like we were and everybody was just in a really great place,” Grehan says about The Big Prize sessions.
The album also featured a rare appearance by Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, who plays flute on the track “All Along You Knew.”
In the 1990s, Grehan says the band, like many in the hard rock genre, started to fade away. But a resurgence in 2007 saw Honeymoon Suite reunite, and they’ve been touring and recording steadily again ever since.
“In the last couple of years, man, I don’t know what’s going on – but things have kind of been on an upwards trajectory with us. It’s great,” he says.
Last year, Honeymoon Suite released Hands Up, an EP created largely to satisfy the band’s fans and the group’s own impulses to keep writing and recording.
“Nobody’s selling CDs anymore,” Grehan admits. “But I never stopped writing and if I can come up with some songs, and Johnnie’s writing, we decided why not?”
When Honeymoon Suite plays the upcoming Rock Ambleside Park music festival in West Vancouver, they’ll also be sharing the stage with other titans of Canadian ’80s rock, such as Glass Tiger, Prism and April Wine.
Although many of these bands might have seen their heyday decades ago, their continued popularity amongst fans from that generation – not to mention a new generation of fans discovering them for the first time – propel bands like Honeymoon Suite forward.
“We’re in the moment. We’re at a show and we’re just happy to be there,” Grehan says.
For Grehan, the impetus has always been to write new songs, to keep creating – it just so happens that decades of being part if Honeymoon Suite has allowed him to do just that.
“I never thought I’d be doing this Honeymoon Suite gig 30 years in,” he says. “But to get the chance to go out on the weekend and make a bunch of noise and make people happy, that’s a bonus for me.”
Rock Ambleside Park:
Friday, Aug. 18
(Gates open – 5 p.m.)
Harlequin – 6 p.m.
The Stampeders – 7:15 p.m.
Platinum Blonde – 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 19
(Gates open – 2:30 p.m.)
Helix – 3:30 p.m.
Nick Gilder & Sweeney Todd
– 5 p.m.
Honeymoon Suite – 6:40 p.m.
Randy Bachman – 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 20
(Gates open – 2:30 p.m.)
Prism – 3:30 p.m.
Headpins – 5 p.m.
Glass Tiger – 6:40 p.m.
April Wine – 8:30 p.m.
