One thing to understand about Doug Aldrich and both the bands Lion and Hurricane is that they both had limited success in the USA. Doug was really young and new on the larger music scene. Yet, in Japan all Doug’s bands including Hurricane, which initially featured Rudy Sarzo’s brother Robert Sarzo on guitar, were very very popular.
In the year 1990 the Sunset Strip bands were many. Lion and Hurricane were contenders in a saturated market. Funnier thing is that Lion didn’t do many gigs on the Sunset Strip that i knew of. Of course as a face on the Sunset Strip during those years I would have known about such shows.
Neither Hurricane nor Lion garnered a large following on the streets of Hollywood USA by doing a lot of shows in small clubs as did many Glam bands. Although Hurricane did do some shows in LA. KNAC Radio in California was playing their tunes just a little, and not very much, in the KNAC radio rotation of songs. Then there was a video for Hurricane on MTV featuring Doug Aldrich..
Those years were just too saturated with Glam Bands. So Both of those groups had mediocre success at best in the USA. I was at one original Hurricane shows at the Waters Club located at 1331 S. Pacific Ave. in San Pedro California and there a photo of a flyer attached to this post.
I can also remember In a window of the Roxy Theater on Sunset Blvd. there was a long standing poster of Hurricane. Hurricane was one of those highly promoted bands that basically skipped the small clubs and went strait to opening for larger rock bands. Rudy Sarzo pulled some music industry strings for his bother as a good sibling should…
Now Lion, in the mid 80s I had heard some gossip. A local band called Roxanne was on the same label as Doug’s band Lion and also had licensing problems in the USA. They were signed to Scotti Bros Records. Again, all Dougs bands became a very “big deal” in Japan because of the love for great guitar playing by the Japanese people. The band Bad Mood Rising is another topic on its own but needless to say BMR was much more popular in Japan than the USA. In 1991 Grunge music killed Glam metal in the USA while Doug was working on this band project. But LA Glam Metal lived on in Japan and inspired Visual Kei (ヴィジュアル系; Vijuaru Kei).
This is all relevant to set the stage for why Dougs Signature Jackson was a Japan Only guitar. It was released in Japan for the domestic Japanese market. Some guitars made it to insiders of which a couple orr so went to Doug Aldrich here in the USA like the one in my below photos. Grover Jackson also became a personal guitar luthier for Doug while Doug was being courted by Jackson guitars. Several Jacksons were refinished and repaired for Doug at the Ontario California Jackson headquarters.
As I mentioned in my story about The Sunset Strip Era in the mid 1980s Doug lived in LA and I would see him at The Troubadour once i a while. For a short time in 1985-1986-ish The Troubadour was the place to hang out if you were a Sunset Strip partier because Guns and Roses were basically the house band at the Troubadour way before GNR ever had a record contract. You’d see the same faces at the Troubadour then and Doug was part of those faces as was myself. He became a rock star. I did not … LOL
On to the Jackson thing. Grover Jackson had a common statement that he would tell people that i heard him say many times and that was that “Jackson Guitars didn’t really do endorsements”. Grover Jackson was truthful with that statement to some extent with a few exceptions. Mr. Jackson could recognize a great talent and early on supplied Doug Aldrich with “some guitars”. The following advertisement exposes some inkling of that.
Notice that the advertisement is for Charvel Fort Worth Texas. Which was the import wing of Jackson Charvel Guitars!
![FERNANDES ST-65JL JAKE E LEE WHITEY GUITAR[ 1985 FERNANDES CATALOG PHOTO ]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/51f6e1a0e4b08b0bde0f98a5/1613786799432-8O6BYEH3JXCNFL5ESCHT/jake-fernandes-alienxnation-001.jpg)
