Canadian melodic rock band HONEYMOON SUITE — consisting of Johnnie Dee (lead vocals),Derry Grehan (guitars, keyboards, background vocals),Dave Betts (drums),Gary Lalonde (bass) and Peter Nunn (keyboards) — will release its new studio album, “Alive”, on February 16, 2024 via Frontiers Music Srl.
“Alive” is produced by notable Canadian producer Mike Krompass, whose songwriting and production credits include artists like Meghan Trainor, Steven Tyler, THEORY OF A DEAD MAN and SMASH MOUTH. His expertise, combined with the band’s celebrated melodic rock, powerful vocals and memorable guitar riffs, is sure to make this a timeless record of unforgettable rock anthems.
HONEYMOON SUITE was originally formed in 1981 by lead vocalist and guitarist Johnnie Dee from Niagara Falls, Ontario. Following the departure of the original lead guitarist, Derry Grehan, also from the Niagara Falls area, joined the band. Johnnie and Derry decided to re-build the band at that point and recruited Dave Betts on drums, Ray Coburn on keys, and Gary Lalonde on bass. They hit the road hard playing six six nights a week and writing songs with the hope of scoring a record deal.
In 1983, the band entered a demo of “New Girl Now” to a homegrown contest put on by Toronto rock station Q107. They won that year and this led to a multi album deal with WEA Canada after being signed by Bob Roper.
The band recorded their debut self-titled album which was released in July 1984. The LP was an instant success, and with the help of massive airplay, several videos on MTV and MuchMusic, it went on to sell over 300,000 units in Canada alone.
Since their debut release, HONEYMOON SUITE has released a total of seven studio albums with over one million units sold worldwide driven by the success of a string of hit singles such as “New Girl Now”, “Burning In Love”, “Wave Babies”, “Stay In The Light”, “Feel It Again” and “What Does It Take”, to name a few.
The band has won numerous awards including a Canadian Juno for group of year in 1986, triple platinum sales in Canada with the first three albums, and platinum sales for the greatest-hits CD “The Singles”, released in 1989. They also received an award in June 2015 for 100,000-plus performances on Canadian radio for “Burning In Love”, “New Girl Now”, “Wave Babies” and “What Does It Take”.
They have toured extensively in the U.S., Canada and Europe with acts such as ZZ TOP, HEART, BILLY IDOL, JOURNEY, Bryan Adams, SAGA, LOVERBOY, JETHRO TULL and .38 SPECIAL, to name a few.
HONEYMOON SUITE has also enjoyed many of their songs being placed in film and TV shows such as “Miami Vice” and “Bones”, and movie’s such as “Lethal Weapon” and “One Crazy Summer”.
During the 1990s, the band went through several lineup changes, but in the early 2000s, the original lineup of Johnnie, Derry, Gary and Dave was reformed, along with the addition of keyboard player Peter Nunn, and is still intact to this day.
Fast forward to 2020. Derry and Johnnie, armed with a surplus of new original songs, reached out to fellow Canadian producer/songwriter Mike Krompass, based in Nashville, Tennessee. Mike, a longtime fan, was all in to co-write and produce a new HONEYMOON SUITE album for his new record label. They got to work and before long, they were joined by Dave, Gary and Peter cutting bed tracks for studio album number eight.
The first single, “Tell Me What You Want”, was released in October of 2019 along with a groundbreaking new video and response was immediate from fans and radio alike. A second single called “Find What You’re Looking For” was released in June 2020. The song was an immediate hit on AOR rock radio in Canada, charting in the Billboard Top 30, the first time in 19 years for HONEYMOON SUITE.
“Alive” track listing:
01. Alive
02. Find What You’re Looking For
03. Done Doin’ Me
04. Not Afraid To Fall
05. Tell Me What You Want
06. Give It All
07. Love Comes
08. Broken
09. Livin’ Out Loud
10. Doesn’t Feel That Way
HONEYMOON SUITE is:
Johnnie Dee – lead vocals
Derry Greham – guitars / keyboards / backing vocals
Dave Betts – drums
Gary Lalonde – bass
Peter Nunn – keyboards