John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, the journeyman rockers who brought bar-band authenticity —and hits like the real-life top 10 Billboard Hot 100 smash “On the Dark Side” — to the group portrayed in the 1983 film Eddie and the Cruisers, have returned with Sound of Waves, their first album of all-new songs in 37 years.
It’s been a long and wild ride.
Beaver Brown, as the band was first known, gained acclaim in the 1970s in East Coast rock clubs, from Narragansett, in Cafferty’s native Rhode Island, to New Haven, Conn., where they were a mainstay at the famed Toad’s Place, to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J., where kindred spirit Bruce Springsteen jammed with them often.
As Cafferty recounts, after listening to a greatest hits collection released by the band in 2022, Springsteen encouraged him to write new songs. “Bruce reached out to me, a few years back,” says Cafferty. “He was riding around listening to a bunch of the songs and thought I should take another shot at it.”
The band, which has toured continuously across the decades, has a series of summer dates on the books, opening for Rick Springfield on the I Want The ’80s Tour, beginning May 28 in Clearwater, Fla. They play the North to Shore Festival in Asbury Park on June 27 and have shows planned through the rest of the year.
Here are five things to know about the return of John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band and the joyous and reflective new Sound of Waves.
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The Hits First Heard In The Bars
Cafferty’s songs like “On the Dark Side,” “Tender Years” and “Wild Summer Nights” were beloved by fans in the bars for years in the 1970s before record-buyers learned of those tracks. But exposure and promotion make all the difference. Kenny Vance, the music producer and supervisor for Eddie and the Cruisers, tapped the band’s music as the sound of the 1983 movie’s fictional group. When the film began airing repeatedly on HBO a year later, “On the Dark Side” took off on radio. The song reached No. 7 on the Hot 100, No. 1 on Mainstream Rock Radio and has been streamed 47 million times, according to Luminate.
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To the Silver Screen
Eddie and the Cruisers gave Cafferty and the band entrée into the A-list world of film work. Sylvester Stallone came calling and used “Voice of America’s Songs,” from the album “Tough All Over” as the theme song for the 1986 adventure flick “Cobra.” Cafferty’s solo recording of “Hearts on Fire” was featured in Stallone’s Rocky IV. Through the years, according to the band’s online history, Cafferty has placed more than 30 songs in films.
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“Spaghetti Bowl of a Career”
That’s how Cafferty recently described the more than five decades of Beaver Brown’s ups and downs, from the bars to the movies to the Hot 100 and back, always, to the road. He was speaking onstage at the Cutting Room in New York on April 10 during a release party performance of “Sound of Waves.” He described how catalog executive Jeremy Holiday, formerly of Sony’s Legacy Recordings and BMG, had taken on the task of compiling the band’s 2022 greatest hits set for Iconoclassic Records. That collection includes 16 Beaver Brown tracks, including nine chart hits and fan favorites — and features the great singer Ben E. King on “Boardwalk Angel.” It is the greatest hits set that prompted Cafferty’s boost from his longtime pal Springsteen to get back into the studio with new songs.
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“Rock ‘n’ Roll Was Our Life”
In a conversation with Billboard that took place during the recording of Sound of Waves, Cafferty remarked: “When we were younger, rock’n’roll was our life. And as we got older our life became our life —rock’n’roll became our job.” But it is a job that Cafferty and his bandmates continued pursuing with passion—despite the demands of adulthood and age and loss. Keyboardist Bobby Cotoia passed away in September 2004. During the 1990s, founding drummer Kenny Jo Silva and bassist Pat Lupo departed the band. But along with current bassist Dean Cassell, drummer Don Culp, keyboardist Rich McMahon, Cafferty is joined onstage by original guitarist Gary Gramolini (co-producer of the new album) and soulful saxophonist Michael “Tunes” Antunes — who will turn 85 years old in August.
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Cafferty’s Enduring Influence
Songs on Sound of Waves, like the effervescent single “Day in the Sun,” are steeped in the style of classic rock and pop from the 1960s, Cafferty’s enduring influence. On “Palisades,” he describes older lovers recalling their youth as he sings: “Tonight, I want to drive again.. I want to feel alive again!” Gramolini’s guitar attack of “Blue California” evokes the irresistible rhythm of Motown. At the Cutting Room, the crowd loved it all. Among those in the crowd was music consultant Steve Leeds, an executive with decades of experience as one of the industry’s best-known promotion and artist relations executives. “Rock n Roll Never Forgets!” posted Leeds afterward. “How many years ago was `Wild Summer Nights?’ The Beaver Brown Band kicked major ass at the Cutting Room to celebrate [their] first new CD in years. And they still have it!”
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