Music / Warrant

Left to right: Joey Allen, Jerry Dixon, Robert Mason, Erik Turner, and Steven Sweet.

Warrant are an American Hair Metal/Arena Rock band originally from Los Angeles. Formed in 1984, it took three or four years for the classic line-up featuring Jani Lane (lead vocals, main songwriter), Joey Allen (lead guitar), Erik Turner (rhythm guitar), Jerry Dixon (bass guitar) and Steven Sweet (drums) to stabilise.

Establishing themselves as the number three band in the Hollywood rock scene behind Guns N' Roses and Poison, the band had their breakout hits with the multi-platinum album Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and the single "Heaven", which got to number two in the American charts (although it peaked behind Milli Vanilli, which is more or less the same as being the number one song) and reached their peak success with Cherry Pie and the eponymous hit single, an arena rock anthem that soon became their Signature Song.

However, changing trends in rock music served to undermine the band's career. Like a lot of hair bands, Warrant were displaced by the rise of Grunge, and after one last hit (the album Dog Eat Dog) their popularity declined. Since then, they've continued to perform and record either with or without bandleader Jani Lane, who died of alcohol poisoning in 2011.

Discography:

• 1989 - Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich
• 1990 - Cherry Pie
• 1992 - Dog Eat Dog
• 1994 - Ultraphobic
• 1996 - Belly To Belly
• 1997 - Warrant Live 86-97
• 1999 - Greatest And Latest
• 2001 - Under The Influence
• 2006 - Born Again
• 2011 - Rockaholic
• 2017 - Louder Harder Faster

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Trope my Cherry Pie:

• American Gothic Couple: The "Cherry Pie" video has the girl putting her arms around the couple.
• Auto Erotica: From "Cherry Pie"
  Swingin' to the bass
  In the back of my car!
  Ain't got money!
  Ain't got no gas!
  But we'll get where
  We're goin' if we
  Swing real fast!
• Bawdy Song: A large part of their discography.
• Break the Cutie: Between his divorce from Bobbie Brown and the death of the rock scene in the early 90s, Jani Lane seemed to have undergone one of these.
• Cluster F-Bomb: "Ode To Tipper Gore", the band's attempt to troll Al Gore's wife and prominent music censorship advocate.
• Corrupt Cop: "Uncle Tom's Cabin"^note (No relation to the novel). The video is more explicit but the local sheriff and deputy secretly dumping bodies into a wishing well leaves little room to assume anything good.
• Cover Version: Of "We Will Rock You".
• Darker and Edgier: Their album Dog Eat Dog. While there are still some ballads on the record, the majority of the material is far heavier and darker than anything they'd written before, with one, "Inside Out," being a straight-up Thrash Metal song. Some of the song topics include:
  • Voyeurism ("The Hole In My Wall")
  • After the End ("April 2031")
  • A look into the mind of an assassin ("Andy Warhol Was Right")
  • Drug addiction ("All My Bridges Are Burning")
  • An overly attached girlfriend ("Quicksand")
• Dirty Cops: The Sheriff and Deputy in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". The Deputy flat out murders two people(after attempting to rape the woman) and then dump the bodies in an area of a bayou where the bodies wouldn't be found.
• Double Entendre: "Cherry Pie" has several:
  Swingin' in there 'cause
  She wanted me to feed her
  So I mixed up the batter
  And she licked the beater!
• Fully Automatic Clip Show: "Ode To Tipper Gore", a collection of profanity from live concerts.
• Gratuitous German: The song "The Bitter Pill" ends up busting into German about halfway through the song.
• Hair Metal: They were one of the last new hair metal groups that managed to become very popular immediately before grunge killed the genre off in the 1990s.
• Intercourse with You: Frequent feature of their lyrics.
• Interrupted Intimacy: From "Cherry Pie", combined with Parents Walk In at the Worst Time.
  Swingin' in the bathroom,
  Swingin' on the floor.
  Swingin' so hard
  We forgot to lock the door!
  In walks her daddy
  Standin' six foot four!
  He said "You ain't gonna swing
  With my daughter no more!"
• Karma Houdini: The cops in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" are not reported for their crimes because the protagonists fear being next.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Again, from "Cherry Pie"
  Swingin' on the front porch!
  Swingin' on the lawn!
  Swingin' where we want
  'Cause there ain't nobody home!
• Power Ballad: As with all hair metal bands, they had several such songs. "Heaven" and "I Saw Red" were their most popular.
  • "Blind Faith" deserves a mention as well for being one of their most heartfelt ballads.
• Revolving Door Band: NOBODY in Warrant has been in the band non-stop from its inception to the present. The closest is bassist Jerry Dixon, who has been with the band from 1984 to the present (2016), but was not an original member. Erik Turner founded the band, but the rhythm guitarist took time off from Warrant in 1997-98 and 2003.
• Special Guest: The Cherry Pie album had a few friends performing on some songs. For example, the guitar solo on the title track is played by Poison guitarist C. C. DeVille.
• Stealth Parody: They seem to view "Cherry Pie" as one of these.
• Think Unsexy Thoughts: "Cherry Pie" has the line "Think about baseball and swing all night!"
• Three Minutes of Writhing: The woman in the "Cherry Pie" video.
• Video Full of Film Clips: The video for their cover of "We Will Rock You" contains clips from the 1992 boxing movie Gladiator.

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