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Left to right: Alessandro Del Vecchio, Josh Ramos, Johnny Gioeli, Francesco Jovino and Anna Portalupi

Hardline is an American Hard Rock/Heavy Metal band, it is the pet project of Johnny Gioeli (of Crush 40 and Axel Rudi Pell fame). Formed in 1991 by Johnny and his brother Joey, it started life as a Hair Metal band, and they released their first album, Double Eclipse, in 1992. A fairly standard melodic hair metal piece, Double Eclipse sported a sound straight out of The '80s. The album featured a cover of Danny Spanos' Top 40 hit "Hot Cherie", which became a modest radio hit. Notably, this album features Neal Schon of Journey on guitars. Due to the rise of Grunge, the album unfortunately didn't become very successful, and the band went mostly silent for about 10 years.

In September of 2002 the band released their sophomore album, II. This album, featuring a more traditional Heavy Metal sound and an almost completely different lineup, was followed by a live album, Live at the Gods Festival 2002. After this, the band went silent once again. Their next album came in 2009, under the name Leaving the End Open. This album was yet again a fairly radical change from the sound of its preceding album, albeit featuring the same musicians as II. This would have been Hardline's last hurrah, had it not been for one Alessandro Del Vecchio. A fan of the band, he wrote several songs with Johnny's voice in mind and, after recording some demos, sent them to him. Johnny liked the sound of these and immediately got to work writing another album, featuring Del Vecchio on keyboards. This album, Danger Zone, was released in mid-2012.

Johnny announced some time after Danger Zone's release that Hardline would be more active from then on. True to his word, a new album was released in October 2016—Human Nature sees Hardline dabble in power metal.

Overall, Hardline is a good band that was unfortunate enough to form at a time when their style of music was on the way out, and no one can properly say how far they would have gotten had they released their first album in the 80s.

Compare Danger Danger, another similar band that came in during the tail end of the Hair Metal scene and later had a member do music for the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Current Members:

  • Johnny Gioeli - Vocals
  • Josh Ramos - Guitar
  • Anna Portalupi - Bass
  • Francesco Jovino - Drums
  • Alessandro Del Vecchio - Keyboard

Discography:

  • 1992 - Double Eclipse
  • 2002 - II
  • 2009 - Leaving The End Open
  • 2012 - Danger Zone
  • 2016 - Human Nature
  • 2019 - Life
  • 2021 - Heart, Mind and Soul

Tropes Applying to Hardline and their music

  • Badass Boast: All of "Danger Zone".
  • The Cameo: Jun Senoue plays the guitar solo in "Before This".
  • Cover Version / Covered Up: "Hot Cherie" was originally recorded in 1983 by Danny Spanos.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Not in their songs so much, but Johnny can get quite potty-mouthed in concerts, as proven by the interludes in Live at the Gods.
  • Green Aesop: "Where Will We Go From Here", with some less than optimistic undertones.
  • Hair Metal: Double Eclipse. Their second and third albums had strains of this, especially in their ballads, but they generally went in a different direction. Their fourth album returns to this, but does it in a more modern style.
  • Hard Rock: Their first album was pretty much standard '80s fare, somewhere between Hard Rock and Hair Metal. Their later albums had more metallic riffs and moved away from this.
  • Intercourse with You: A lot of songs on their first album had this theme, for example "Hot Cherie" and "Dr. Love". Their later albums had considerably less of this.
  • Love Martyr: Seems to be the subject of "Trapped in Muddy Waters".
    Here We Go Again!, still got the blues in me
    You dried me to the bone
    I got scars on my soul, it reigns in my hands
    You stole my endless soul
    I'm still trapped in muddy waters for you
  • Power Ballad: There's at least one every album, such as "In the Hands of Time", "Face the Night" and "Human Nature".
  • Surprisingly Gentle Song: "This Gift", from II, has lyrics that would feel right at home in a church hymnal.
    • "Take You Home", from Human Nature. While lyrically a sad Break Up Song, it has only Johnny on vocals and Alessandro on piano.

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