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Survivor (formed in 1978) is an American hard rock band best known for its heavy-hitting arena-filling sound and double platinum single “Eye of the Tiger”, hailing from Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Founded by former Ides of March guitarist and keyboardist Jim Peterik in 1978, the guitarist subsequently invited guitarist Drankie Sullivan and lead singer Dave Bickler to record an eponymous debut album. Featuring session musician Dennis Johnson on bass and Gary Smith on drums, the 1980 album spawned the Chicago hit single “Somewhere in America”. Bass player Stephen Ellis and drummer Marc Droubay were subsequently added to the lineup for the supporting tour and future releases.

Survivor earned their breakthrough upon being asked by Sylvester Stallone to write the soundtrack to “Rocky III” and returned with the smash hit single “Eye of the Tiger”. With arena-filling sound, a seductive opening riff and climatic prowess, the record spent six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and later won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance. The album “Eye of the Tiger” followed later in 1982, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and producing the singles “Ever Since the World Began” and “American Heartbeat”.

Unable to promote their third album due to lead singer Bickler’s vocal perils, 1983’s “Caught in the Game” was a commercial disappointment, peaking at No. 82 on the Billboard 200. By early 1984 Bickler was ordered to continue resting his throat, which resulted in him being replaced by former Target and Cobra frontman Jimi Jamison. The new singer's debut “The Moment of Truth” arrived in 1984, known as the theme song to the film “The Karate Kid”. Peaking at No. 63 the single paved the way for Jamison’s debut album “Vital Signs” in August 1984, representing a resurgence in popularity for the group. Spawning the No. 13 single “I Can’t Hold Back”, No. 8 “High on You”, and No. 4 “The Search is Over”, the record marked Survivor’s reluctance to become a one-hit-wonder band.

A year later the band contributed the song “Burning Heart” to the “Rocky IV” soundtrack, which later peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The full-length “When Seconds Count” followed in 1986, led by the single “Is This Love”, after which bassist Ellis developed a stomach ulcer and needed roadie Rocko Reedy to fill-in. A year later Survivor’s seventh studio album “Too Hot to Sleep” was released, which the band supported with an unusually modest tour. Following the album's release Survivor took a hiatus, however, ultimately returned in 2006 to issue their eighth full-length album “Reach”.

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‘Eye of the Tiger’ may be one of the biggest rock tracks of all time, but any suggestion that Survivor are one-hit wonders should be give short shrift. During their eighties heyday, they notched up a further four top ten hits in their native U.S., including ‘Burning Heart’, ‘The Search Is Over’, ‘High on You’ and ‘Is This Love’, and continued in the face of some serious adversity, including the flop of 1983 Eye of the Tiger follow-up Caught in the Game (it peaked at number eighty-two in the U.S.) and an apparent revolving door policy as far as the lineup was concerned, with Jimi Jamison’s replacement of Dave Bickler as frontman the most obvious upheaval. After a brief split running from 1989 to 1993, the band have been recording and touring ever since, although constant changes to the lineup have made the former a fraught process; a legal battle over who actually owned the rights to the name Survivor dominated proceedings for the band through the nineties, and as a result, only 2006’s Reach is an official post-eighties release by the band. Presently, the band are touring with both Bickler and Jamison, allowing them to tap into both singers’ share of their expansive back catalogue, which will no doubt prove a serious treat for fans; they’ve lined up a slew of dates in the UK for October, so you can find out for yourself then.

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The photo shown is NOT the current line-up. Dave Bikler is NOT currently performing with Survivor, or Walter-the keyboard player.

I went to Epcot at Disney World and saw them perform every show- great sounding band! Cameron the lead singer currently working with them is AMAZING- great VOICE!! Yes he could dance a bit more- but what a VOICE !!!

The BAND sounded great and the keyboard solo with Frankie was a definite HIGHLIGHT !!

Hoping to catch them in Florida again in 2019!!

SONGKICK- FIX THE PHOTO- super misleading to people....

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About survivor.

Survivor is an American rock band formed in Chicago in 1978 by guitarist/songwriter Jim Peterik. The band achieved its greatest success in the 1980s, producing many charting singles, especially in the United States. The band is best known for its double platinum-certified 1982 hit "Eye of the Tiger", the theme song for the motion picture Rocky III (US number 1 for 6 weeks). Singles like "Burning Heart" (US number 2), "The Search Is Over" (US number 4), "High on You" (US number 8), "Is This Love" (US number 9) and "I Can't Hold Back" (US number 13) continued to chart in the mid-1980s. The band tweaked its musical direction in 1988 with the release of the slightly heavier Too Hot to Sleep, but due to lackluster promotion the album barely reached the Billboard 200 in the United States. Because of this and tension between founding members, the band split. Singer Jimi Jamison later toured as "Survivor" in the mid-1990s without the permission of the rest of the band, but reunited with guitarist Frankie Sullivan in 2000. The band then released Reach in 2006, but Jamison left again after its release and was replaced by singer Robin McAuley. Survivor continued to tour with McAuley into 2011 until Jamison returned later that year. In April 2013 it was announced by the band's official media sources that guitarist Frankie Sullivan had reunited the current Survivor line-up with original singer Dave Bickler, with the band now having their two most popular vocalists together for the next tour, Bickler and Jamison. On August 31, 2014 Jamison died of what was believed to be a heart attack in his home in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 63. His autopsy released on November 11, 2014 revealed the actual cause of death to be a hemorrhagic brain stroke, with "acute methamphetamine intoxication contributing".

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Survivor Concert Setlists & Tour Dates

• Survivor ( band of “Eye of the Tiger” fame )
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Survivor at Golden Nugget Lake Charles, Lake Charles, LA, USA

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Survivor at Xcite Center, Parx Casino, Bensalem, PA, USA

Survivor at the theatre at grand prairie, grand prairie, tx, usa, survivor at bourbon & bacon fest 2019, survivor at milwaukee county zoo, milwaukee, wi, usa.

• Chevy Nights
• Broken Promises
• High on You
• Whatever It Takes
• Take You on a Saturday
• Guitar Solo
• The Search Is Over
• Nothing Can Shake Me (From Your Love)
• It's the Singer Not the Song
• I Can't Hold Back
• Eye of the Tiger

Survivor at The Country Club of Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls, SD, USA

Survivor at moondance jam 2019, survivor at cache valley cruise-in 2019.

• Caught in the Game
• Popular Girl
• Keyboard Solo / Guitar Duet

Survivor at Batavia Downs Gaming & Hotel, Batavia, NY, USA

• Didn't Know It Was Love

Survivor at Magic City Casino, Miami, FL, USA

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• Eye of the Tiger ( 136 )
• High on You ( 111 )
• I Can't Hold Back ( 105 )
• The Search Is Over ( 93 )
• Broken Promises ( 53 )

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Flashback: Survivor Perform ‘Eye of the Tiger’ With Both Lead Singers in 2013

• By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

Rumors of a Van Halen super tour with both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar fronting the band circulated frequently during the past few years, often egged on by Hagar himself . But it wasn’t until after Eddie Van Halen died that the world learned that the trek was actually in the planning stages just about two years ago.

“At a certain point it turned into what we joked as the Kitchen Sink Tour,” Wolfgang Van Halen recently told Howard Stern. “Cause after [my dad] was OK with that arrangement, it was like, ‘Fuck, let’s get Dave and Hagar and even [Gary] Cherone , and let’s just do a giant fucking awesome thing.’ … It just didn’t pan out, unfortunately. It would have been insane.”

A tour like that would have been almost without precedent in rock history. Black Sabbath never played a show where Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio both fronted the band. Original Fleetwood Mac singer-guitarist Peter Green never made it onstage near Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. And Journey fans are still waiting to see Steve Perry sing alongside Arnel Pineda.

Foreigner did bring out original singer Lou Gramm to sing alongside replacement vocalist Kelly Hansen for a handful of 40th-anniversary gigs in 2017, and Genesis brought out Peter Gabriel for one-off appearances with Phil Collins in 1978 and 1982 , but neither of these situations led to an actual tour.

One of the only times a band managed to tour with singers from two eras took place in 2013 when Survivor went out with Dave Bickler and Jimi Jamison. The group started with Bickler in 1978 and he sang their 1982 breakthrough hit “Eye of the Tiger” from the Rocky III soundtrack, but just months after the song hit, he had to step aside due to vocal issues. He was replaced by Jamison and the band went on to land hits with “The Moment of Truth” from The Karate Kid, “Burning Heart” from Rocky IV, and the power ballads “I Can’t Hold Back” and “The Search Is Over.”

Survivor went on hiatus in 1989, though Jamison continued to work and in 1993 he recorded the iconic Baywatch theme song “I’m Always Here.” That same year, Survivor re-formed with Bickler again in the front. They kicked him out in 2000 and brought Jamison back, only to part ways with him yet again in 2006. It was a ridiculous game of musical chairs, and in 2013 the band decided to simply give the fans what they always wanted and tour with both singers.

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“Our fans are the best and I can’t think of a better way to give them our best,” said Survivor guitarist Frankie Sullivan. “With this line-up, and both Dave and Jimi in the band, we can perform all of our hits.”

Here’s video of the band playing “Eye of the Tiger” with both Bickler and Jamison at the Sweden Rock Festival on June 6th, 2013. This is Bickler’s big moment, but he graciously lets Jamison sing the second verse and they lock voices for the chorus. Despite all their years of fronting the band separately, they were actually friends and had a blast playing these shows.

Tragically, the grand Survivor reunion ended on September 1st, 2014, when Jamison died of a hemorrhagic brain stroke caused at least partially by methamphetamine use. They carried on briefly with Bickler and newcomer Cameron Barton, but they let Bickler go in 2016. Barton is now their sole lead singer.

A Van Halen tour with Roth and Hagar would have been a bigger deal than the Survivor tour with Bickler and Jamison by a magnitude of about 10,000. Wolfgang Van Halen has ruled out carrying on the family band, but a show paying tribute to his father is possible at some point down the line. If that happens, fans might finally see Roth and Hagar together on the same stage after all these decades of waiting.

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Supernatural's 15 Greatest Needle Drops

From Bob Dylan to Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Winchesters have never been short of good tunes.

October 5, 2020

Stephen Bishop and Survivor's Jim Peterik Look Ahead

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August 30, 2019

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Ellis was a member of the rock band during their '80s heyday.

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House Republicans blast "Eye of the Tiger" and "Taking Care of Business" in pre-health care vote pep rally

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June 28, 2016

Survivor threatens Mike Huckabee and Kim Davis with lawsuit over use of "Eye of the Tiger"

"I would not grant her the rights to use Charmin!"

September 9, 2015

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“We begged Stallone to send us the whole movie. When he did, we were blown away”: Survivor were just another struggling AOR band. And then Rocky III and Eye Of The Tiger changed everything

Their killer theme for Rocky III made stars of soft rockers Survivor – but their tale of heroism and heartbreak had no Hollywood ending

It happened all of 28 years ago, but Jim Peterik remembers with perfect clarity the moment he knew that he’d created an American anthem and rock classic.

Eye Of The Tiger , written by keyboard player Peterik with guitarist Frankie Sullivan for their band Survivor , had just hit US radio. And as the theme song for Rocky III , the new instalment in Sylvester Stallone’s hugely successful movie franchise, it was picking up heavy airplay.

One week after the four members of Survivor attended the film’s Hollywood premiere, Peterik saw a public screening of Rocky III at his local cinema in a Chicago suburb.

“The place was packed,” he recalls. “As soon as that guitar riff started, the whole audience was cheering! I got chills all over. 

“The premiere was cool – the red carpet, the cameras flashing,” he continues. “But in that little theatre in my hometown, when everybody went crazy as they heard that song, that’s when I knew we had a smash on our hands, something that touched the people. I thought, holy crap, we got something here!”

Peterik’s instincts were correct. In the summer of 1982, Eye Of The Tiger topped the US chart for six weeks and also hit No.1 in the UK. It made Survivor a household name throughout the world and remains one of the most popular rock songs of all time. Across the years it has served as the soundtrack to countless boxing matches and other sporting events, and is currently ranked in the Top 50 most downloaded tracks in history.

As Jim Peterik proudly states: “That song is an amazing part of the Survivor story.” 

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And it is a story much like the Rocky saga to which this band is forever linked, a tale of heroism and heartbreak, triumph and failure, disaster and redemption.  Although, for Survivor, there was no Hollywood ending.

When Survivor formed in 1977, the first wave of American AOR music was flourishing, led by bands like Boston and Foreigner , whose debut produced Top 10 US hits in Feels Like The First Time and Cold As Ice . Inspired by the rock songs he was hearing on the radio, Jim Peterik formed a clear and simple vision for Survivor as “a great commercial rock band”.

At 26, Peterik was already a veteran of the music business. His first successful band, The Ides Of March, scored a US No.2 hit in 1970 with his song Vehicle , which at the time was the fastest-selling single ever released by the Warner Bros label. But with no follow-up hit, despite tours with Led Zeppelin and Neil Diamond, the band split in 1973. 

Peterik subsequently fronted three acts that went nowhere – Jim Peterik And The Chi-Town Hustlers, Jim Peterik And Shy Rhythm, and then, inevitably, The Jim Peterik Band. But after the latter’s album for Epic Records, Don’t Fight The Feeling , bombed in 1976, Jim found a kindred spirit in Frankie Sullivan, a hot guitar player and Peter Frampton lookalike.

Peterik had been lead vocalist in his previous bands, but he knew he was no match for Boston’s Brad Delp or Foreigner’s Lou Gramm, so he called up Dave Bickler, a singer he’d met while working a lucrative sideline cutting jingles for Schlitz Malt Liquor and McDonald’s. To complete the new group, he poached drummer Gary Smith and bassist Dennis Keith Johnson from fellow Chicago act Chase. “Those guys had chops up the wazoo!” Peterik says.

This quartet played two club shows as The Jim Peterik Band before choosing a new name. Electric Warrior was considered, until Peterik remembered a quote from the liner notes on the Don’t Fight The Feeling album: ‘Jim Peterik is a survivor.’ As the man himself notes, “That phrase stuck with me, and it sounded right for the band.”

Survivor quickly built a following on the Chicago club scene. “When we played people were going nuts,” Peterik recalls. “Dave was up there just killing them, and Frankie was every girls’ favourite, the boy toy.”

But the band’s first demo tape, financed by Peterik’s McDonald’s jobs, attracted zero interest from record companies until, in 1978, a friend of a friend passed it on to John Kalodner at Atlantic Records. Kalodner, who was instrumental in the renaissance of both Aerosmith and Whitesnake in the late 80s, had earlier signed Foreigner to the label. He brokered a deal for Survivor with Scotti Brothers Records, an independent company distributed by Atlantic.

In 1979 the band began recording their debut album in Chicago with producer Barry Mraz of Styx fame, but after one month’s work Kalodner ditched Mraz. “Barry was too fussy,” Peterik explains. “It wasn’t rock’n’roll.”

Relocating to LA, Survivor met with a number of big-name producers, including Queen ’s favourite Roy Thomas Baker, who arrived with a crate of champagne, and Ron Nevison, who had worked as engineer on The Who’s Quadrophenia and Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti and as producer for UFO and The Babys. Nevison got the job after taking Peterik for a spin in his Rolls-Royce.

Peterik asked, “What kind of sound do you envision?” He replied with a single word: “BIG!”

“We had a ball making that record,” Peterik recalls fondly. But to John Kalodner’s ears Nevison’s production was nowhere near big enough. Kalodner had the album remixed by Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock; the finished album, titled simply Survivor , was released in January 1980 and peaked at No.169 on the Billboard chart. “It put us on the radar,” Peterik says.

There were some fine songs on the album – Somewhere In America and 20/20 especially – but when Survivor returned to Chicago after tours with Kansas, Heart and others, Peterik sensed it was time for a change.

“Our rhythm section was almost too good, too complex,” he says. “We wanted somebody just to lay it down.”

Out went Smith and Johnson, and in came drummer Marc Droubay and bassist Stephan Ellis. The latter was discovered by Peterik during a trip to LA with Fergie Fredriksen, the singer for Chicago pomp rock band Trillion who later joined Toto. “Fergie took me to Flipper’s Rollerdisco,” remembers Peterik. “All these hot chicks were rollerskating around a band playing in the middle of the rink. And the bass player was astounding! That was Stephan.”

Peterik remembers that first rehearsal with Ellis and Droubay as a landmark for Survivor. “I counted in four and the sound I heard was the fucking shit – that was Survivor! It was punchy, and it had a particular signature.”

With their second album Premonition (1981), Survivor took a great leap forward, both artistically and commercially. With Scotti Brothers now affiliated to Epic Records, John Kalodner was out of the picture, leaving Peterik and Sullivan to produce the album at Rumbo Recorders, the LA studio owned by pop duo Captain & Tennille, where Guns N’ Roses would later record Appetite For Destruction .

Peterik and Sullivan’s writing partnership was really coming along. Chevy Nights was classically all-American tough-guy hard rock, Light Of A Thousand Smiles an elegant, Journey-inspired ballad, and most important of all was Poor Man’s Son , a gritty blue-collar anthem that gave Survivor their first Top 40 hit in the US, and caught the attention of the man who would transform the band’s career.

Jim Peterik played the message on his answering machine several times before he believed what he was hearing. “Hey Jim!” said a voice in a thick New York Italian-American accent. “Gimme a call, Sylvester Stallone.”

Immediately, Peterik rang Frankie Sullivan. “Frankie didn’t believe it either,” Peterik laughs. “But he came straight to my house, and we made that call together.”

Stallone explained that he’d heard about Survivor from Tony Scotti, the co-founder of Scotti Brothers, who had also signed Stallone’s brother Frank. And Stallone loved Poor Man’s Son .

He told Peterik and Sullivan, “That’s the sound I want for this new movie, Rocky III . I want something for the kids, something fresh and modern, something with a pulse! Can you do it?”

A breathless Peterik replied, “Are you kidding? Damn right we can!”

The following day, Peterik and Sullivan received a tape featuring three minutes of action sequences from the movie, with Stallone and co-star Mr T duking it out in the ring to the sound of Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust .

“It was amazing,” Peterik purrs. “The energy!”

He and Sullivan had to replace the Queen track with something that would match that energy. The answer – a thudding staccato riff – came to Peterik while he was driving.

“I saw the punches in my mind: Bam! Bam bam bam! Bam bam bam! Bam bam BAM!”

The duo knew they were on the right track, but to fully capture the spirit of the movie, they needed to see more than three minutes of fight footage.

Peterik explains: “We needed dialogue. We begged Stallone to send us the whole movie. And when he did, we were blown away.”

By July 1982, Eye Of The Tiger was the most popular song in America and Survivor were rock’s hottest ‘new’ band.

For Peterik, there is one memory from that time that he cherishes above all others. When he was dining at Pizza Hut, Eye Of The Tiger was played on the restaurant’s jukebox and a five year-old girl jumped out of her seat, exclaiming to her parents, “They’re playing my song!”

However, even at the moment of their greatest success, there were doubts eating away at Survivor. As Peterik remembers, “We still kind of felt like underdogs. We had a No.1 record, but we were on the road opening up for REO Speedwagon , and we were getting paid $7,000 a night and they were getting $70,000! Because our manager handled both bands, we couldn’t say too much about it, but Survivor was responsible for a huge amount of ticket sales on that tour.”

Worse was to follow. During the REO tour, Dave Bickler began experiencing problems with his voice. Bickler was a great singer, and was also the most high-profile member of Survivor, the guy in the beret (he was, says Peterik, “follically-challenged”) from the Eye Of The Tiger video.

But as Peterik admits: “That tour did him in. The style of singing, the lifestyle – it all added up.” The ‘lifestyle’ Peterik euphemistically refers to revolved around The Dungeon, a sort of travelling gentlemen’s club bankrolled by REO. After every concert, a party was staged in a private room at REO’s designated hotel, and as Peterik notes: “That’s where the debauchery took place.”

By the end of the tour, Bickler had developed nodules on his throat. For Survivor, and Bickler especially, it was a disaster. The band’s third album, also titled Eye Of The Tiger , had risen to No.2 on the US chart and produced another hit single in the classic American Heartbeat . But when Survivor began work on follow-up Caught In The Game , it was evident that Bickler wasn’t up to the job.

Peterik and Sullivan did what they could to cover for Bickler. “We made the keys low,” Peterik reveals. “The melodies weren’t too stretched out.”

But when Caught In The Game was released in 1983, Survivor were unable to tour because Bickler required surgery. The album stalled at No.82 on the US chart, and as Peterik says: “The writing was on the wall.” He adds: “It was very difficult. Dave needed more time than we could give him. But I’ll never forget the way he handled it. It wasn’t, ‘Damn you guys!’ He was a gentleman.”

In 1984, Survivor appointed a new singer in Mississippi-born Jimi Jamison, formerly of Target and Cobra. As Jim Peterik reflects: “It was a major turning point. Very few bands can survive a lead singer transplant. Jimi had the most magical voice I’ve ever heard!”

At his audition, Jamison was presented with a new Survivor song, power ballad, The Search Is Over . Peterik: “The first time we tried it, Jimi was struggling with the chorus. He said: ‘No! Give a man half a chance!’ Next time around he sang the shit out of it, and to hear him I knew it was a hit.”

Again, Peterik’s gut instinct proved right. With Jamison delivering a career-best performance, Survivor recorded what Peterik considers their greatest album, Vital Signs . It climbed to No.16 on the Billboard chart in 1985 and yielded three hit singles. And then, with Survivor’s comeback secured, came another call from Stallone. “We got Rocky IV ,” he said. “You wanna do it again?”

Peterik laughs: “What do you think we’re gonna say?” Inspired by the movie’s Cold War-era plotline, in which Rocky fought Russian boxer Ivan Drago. Peterik wrote: ‘ Is it East versus West, or man against man? ’ Sullivan named the song Burning Heart .

Musically, it was simple: Eye Of The Tiger Part II. “We wanted that same pulse,” Peterik says. “We had a formula and we weren’t gonna change it.”

And it worked. In February 1986, Burning Heart reached No.2 in the US. Like Rocky himself, Survivor had again triumphed against the odds. But the taste of victory would be fleeting; their next album, When Seconds Count , only reached No.49. For Peterik, it was the absence of Burning Heart – which was tied exclusively to the Rocky IV soundtrack album – that killed …Seconds … . “If Burning Heart had been on that record it would’ve sold a zillion copies.”

Droubay and Ellis moved on, the core trio of Peterik, Sullivan and Jamison mustering one last great album, Too Hot To Sleep . But when that bombed, the Survivor story descended into farce.

In 1990 the band was officially declared ‘on hiatus’. Jamison began working as a solo artist, releasing the album When Love Comes Down and then, in 1994, I’m Always Here , the theme to mega-successful TV series Baywatch . But to Peterik’s chagrin, Jamison also started touring with a new band billed as Jimi Jamison’s Survivor. “Frankie and I were very upset with that,” Peterik says. “So we got together with Dave Bickler and he became the singer of a new Survivor that was really the old Survivor!”

Peterik laughs at the absurdity of that statement, but the ill feeling between the former bandmates led him, with Sullivan, to file a lawsuit against Jamison contesting ownership of the Survivor name. A lengthy legal battle ended in 1999 with a judge surprisingly ruling in favour of Jamison.

But by this point, Peterik had long since given up the fight. On July 4, 1996, he walked out on the band he had formed almost 20 years earlier, due to “too much tension between Frankie and myself”.

More bizarre twists would follow. In 2000, Sullivan fired Bickler and joined Jamison’s Survivor. And in 2006, seven years after winning the rights to the band’s name, Jamison himself quit, to be replaced by former Grand Prix/MSG singer Robin McAuley. Peterik and Jamison subsequently reconciled: Peterik produced the singer’s 2008 album Crossroad Moment , and both Jamison and Bickler appeared in Peterik’s rock revue show World Stage . Sadly, Jimi Jamison passed away in 2014 following a stroke.

In recent years, Jim Peterik has enjoyed a busy and varied career as a writer, producer and musican. He’s released albums with his AOR band Pride Of Lions, Ides Of March (who reformed in 1990) and under his own name, while January sees the release of a new album from Jim Peterik & The World Stage, Roots & Shoots Vol.1 . But after all this time, it is the music and the memories he made with Survivor that sit closest to his heart.

“We had some good times,” he says. “I remember the shows, watching Frankie with his wireless guitar out on the catwalk, the whole arena just rocking out, and feeling so proud that I was a part of this band. The legacy of Survivor is the songs and the message in those songs. The lyrics were always very positive, kind of motivational. We stood for the good fight.”

Ultimately, Jim Peterik and Survivor will always be remembered for one song above all others. And for Peterik, it is a song that keeps on giving.

“I got caught speeding, and when the cop stopped me I said: ‘Well, not that this would influence you at all, officer, but I’m the guy who wrote Eye Of The Tiger .’ And God bless him, he let me off with a warning!”  

Originally published in Classic Rock Presents AOR issue 1

Freelance writer for Classic Rock since 2005, Paul Elliott has worked for leading music titles since 1985, including Sounds, Kerrang!, MOJO and Q . He is the author of several books including the first biography of Guns N’ Roses and the autobiography of bodyguard-to-the-stars Danny Francis. He has written liner notes for classic album reissues by artists such as Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy and Kiss, and currently works as content editor for Total Guitar . He lives in Bath - of which David Coverdale recently said: “How very Roman of you!”

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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Announces 2024 Inductees: Cher, Jimmy Buffett, Mary J. Blige, Dave Matthews, Peter Frampton, Foreigner and More

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has revealed the names of 16 artists or other musical figures who will be inducted in 2024. It’s a diverse list that stretches from R&B/rock pioneer Big Mama Thornton to pop superstars Cher and Dionne Warwick, and from ’70s-rooted rockers like Peter Frampton, Foreigner and Ozzy Osbourne to ’90s icons the Dave Matthews Band , Mary J. Blige and A Tribe Called Quest.

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For the first time, the inductees were announced as part of an “American Idol” broadcast, during a Sunday night episode themed around the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Following is the complete list of inductees for 2024:

Performer Category:

• Mary J. Blige 
• Dave Matthews Band
• Peter Frampton
• Kool & The Gang
• Ozzy Osbourne
• A Tribe Called Quest

Musical Influence Award:

• Alexis Korner
• John Mayall
• Big Mama Thornton

Musical Excellence Award:

• Jimmy Buffett
• Dionne Warwick
• Norman Whitfield

Ahmet Ertegun Award :

• Suzanne de Passe

The eight “performer” inductees are the ones selected by a ballot sent out to the Hall’s voters after the 15 nominees were announced on Feb. 10.

That leaves seven nominees from this year who will have to wait for another crack at getting in: Mariah Carey, Jane’s Addiction, Sade, Sinead O’Connor, Oasis, Lenny Kravitz and the duo Eric B. and Rakim.

One question mark now is how Cher will react to her induction. Just last December, in an appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” she said, “You know what, I wouldn’t be in it now if they gave me a million dollars … I’m never going to change my mind. They can just go you-know-what themselves.” At that point, though, she had never received so much as a nomination, so the odds favor her changing her tune on that vow, now that she got voted in her first time actually appearing on the ballot.

Five out of the eight voted in this year were first-time nominees: Osbourne, Cher, Frampton, Foreigner and Kool & the Gang.

A Tribe Called Quest got in on the hip-hop collective’s third time on the ballot (and their third year in a row being nominated). Blige and Matthews both got in on their second try (she was previously up for it in 2021; DMB had a prior nod in 2020).

Frampton, for his part, beyond the merits of having had one of the biggest albums of all time, may be a sentimental favorite this year, due to his being in the acknowledged twilight of his musical career. He has been out on a farewell tour off and on since 2019, following his diagnosis with the debilitating disease inclusion body myositis in 2015. The rocker just wrapped up the last round of dates he had scheduled, although he has not said there won’t be more.

Osbourne becomes a second-time inductee this year; his group Black Sabbath was voted in all the way back in 2006. Sometimes there is contention over whether singers who are already in the Hall of Fame, as group members, really need to be pushed to the front of the line as solo artists, too, ahead of other contenders. In any case, voters decided that Osbourne’s post-Sabbath career established him as one of rock’s major icons, even apart from his initial round of influence and success as a frontman.

De Passe is getting her flowers for a career that included a long stint as one of the major players at Motown, developing the Jackson 5 into superstars and signing the Commodores, among other triumphs, before becoming a film and TV executive. She was profiled by Variety about her long and wide-ranging career in 2022.

Motown is also being celebrated with the induction of Whitfield, a songwriter and producer whose astonishing catalog of hits in the ’60s and ’70s included “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “Just My Imagination,” “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” “War,” “Ball of Confusion,” “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” “I Wish It Would Rain,” “I Can’t Get Next to You” and “Car Wash.” He died in 2008.

Coming on under the “musical influences” umbrella, Alexis Korner may be the name among this year’s inductees that is least known to contemporary music fans. He was a major player in the British blues scene of the 1960s and became a popular broadcaster as well; he died in 1984 at age 55. With John Mayall also being selected by the committee for the same honor, it’s an unexpected banner year for British blues-rockers.

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The Dragonz reunite for first new track in 10 years: 'Thru the Fire'

The Survivor jury band broke up 10 years ago after Heroes vs. Villains, and is now back by popular demand.

California Dreams was better than Saved by the Bell. There, I said it.

It all seemed over for Survivor jury supergroup the Dragonz when the Heroes vs. Villains season came to a close in May 2010. While the band turned heads and attracted ears with their silky smooth jamz and breathtaking music video, once they returned from their international tour of Samoa, things broke down. An unplugged performance in New York City’s Times Square for EW’s Survivor Talk series timed to the season 20 finale was mysteriously canceled as rumors swirled around the band’s mercurial ways.

Had egos and competing agendas driven the band members — Benjamin “Coach” Wade, Courtney Yates, and J.T. Thomas — apart? Was the trio chafing under the musical direction and Svengali-like presence of super-producer Norwood Cheek? Had outside influences — some fingers pointed at vocal coach Candice Cody for her domineering style in the recording studio — gotten the better of the band? Whatever the reason, the members all went their separate ways upon returning to the United States, and the Dragonz seemed doomed to become but a mere footnote in Survivor lore.

Yet EW’s recent oral history on the Dragonz and their tumultuous live-fast-and-die-young ride on the rock & roll rollercoaster — along with the never-before released full catalog of music finally seeing the light of day in the form of The Ponderosa EP — has ignited a second wave of Dragonz mania that has been sweeping the country… or, at the very least, Survivor Reddit message boards.

With interest in the band at an all-time high, and any possible old creative grudges finally laid to rest, the Dragonz have miraculously reformed! And EW is proud to be the platform as the band releases their first new song in more than a decade, “Thru the Fire.”

“For me, I felt like the Dragonz flame fluttered out way before our time was due,” explains Coach. “I'm the type of guy that likes to compartmentalize chapters in my life, and I felt like the one and only chapter of the Dragonz ended prematurely, like a chapter unfinished. So when I got the phone call from executive producer and manager of the Dragonz Norwood Cheek that he wanted to get back in the studio and produce a single and possibly remaster some of the old songs, I felt the dying light inside my breast come to life again.”

“Ever since the origins of the Dragonz in Samoa, I wanted to create more music with the band,” says Cheek. “But since we all live in different cities, it was difficult to find the inspiration since much of the original songs came about from myself, Coach, and Courtney hanging out. After reconnecting with Coach, Courtney, and J.T., I knew it was time for a new track.”

So how did the Dragonz record their new song with members spread out all across the country? “I wrote the music and recorded the basic tracks along with a vocal line and lyrics and sent to Coach to add lyrics, his vocals and trumpet,” says Cheek.

As for Coach, he couldn’t wait to get going. “I started working on lyrics immediately,” says the Dragonslayer, “and felt the old cheesy… I mean, poignant lines fuse in the deeper reaches of my brain almost immediately.”

Then it was time to get the other members involved. “I sent J.T. the beats per minute and asked him to record his exquisite beat box,” says Cheek, referencing Thomas’ previously acclaimed work on “Dragonz Rap.” “And then I shared the melody and lyrics with Courtney and she recorded her vocals — all on her phone.”

“Recording the new Dragonz song in the age of social distancing was obviously way less fun than when we were all together being silly at Ponderosa,” admits Yates, “but the technical process was essentially the same, at least for me. The boys put together a song, I sang my parts — one take into voice memo on my phone — Norwood does some kind of magic and we have a new song. Minimal effort on my part is a Dragonz signature, which also matches my Survivor legacy.”

For Coach, watching the song — and the band — come together was worth the 10-year wait: “Listening to J.T.'s beatbox and Courtney's supple pumpkin lyrics reminded me of an old shoe, or settling down in your favorite chair at home and snuggling up by the fire.” And Cheek may have even better news for devoted fans of the band: “Though certainly not the same as being together in a hut in the South Pacific, it was a fantastic collaborative effort and so great to reconnect. I’m now inspired to write more Dragonz songs!”

Ladies and gentlemen, click on the video at the top of the post to enjoy the exclusive worldwide debut of the Dragonz – “Thru the Fire.”

Related content:

• The Dragonz: An oral history of the greatest Survivor rock band ever
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