Nobody Said It Was Easy

Led by guitarist Stephen “Haggis” Harris, a former member of the Cult and Zodiac Mindwarp, the Four Horsemen’s songs were straightforward heavy blues-rock in an AC/DC meets Nazareth style. Indeed, “Rockin’ Is Ma Business” and “Hot Head” were both propelled by stolen AC/DC riffs (“Down Payment Blues” and “Rock ’n’ Roll Damnation,” respectively). The keys to this style, though, are a good drummer and a good singer, and the Four Horsemen had both. Frank Starr was a hoarse-voiced screecher in the Brian Johnson/Axl Rose mode, and Ken “Dimwit” Montgomery was a punk at heart who’d come up playing with Canadian hardcore legends D.O.A. and laid down one simple but powerful backbeat after another. Rick Rubin’s dry, minimalist production kept things simple and loose. The album wasn’t a hit, though, and they were dropped, drifting into oblivion after a long, painful series of lineup changes, stints in jail, and overdoses.