It’s often said that the last one in is the first one out, but there are exceptions to every rule. Case in point: the guys in FireHouse, who dropped their hit debut album in the waning months of the hair metal era, yet managed to avoid the plummeting popularity that awaited most of their peers. In fact, although they’ll probably always be best-known for their earliest material, they kept on cranking out Top 40 hits well into the ’90s.
The group’s story begins in Richmond, Virginia in the early ’80s, when guitarist Bill Leverty met drummer Michael Foster at an audition for Leverty’s band White Heat. After Foster got the gig, the two made a habit of scouting local clubs, and this steady exposure to other Richmond-area talent paid off when they caught a show by a band called Maxx Warrior. Impressed with singer C.J. Snare, Leverty and Foster came away determined to add him to the White Heat lineup; after hearing about Maxx Warrior’s breakup, they did just that, also recruiting bassist Perry Richardson in the bargain.
With their personnel in place, the new-look White Heat really started hitting the grindstone, writing new material while gigging hard and looking for any way to reach out and grab their big break instead of waiting for it to happen. One fateful gamble paid off when Leverty made his way backstage at a show on Bon Jovi‘s Slippery When Wet tour and didn’t miss an opportunity to pass along a demo tape, along with some band swag — and Jon Bon Jovi not only listened, but became one of the group’s avid early supporters, offering them notes on everything from their original material to their stage show.
Why Firehouse Had to Change Their Band Name
The group made another helpful connection when they traveled to Los Angeles to record a ten-song demo, hiring former Vinnie Vincent Invasion/future Slaughter members Mark Slaughter and Dana Strum to produce the recordings. The duo didn’t just sit behind the boards; instead, they offered songwriting assistance, helping punch up the material that eventually caught the ears of A&R execs at multiple labels. The group decided to go with Epic, and with that — after roughly half a decade of building sweat equity — White Heat had a record deal.
Unfortunately, they soon learned they couldn’t be White Heat much longer.
“There’s a band in Canada called White Heat and they wanted $25,000 to allow us to use the name,” Snare later told the Charlotte Observer. “We decided, along with the record company, that we could spend that money on something else to help the band more. So we became FireHouse.”
With their new name squared away, the freshly rechristened FireHouse got back to the business of making music. Although Epic was impressed enough with the band’s demo to offer them a deal, the label still thought the recordings needed some work, so they hired producer Dave Prater, a former Santana drummer who was hungry for his big production breakout after helming sessions for Glen Burtnik and Diving for Pearls. He’d later go on to earn additional cred after producing for Dream Theater, but when he entered the studio with FireHouse, he was still just starting out.
Prater’s relative lack of experience didn’t stop him from having a strong vision for the songs that would become the FireHouse LP, which was released on Sept. 11, 1990. Fortunately, it was a vision that aligned with everything the members of the band wanted.
“Prater let me record the guitar tracks I wanted to. There are four rhythm guitar tracks for each song,” Leverty told the Charlotte Observer. “I put a triple track to all the leads. We got a big sound that way.”
“We wanted the big rock sound,” added Snare. “We wanted the drums to sound like hand grenades in the boys’ gym, vocals to be a major gang chorus, and guitars that’ll cut your head off with that nice, low end thumping. And he did all that.”
Although it’s true that there’s a certain amount of standard rock star hyperbole in those words, it’s also true that you can hear everything Prater and the band were going for in FireHouse‘s production. A largely uptempo set of songs, it exemplifies late ’80s AOR production to a tee, supported by a not-insubstantial assortment of memorable melodies and well-crafted hooks.
Read More: The 11 Best Hair Metal Debut Albums, Ranked
The record’s second single, “Don’t Treat Me Bad,” was one of the last of its kind to crack the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, and for good reason — those crunchy guitars and hand-grenade drums are offset by a pure pop chorus that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Cheap Trick record. Once DJ Cory Draper at KBER in Salt Lake City slipped it into the rotation, FireHouse (and FireHouse) started taking off, just in time for a tour with Warrant and Trixter.
They lucked out with a rock hit that crossed over to the pop charts, but like a lot of bands in their peer group, they really struck gold with the record’s big ballad, “Love of a Lifetime.” Released in the summer of 1991, it soared all the way to No. 5 on the Hot 100, and although the band didn’t know it yet, it pointed the way to the sound that would keep them in the Top 40 well into the mid-’90s, long after many other rock acts had lost their record deals. In the moment, they were mostly concerned with making sure people knew they weren’t strictly balladeers.
Watch Firehouse Perform ‘Love of a Lifetime’
“That is a side of us — it’s just that we didn’t want to hurt our credibility,” Snare told the Associated Press. “We’re a heavy band at heart and we didn’t want to stick a ballad in the obligatory third or fourth spot on the record. We wanted people to see us as a straight-ahead rock band and think that this is another side of us, so we put it closer to the end of the record.”
Ultimately, FireHouse went double platinum, making it one of the bigger successes from a new rock band during a year when the format was headed for massive change. Yet even in the midst of all that early excitement, the band seemed to keep consistently level heads.
Saying “we made it to the starting line,” Leverty made it clear he harbored no illusions about the band’s standing in the music business — or what it would take to build on it. “Every day you get up, you try to do something that will further your career,” he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “When you go to bed, don’t say ‘I didn’t move forward today. I didn’t write a song today. I didn’t work on the business of my band today.’ It’s important to be an artist, but it’s also a business. It’s really important to keep a good balance of both.”
How Firehouse Survived the Grunge Explosion
That attitude served FireHouse well in the aftermath of the grunge explosion. Without being overly reductive about it, they understood what worked on their debut, and tried to refine their sound over time rather than bending over backward to make concessions to trends. Somewhat surprisingly, it worked; as previously mentioned, FireHouse’s string of Top 40 hits continued with the No. 8 single “When I Look Into Your Eyes,” from 1992’s Hold Your Fire, and the No. 26 “I Live My Life for You,” from 1995’s 3.
FireHouse’s chart luck eventually ran out, but by that point, they’d built up enough of a global following that they were able to continue touring and releasing records without major-label assistance. Although it’s been more than 20 years since they released a studio album of new material — and despite the loss of C.J. Snare, who died in April of 2024, several years after being diagnosed with colon cancer — they remain active today, performing with new vocalist and former American Idol contestant Nate Peck.
In fact, Peck’s arrival led to the first new FireHouse single in years, “Mighty Fine Lady,” which was released in the summer of 2025. The product of a songwriting process that started with Leverty sending Peck a riff and continued with Peck recording his vocals into an iPhone, it served as a reminder that even if their days of platinum sales are behind them, the band’s story isn’t finished yet.
“The guy’s just got all these really cool ideas and everything, and the natural way that he sings without even trying just has that bright tone that C.J. was kind of known for,” Leverty said of Peck. “Nate’s got it. To me, it’s magic. And we’re super fortunate to work with him.”
Watch Firehouse Perform ‘Don’t Treat Me Bad’
Hair Metal Bands That Belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The maligned subgenre deserves better.
Gallery Credit: Bryan Rolli
