Men Without Hats
Posted by Thurston in British Pop, Men Without Hats, Mercury
Men Without Hats - a new wave band. At the core, Men Without Hats consisted of Ivan Doroschuk and his brother Stefan, with various other members, including a third brother, Colin Doroschuk, as well as Jeremy Arrobas, Tracy Howe, Roman Martyn, Mike Gabriel, Jean-Marc Pisapia, Lenny Pinkas, and Allan McCarthy. They emerged with an EP called Folk of the 80's (1980). Tracy Howe was only with the band briefly, but long enough to be credited on a reprint of Folk of the 80s, despite not appearing on it. Pisapia went on to form The Box, and later, Arrobas and Gabriel left to work with him for a while, eventually founding their own group, Isinglass.
A popular but unconfirmed tale is that the name originated from a misread announcement to one of their early gigs as "Men Without Pants" by a francophone MC in Montréal. Though that tale may be unconfirmed the fact is that Men Without Hats first started off in bars as Men With Hats, but they decided to change the name to Men Without Hats as they always threw their hats off at the end of a performance.
The band erupted onto the international scene a couple of years later with their worldwide hit single "The Safety Dance" from their debut album Rhythm of Youth. The song spent four weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and was also a major hit in the UK (#6), in Canada (#12), in what was West Germany (#2), in South Africa (#1), in Austria (#7), in Sweden (#3), in Norway (#3), and in Switzerland (#4). They charted once again with the title track from their 1987 album, Pop Goes the World, which reached #20 in the US, #3 in South Africa, and #1 in Austria and Sweden. The song was also featured in the movie Date with an Angel (1987), starring Phoebe Cates, Emmanuelle Béart and Michael E. Knight. The next album The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century, released in 1989 featured a cover of ABBA's song "SOS".
Their 1991 album Sideways, dominated by processed electric guitars instead of keyboards, revealed a dramatically different sound for the band. The album failed to attract an American label, and the band broke up.
Following the break-up, Ivan released a solo album, The Spell, in 1997. Stefan and Mack MacKenzie (of 3 O'Clock Train) released Ride of Glory, a post-modern Western-themed CD.
Stefan and Ivan regrouped to release No Hats Beyond This Point in 2003.
