Billy Steinberg with Billy Thermal and “I'm Gonna Follow You”

The lone, never-released album by Billy Thermal 
reissued in the years-after-the-fact digital age.

 

While the Plimsouls became Planet Records’ bread-and-butter with their MTV new-wave favorite, “A Million Miles Away,” (no, they didn’t do “Everywhere I’m Not,” that was Translator; no, they didn’t do “Chamber of Hellos,” that was Wire Train) no one remembers, or even heard of, their labelmates: Billy Thermal. (And if we are keeping track: Wire Train hailed from San Francisco and became labelmates on 415/Columbia Records with Romeo Void (“Never Say Never”) and Pearl Harbour and the Explosions (“Drivin’”) . . . no, “Tell that Girl to Shut Up” was Holly and the Italians out of Los Angeles on Epic, not Romeo Void.

Anyway, as with David Werner: Billy Thermal got their greatest exposure through another $1.00 cut-out bin compilation we bought: Sharp Cuts, issued by Planet Records. Also featured on the album was the MTV-era Single Bullet Theory with their new-wave favorite, “Keep It Tight.” (Yeah, we all bought one to go with that nifty Rock 80 compilation from CBS that had that featured David Werner.)

 

Regardless of Billy Thermal’s chilly reception: Steinberg’s “I’m Gonna Follow You” and “Precious Time,” which he wrote and sang lead vocals for on the band’s lone, unreleased album, became hit singles on Pat Benatar’s early ’80s albums. Even Linda Ronstadt knew a good album when she heard one: she had a new-wave hit with the band’s “How Do I Make You.”

Other songs in Billy Steinberg’s post-Billy Thermal catalog include Pat Benatar’s “Sex as a Weapon,” as well as songs for Cyndi Lauper and Whitney Houston, “Alone” by Heart, Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” and the Divinyls with “I Touch Myself.”

Billy Thermal’s bassist Bob Carlisle returned to the charts in 1997 with the worldwide Christian and secular crossover smash, “Butterfly Kisses.” Lead guitarist Craig Hull transitioned to a studio and recording career with Kim Carnes, Peter Cetera, Journey’s Steve Perry, and Dwight Twilley.

Musicians are lucky — and happy — if they get one hit single on their album, let alone three. And Billy Thermal died on the vine (the name is inspired by grape harvesting and wine making). Imagine the albums the band could have produced: they’d be bigger than the Beatles.

Billy Steinberg came to form a successful songwriting partnership with Tom Kelly, formerly with Dan Fogelberg’s late ’70s backup band, as well as a satellite member of Toto, touring and recording with the band into the late ’80s. Kelly’s songwriting prowess first entered the charts with Pat Benatar’s “Fire and Ice.” Together, as i-Ten (sometimes misnamed as I-10), the duo recorded the AOR-inflected album, Taking a Cold Look (1983), which featured their version of “Alone” made famous by Heart and Celine Dion.

Speaking (more) of Pat Benatar: The original singer behind Pat’s first and biggest hit — the one that eclipsed David Werner on the charts — Jenny Darren, who cut the original version on her 1978 album Queen of Fools, faded into obscurity . . . but we remember her, and Billy Thermal.