Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian met at University of Pennsylvania.  They played in a few bands called “Wax” and “Baby Grand”, but decided to try it on their own after joining forces with drummer David Uosikkinen.  They set up a writing and recording space in the Manayunk section of town, along the Schuylkill River and invited recording engineer John Senior to join them.  Senior was the one who called the melodica a “Hooter”, which was adopted as the band’s name.  By the summer of 1980, Senior had recorded a demo cassette tape and they played their first gig at Mattie’s Place in Levittown, PA, near where Uosikkinen went to high school.

The band worked hard, playing 125 shows during its first nine months.  They gravitated towards the larger clubs in the city and they landed a 6 month residency on Monday nights at Grendel’s Lair which regularly sold out.  Their songs were played on WMMR radio in Philadelphia by Michael Tearson.  They appeared in a mega-concert at JFK Stadium with The Who, the Clash, and Santana in 1982.

But despite this success, Bazilian and Hyman put the band on hold in order to work for Producer Rick Chertoff on Cyndi Lauper’s debut album, which won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1984.  They both played on the album and co-wrote hits like “Time After Time” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.

By 1985, with a few changes in personnel, the band returned to work, signing with Columbia Records and releasing “Nervous Nights” that Spring, and touring internationally for the first time.  The album eventually went platinum, and Rolling Stone called them the best new band of the year.  They appeared in the morning of the 1985 Live Aid Concert in Philadelphia to an international audience of 1.5 billion people.

That was just the first five years… The next 37, including some incredible photos can be found here: https://www.hootersmusic.com/about