Men Without Hats

Men Without Hats is a Canadian new wave group, originally from Montreal, Quebec. Their music is characterized by the distinctive baritone voice of their lead singer Ivan Doroschuk as well as their elaborate use of synthesizers and electronic processing. They achieved their greatest popularity in the 1980s with "The Safety Dance", a worldwide Top Ten hit (#3 in the United States) and "Pop Goes the World". After a hiatus for most of the 1990s and 2000s, Doroschuk reformed the band in 2010, and released Love in the Age of War (2012). The reformed group, based in Vancouver, has continued to perform, including a European tour in 2015 and Australia in 2016.^[1]

History

Early days

Men Without Hats was founded in Montreal in 1977 as a punk rock band featuring Ivan Doroschuk (vocals), Pete Seabrooke (guitar), Dave Hill (bass) and John Gurin (drums). Ivan had previously sung in a band called Wave 21 with Jérémie Arrobas (vocals, keyboards), Stefan Doroschuk (bass) and Colin Doroschuk (guitar). In 1979, Wave 21 renamed themselves to Men Without Hats, after the punk band.

The Doroschuk brothers, all three of whom are classically trained musicians, were born in Champaign, Illinois while their Canadian father was earning a doctoral degree.^[2] They moved to Montreal as young children when their parents returned to Canada.^[2] The group's name came about because the brothers, following a self-described principle of "style before comfort," refused to wear hats during Montreal's cold winters, calling themselves "the men without hats."^[3]

In addition to the Doroschuks, the group has also included numerous additional members and guest or touring performers, many of whom quickly came and left during the first five years. Frontman and songwriter Ivan Doroschuk was the only constant member, while Stefan and Colin Doroschuk as well as Arrobas remained as relatively steady members through the early 1980s.^[3]

Their first recording to be released was the 1980 EP Folk of the 80's. At this point, the band had changed styles from punk to new wave and officially consisted of Ivan (vocals, bass) and Arrobas (keyboards); also appearing on the EP were auxiliary members Stefan Doroschuk (bass), Roman Martyn (guitars), and Lynne Thibodeau (backing vocals).

Shortly after the release of the debut EP, Martyn left and was replaced by Jean-Marc Pisapia, who stayed only a short time before leaving, and later founded The Box.^[3] Pisapia was replaced briefly by Tracy Howe, who also left in short order, co-founding Rational Youth shortly after his departure.^[3] Arrobas voluntarily left the group just before the recording of their next album.^[3]

International success

Ivan and Stefan (now promoted to full membership status) subsequently recruited Allan McCarthy (percussion, electronics) to join the group, and recorded their 1982 full-length debut album Rhythm of Youth. The trio subsequently enjoyed a hit in Canada with "The Safety Dance", which peaked at #11 in May 1983. The song soon charted in the United States, spending four weeks at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was a major hit in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at #6.^[4] The song also reached the top ten in various other European countries, peaked at #2 in New Zealand, and was rated the 11th biggest-selling single of the year in South Africa in 1983.

Adding Colin (who had guested on Rhythm of Youth) as an official fourth member, Men Without Hats released the album Folk of the 80's (Part III) in 1984. While lead single "Where Do The Boys Go?" was a top 40 hit in Canada, the album failed to match the international success of Rhythm of Youth.

In 1985, the band released the EP Freeways, consisting of multiple (and multi-lingual) remixes of one of their earliest efforts, Ivan and Arrobas's 1980 song "Freeways" (which had previously been released as a B-side in 1982). To support the EP, the group undertook a related tour, footage from which would later (in 2006) be released on DVD as Live Hats.

Reshuffling the line-up again, the band released the album Pop Goes the World in 1987 with Ivan, Stefan, and Lenny Pinkas. The song "Pop Goes the World" reached No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 2 on the Canadian Singles Chart, and was No. 1 in Austria. The song was later featured in the 1987 film Date with an Angel, and became the fifteenth biggest selling single in South Africa for 1988.

The group's next album, The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century, released in 1989, featured a cover of ABBA's song "SOS." The musicians on the album were essentially the touring band from Pop Goes the World, which included Bruce Murphy on keyboards and guitar, Marika Tjelios on bass, Richard Sampson on drums, and Heidi Garcia on vocals and keyboards.

The 1991 album Sideways, dominated by electric guitars instead of keyboards, revealed a dramatically different sound for the band, based in part on Ivan's exposure to Nirvana.^[5] According to Ivan, "We had a contractual obligation for one more album with Polygram so I said to them, we'll take half of the allotted budget if they would allow us to do the record I wanted... so we did this guitar-oriented record but Polygram were horrified. 'Men Without Hats without keyboards aren’t going to work,' they claimed and that was the end of the story with Polygram."^[5] The group officially disbanded in 1993^[6] after the career setback of failing to attract another American label as a result of the album's negative reception.

Projects during the 1990s and 2000s

After disbanding, lead singer Ivan and keyboardist Bruce Murphy went on to record several demos in 1993 for a concept album tentatively titled UFO's are Real, which was never released.^[7] Ivan recorded a solo album, The Spell, in 1997, releasing it in 2000. No Hats Beyond This Point, intended to be the second Ivan solo effort, was released in 2003 under the Men Without Hats name, as part of a reunion attempt by Ivan and Stefan that began in 2002, but the band did not tour and split up shortly after the album release.

Former band member Allan McCarthy died due to AIDS complications in 1995.

Under the name MacKenzie-Parker Gang, Stefan and Mack MacKenzie (of the Canadian alt-country band Three O'Clock Train) released Ride for Glory (1999), a post-modern Western-themed album.

Colin turned his attention to opera and classical music, becoming Artistic Director of Montreal's Northern Opera Theatre and composer-in-residence at British Columbia's Ballet Victoria.^[8] His works include the opera Evangeline, based on a Longfellow poem, first performed in 2014.^[8]

Reformation in 2010

Ivan reformed Men Without Hats in 2010 as the frontman and lead vocalist, no longer playing keyboards, and joined by hired backup musicians. The Ivan-fronted band debuted on September 24, 2010, at the Rifflandia Music Festival in Victoria, British Columbia, performing ten songs from the Men Without Hats back catalogue. The revived band was described by the Austin American-Statesman as "simply singer Ivan Doroschuk and some hired guns"^[9] and by Stefan as a "tribute band."^[10] Despite these initial reactions, the band's "Dance If You Want Tour" opened in March 2011 with a well-attended and positively received performance at Austin's South by Southwest event.^[11]

In June 2011, Ivan told a festival audience that the group would record a new studio album, announcing the news at North by Northeast in Toronto. The album was originally to be titled Folk of the 80's (Part IV), but in March 2012, the band posted on Facebook that it would instead be called Love in the Age of War, and would be released that summer.

Love in the Age of War, produced by Dave Ogilvie of Skinny Puppy, was released in June 2012 and received mostly favorable reviews. Ogilvie and Doroschuk set out to faithfully reproduce and update the group's classic synthesizer sound of the 1980s, intentionally making a follow-up album to 1982's Rhythm of Youth.^[12] According to Doroschuk, they pretended to be "working on a 24-track machine, for example, and not the virtual, infinity-plus-one number of tracks that you can get today. We went out and got the old synths that we used back then... the identical instruments, so it wasn't soft synths, it was really real synthesizers."^[12]

By 2011, Doroschuk had taken on two twenty-something musicians as full band members: James Love on guitar and backing vocals, and Louise (Lou) Dawson on keyboards and backing vocals, both of whom performed on Love in the Age of War.^[5][13] Colin Doroschuk also appeared on the album as a vocalist, and toured with the band as its fourth member until 2012. After the album was recorded, Doroschuk doubled down on the band's synthesizer-heavy sound by replacing Colin with Rachel Ashmore, on keyboards and backing vocals, as the group's second synthesist.^[13]

Men Without Hats again toured the United States in 2013, as part of the 1980s-themed "Regeneration Tour," with contemporaries such as Howard Jones, Andy Bell of Erasure, and Berlin. The band's continuing activity has included tours in Europe in 2015 and 2016.^[5][14]

As part of a "Totally '80s" show that toured Australia in July 2016, Doroschuk performed as Men Without Hats without other band members, "singing with the house band.... [to] set the stage for a proper visit with the full band."^[1] In October 2016, Sho Murray replaced Love as guitarist.^[14][15]

Discography

Studio albums

• Rhythm of Youth (1982)
• Folk of the 80's (Part III) (1984)
• Pop Goes the World (1987)
• The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century (1989)
• Sideways (1991)
• No Hats Beyond This Point (2003)
• Love in the Age of War (2012)

EPs

• Folk of the 80's (1980)
• Freeways (1985)

Compilation albums

• Collection (1996)
• Greatest Hats (1997)
• The Very Best of Men Without Hats (1998)
• My Hats Collection (2006)
• The Silver Collection (2008)

Singles

Music videos

• "Nationale 7"
• "Security"
• "Antarctica"
• "The Safety Dance"
• "I Like"
• "Where Do the Boys Go?"
• "Pop Goes the World"
• "Moonbeam"
• "Hey Men"
• "In the 21st Century"
• "Sideways"

DVDs

• Live Hats (2006)

Covers

Cover songs recorded

• The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century featured a cover of ABBA's "SOS"
• Sideways featured a cover of The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" (subtitled "'No You're Not', Said Little Nicola").
• The Collection and Greatest Hats compilations featured a cover of Roxy Music's "Editions of You"

Songs covered by others

• Montreal-based power pop/punk rock band The Nils performed a cover of "Pop Goes the World", with the track being included on their compilation release Green Fields in Daylight.

Members

• Ivan Doroschuk – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, synths, drum programming (1977–1993, 2002–2003, 2010–present)
• Louise Dawson – keyboards (2010–present)
• Rachel Ashmore – keyboards (2012–present)
• Sho Murray – guitar (2016–present)

Past members

• Pete Seabrooke – guitar (1977–1979)
• Dave Hill – bass (1977–1979)
• John Gurin – drums (1977–1979)
• Stefan Doroschuk – vocals, guitar, bass (1979–1993, 2002–2003)
• Colin Doroschuk – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards (1979–1986, 1990–1993, 2010–2012)
• Jérémie Arrobas – keyboards, drums (1979–1980)
• Lysanne Thibodeau – backing vocals (1980)
• Roman Martyn – guitar (1980)
• Tracey Howe – guitar (1980)
• Allan McCarthy – keyboards (1981–1986)
• Lenny Pinkas – keyboards (1986–1990)
• Marika Tjelios – bass, backing vocals (1986–1990)
• Richard Samson – drums (1986–1990)
• Heidi Garcia – keyboards (1986–1990)
• Félix Matte – guitar (1990–1993)
• John Kastner – guitar (1990–1993)
• Michel Langevin – drums (1990–1993)
• James Love – guitar, bass (2010–2016)

Timeline

References

External links

• Official website
• Lazlo's Discography Machine: Men Without Hats
• Jérémie Arrobas official site
• 2012 interview for Innerviews