The band formed in Chicago in 1978. It’s founding members were Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan. Peterik had been in a band called Ides of March and would release a solo album 1976. He would then form The Jim Peterik Band, however, this did not last long and Peterik was looking to go back to writing and producing jingles. His manager at the time, a guy called Rick Weigand, persuaded him to meet with Frankie Sullivan. The two hit it off and the nucleus of Survivor was formed. They took their name from a sentence in the liner notes of Peterik’s album which referred to him as a survivor. They recruited vocalist Dave Bickler, drummer Gary Smith and bassist Dennis Keith who had been a band called Chase. Peterik had worked briefly with Chase and was meant to be on the plane that crashed, killing most of the band. This was regarded as another reason for calling the band Survivor. The newly formed group played their first show at a high school in Western Springs, Illinois in the September of 1978. They would go on to play at various clubs and soon came to the notice of Atlantic Records where they recorded their eponymously titled debut album in 1979. It would have a modest peak of 169 on the US album charts and would see a single called ‘Somewhere In America’ reach 70 on the Billboard Hot 100. After this, Smith and Keith left and were replaced by Marc Droubay and Stephan Ellis. Their follow up album, called ‘Premonition’, would fare a bit better, peaking at 82 and giving them 2 Hot 100 hits. One of those 2 hits would prove to be the key to their success. Although it only peaked at number 33, ‘Poor Man’s Son’, got Sylvester Stallone interested in the band, and when he was making the third ‘Rocky’ movie, he approached them to write the theme tune. Apparently he was looking for something similar to Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’. The result was ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ which became a worldwide smash hit, topping the charts in the US, the UK, Australia, Norway and South Africa (as noted below). However, the band failed to really capitalise on the success of the song and had a further setback when Bickler suffered from vocal issues with polyps on his vocal nodes. He was replaced by a guy called Jimi Jamison who’s first recording with the band was the song ‘The Moment Of Truth’. This was used in the film ‘The Karate Kid’. It peaked at 63 but did seem to be a springboard for the new line up as the first album in the Jamison era called ‘Vital Signs’, went to 16 and produced 3 top 20 hits in the US. They would follow this up with the single ‘Burning Heart’ which was from the ‘Rocky IV’ film and which would peak at 2. Two further albums followed but did not fare well and the band effectively folded although Jamison continued to perform as Survivor. In 1993 Bickler made a return, working with Peterik and Sullivan and this led to legal wrangles between the original members’ and Jamison’s versions of the band. The lawyers failed to sort things out and there were essentially 2 versions of Survivor that would tour. Sadly, Jamison would die from a heart attack in 2014 but Frankie Sullivan has continued to operate a version of Survivor, making them real survivors.
SA Singles Charts 