Jetboy is an American hard rock and glam metal band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1983 by guitarists Billy Rowe and Fernie Rod. The band was fronted by vocalist Mickey Finn — immediately recognizable by his towering blonde mohawk — and built their early following in the San Francisco club scene on a sound that fused punk rock energy, blues-influenced guitar work, and the sleaze and swagger of the Sunset Strip. Their influences ran from Hanoi Rocks and the New York Dolls to Cheap Trick and early Aerosmith, giving them a more raw and street-level quality than many of their contemporaries. After building a regional following the band relocated to Los Angeles in 1986 and secured a deal with Elektra Records, recording their debut album with British producer Tom Allom, known for his work with Judas Priest and Def Leppard.
The road to that debut album was marked by tragedy. Original bassist Todd Crew — a founding member and central figure in the band's early chemistry — departed in mid-1987 as his personal struggles became unmanageable. In July 1987, Crew died of a drug overdose in the hotel room of Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. He was 26. Mickey Finn has spoken about the loss with deep regret, noting that the band tried to help and that the pain of not being able to do more has never fully faded. Crew was replaced by Sami Yaffa — the Finnish bassist who had been a founding member of Hanoi Rocks, one of Jetboy's most admired influences — a hire that brought international credibility and a genuine pedigree to the lineup. Meanwhile, Elektra Records underwent major internal upheaval, firing its West Coast branch including the band's A&R contact. The label dropped Jetboy before Feel the Shake could be released. MCA Records picked up the album and finally released it in 1988.
Feel the Shake, produced by Tom Allom, peaked at number 135 on the Billboard 200 and earned devoted reviews from hard rock fans who recognized something genuine in the record's mix of power-pop hooks and punk-edged grit. Three songs appeared in the 1989 Tom Hanks film The Burbs. Despite genuine critical enthusiasm, the album was largely lost in the noise of a Sunset Strip scene crowded with better-promoted acts, and MCA's notoriously poor promotion of hard rock bands left Jetboy without the push they needed. The follow-up Damned Nation (1990) — featuring Yaffa, along with a guest saxophone appearance by Michael Monroe of Hanoi Rocks on Rock N' Roller — is widely considered the band's best work: sleazier, bluesier, and more fully realized. Cuts like Stomp It Down to the Bricks, Heavy Chevy, and Evil demonstrated exactly what the band could do when firing on all cylinders. Damned Nation also failed to break through commercially, and Jetboy disbanded in 1992.
The band reunited in 2006 and has remained active since, becoming a genuine draw on the nostalgia festival circuit. Mickey Finn has been the constant presence across every chapter of the band's history. On June 1, 2012, a 25th anniversary reunion for Feel the Shake took place at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood with the original lineup and a surprise appearance by Sami Yaffa, their first time sharing a stage together in over twenty years. Born to Fly (2019) on Frontiers Records and Crate Diggin' (2023) have continued the band's catalog into the modern era, earning the kind of attention their original run never quite generated.
Wayne Dennon photographed Jetboy as part of an archive that documents the full history of hard rock including its most deserving underdog stories. Jetboy are one of the great what-ifs of the Sunset Strip era — a band with the songs, the image, and the players to have been much bigger, undone by label politics, personal tragedy, and bad timing. Wayne's images capture a band that always had something real to offer.
