Brian Wheat

Heaven's Trail, The Way It Is, and Love Song.

they were one of very few hard rock bands that actually created a huge emotional ballad that didn't interrupt their credibility but but but but it wasn't their greatest contribution they were recognized as a hard rock band yet they would walk out on stage with acoustic guitars nothing polished or carefully choreographed they essentially generated the presence of just being loose and spontaneous the song that they were carrying forward at that time was signs originally recorded by the five-man electric band now some have credited Tesla for being the sole reason why MTV created the unplugged series remember that bassist Brian wheat pushes that idea way out of the way literally explaining we did not create this movement but the band Tesla is did prove you can turn down the volume and still listen in on all of that great rock.

I'm Arrow, and that's Music's Lost History, the Artist Edition.

Now, some have credited Tesla for being the sole reason why MTV created the Unplugged series.

Remember that? Bassist Brian Wheat pushes that idea way out of the way, literally explaining, we did not create this movement, but the band Tesla did.

did prove you can turn down the volume and still listen in on all of that great rock.

I'm Arrow, and that's Music's Lost History, the Artist Edition.

That's really interesting how all that happened because I don't know the full-on story other than there's been a Tesla and Bad Marriage connection for a very long time.

Brian Wheat produced some of their earlier records.

Brian Wheat and Mike Fitz are very good friends.

And so I want to think that maybe the connection came down a little something like that and Skio... needed a good band and Brian probably suggested he get with bad marriage because they got a lot going on for him.

And so that's probably the connection, but yeah, he's in the band.

The origins of them were in Sacramento in the early 80s.

The first two guys to play together were Brian Wheat, who was the bass player, and Frank Cannon, guitar player.

Just met each other, started jamming, and they started a band called Earthshaker in 82, which then became City Kid in 82.

And they actually worked with...

Bar 7 put out one record.

I thought it was really good.

Brian Wheat had a band called Soul Motor that I remember we played a little bit on YSP.

And then Frank Cannon did Moondog Main while they were apart.