Timeline: 45 Years Ago, The Rise and Fall of The Knack

By Dave Swanson - Summit FM Contributor

It’s hard to believe that 45 years have passed since The Knack first blasted out of radios everywhere with their solid gold hit, ‘My  Sharona.’ Released June 18, 1979, the authoritative drum beat, and magically simple guitar riff, was an instant fixture on both FM and AM radio. As the '70s drew to a close, The Knack was simply unavoidable. Eventually that over-saturation would drown them, but for a brief shining moment, they were on top. Contrary to legend, however, they were no overnight-success story.

Loathed by critics, and written off as a novelty act, The Knack was a genuine rock 'n' roll band. The Los Angeles music scene of the late '70s was overflowing with energy, attitude, and great bands. Things were moving fast, and by 1978, the landscape of punk outfits like the Germs, The Bags, and The Weirdos was starting to give way to the likes of The Plimsouls, The Beat, and The Knack.

In the early part of the decade, guitarist and singer Doug Fieger fronted a band called Sky, that recorded two albums for RCA. Those albums went nowhere, and by 1974, the group had fallen apart. While his former bandmates moved back home to Detroit, Fieger decided to stay in Los Angeles. Over the next few years, he would meet like-minded, musicians, all seasoned players, who would become The Knack. Riding alongside Fieger were drummer Bruce Gary, bassist Prescott Niles, and guitarist Berton Averre. In 1977, Fieger was inspired by the new music scene, and ready to record his new songs. He shopped the demos around to no takers, but The Knack was born!

Throughout 1978, The Knack endlessly played the L.A. club scene, including triumphant residences at the Whisky and the Troubadour. Eventually, record companies came calling. "I was aware of them, as everybody else in L.A. was," said producer Mike Chapman, in the documentary ‘Getting the Knack,’ "because there was lines of kids around the block to go see them at their shows." The large fan base they had built up happened to include people like Tom Petty, Stephen Stills, and Bruce Springsteen, all of whom would jam with The Knack, at the Troubadour. "Bruce Springsteen gets up onstage with us on a Friday night, and on Monday, we have 14 record offers," Fieger memorably quipped.

With the offers rolling in, the band signed to Capitol Records. "I was sold the first time I saw them," said Bruce Ravid, the man who signed them. Capitol was the home of The Beatles, and comparisons would dog The Knack from there forward. (Coincidentally, Capitol had previously signed another band called the Knack in 1967. That group released a couple singles, but had nothing to do with Fieger and company.)

In early 1979, the band entered the studio with producer Mike Chapman, a well-respected figure who, along with writing partner Nicky Chinn, penned countless hits for the likes of Sweet, Suzi Quatro, and others. Recently on top, after producing Blondie’s breakthrough, ‘Parallel Lines,’ Chapman proved the perfect choice for The Knack. A mere two weeks in the studio, and their debut was wrapped up! "I don't think we did two takes on any song," Fieger said. "What we had to do was make the record quickly," added Chapman, "because to labor over it would have taken that spontaneity out of it."

Once ‘Get the Knack’ arrived on June 11, 1979, it didn't take long for radio stations to zero in on ‘My Sharona.’ The insistent drum beat alone was one big hook, but once the guitar riff moves in, the track evolves into a massive ear worm. Soon, ‘My Sharona’ was emanating from nearly every radio across America. It hit the top of the Billboard chart in the summer of 1979, and stayed there six straight weeks, going gold in just thirteen days. The album followed suit, holding Billboard's top spot for five weeks until Led Zeppelin's ‘In Through the Out Door’ finally knocked it off.

Familiarity, as it will, bred contempt. ‘My Sharona’ came to be seen as a novelty tune of sorts. Given another listen, however, it emerges as one of the sharpest rock 'n' roll records ever – from the riff to the lyric to the production. Averre is certainly one of the most underrated lead guitarists of the era, and his solo is nothing short of stunning. (Sharona, by the way, was indeed an actual person, Sharona Alperin, and the object of Fieger's very real desires. To this day, she remains one of the top realtors in Southern California)

Elsewhere, ‘Get the Knack’ is full of top shelf, hook-laden rockers. "Let Me Out" remains one of the most powerful album openers ever, while "Your Number or Your Name" and "Oh Tara" are pure pop gold, recalling mid-'60s Hollies and Kinks. "She's So Selfish" and "Good Girls Don't," the album's second single, were both full of words that wouldn't fly past radio censors. After reworking a line, The Knack saw "Good Girls Don't" land just shy of the Top 10.

‘Maybe Tonight’ steps away from the hard-edged template, arriving as a beautiful ballad, with slightly psychedelic ornamentation. A revved-up take on the Buddy Holly classic ‘Heartbeat’ was a perfect fit here alongside something like ‘That’s What the Little Girls Do.’ ‘Frustrated’ ends the album on another lusty note, powered by another massive guitar riff and the powerhouse drums of Bruce Gary.

Still, The Knack's seemingly instant rise to the top led some critics to question their authenticity, sincerity, and motives. The assumption was that they were some sort of manufactured group, meant to echo The Beatles, and nothing more. Fieger later admitted to the Fab Four's influence on The Knack, but said the overt musical references were "tongue in cheek. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously." Few knew how long The Knack had paid its dues, or just how little promotion was behind their huge debut. "It's funny, people have accused The Knack of being this big hype and that the record company hyped the band," Fieger once said. "I was told at the time by Capitol Records that they spent $50,000 promoting ‘Get the Knack’ – total."

Meanwhile, even as radio overkill led to general listener fatigue with The Knack, other labels were hoping to leverage their success. "The Knack didn't capitalize on a movement, they created a movement," rock critic Ethan Barborka said. "The whole record industry descended on L.A. after they released ‘Get the Knack’ to find other bands that would be 'the next Knack.'"

Hoping to take back a lost sense of mystique, management decided The Knack shouldn't give interviews – a move that backfired. "The manager at the time, I'll excuse him for his innocence, his non-expertise and his being in way over his head," Niles said. "However, his decisions killed us, and as a result, it pissed a lot of people off."

A ‘Knuke the Knack’ campaign was started by San Francisco artist Hugh Brown. "They were so over-hyped, I thought I'll do something that's kind of obnoxious and kind of funny," Brown said, in the ‘Getting the Knack’ documentary. "Then it just snowballed."

Soon, people were accusing The Knack of being arrogant, while others criticized them as misogynistic because of an abundance of lust-filled lyrics in its songs. And for others, ‘Get the Knack’ was seen as the watered-down conclusion of the fading punk movement from a few years earlier, a safe and sanitized version of something that had recently revitalized rock.

But there was more to The Knack than that, and even Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones was a genuine fan. "I've literally played that album a million times, but I couldn't really tell people – 'cause it was kind of uncool, being from the Sex Pistols, and that whole era," Jones said in ‘Getting the Knack’. "I loved that album. I still have a copy of it!"

Despite its’ standing as 1979's biggest single, it also inspired a couple classic parodies – ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic's debut single was ‘My Bologna’ and in the film ‘Next Movie,’ Cheech and Chong paid tribute via ‘My Scrotum.’ ‘My Sharona’ got a brief second life, of sorts, when it was used in the 1994 film ‘Reality Bites.’

The Knack, however, never fully recovered from the backlash. "How could it have changed so much that we were 'the glorious, the wonderful Knack' one minute, and we were this horrible, sell-out, commercial bullshit hype the next minute?" Fieger later mused. "It made me angry."

Their second album, ‘... But the Little Girls Understand’, released in 1980, struggled to hit No. 15, and the third album, the wildly varied ‘Round Trip,’ barely breezed by the charts in 1981.The Knack regrouped a decade later with ‘Serious Fun,’ a sort of no frills rock album, then again in 1998 for the classic return to form, ‘Zoom’ and ‘Normal As The Next Guy’ in 2001, another winner. As great as those last couple albums were, only the diehard fans were paying attention.

A case could easily be made for ‘Get The Knack’ being one of the definitive ‘power pop’ albums. It was everything great about that often misunderstood genre. Fieger died in 2010, at age 57, after a battle with brain and lung cancer, original drummer Bruce Gary passed in 2006, also from cancer.