The basic concept behind the Relaunch albums is for Houston to shine a light on obscure, unknown AOR gems from their personal musical collections. Houston, an AOR band themselves, are true AOR connoisseurs and want to pay their respects to these legendary artists and songs.
The first Relaunch album was released in 2011 and featured a cover of ‘Runaway’ by Dakota. The band collaborated on a video for the song with Danny MacAskill, a professional BMX rider, and his sponsor Red Bull and it became a huge success, with over 90 million views on YouTube and close to 2 million streams on Spotify, as of this writing. Much to AOR fans delight, and especially the guys in Houston, the success of the ‘Runaway’ cover got Dakota to reunite and record a brand new studio album. Let’s see what magic “Relaunch III” might achieve!
The Stockholm, Sweden based Houston first appeared on the scene with their self-titled debut album in 2010, which was selected as the Best AOR Album of 2010 by Classic Rock Magazine. The band then went on to play the festival circuit with appearances at Sweden Rock, Download Festival (UK), and Rock of Ages (Germany), as well as touring the UK with Swedish sleaze rockers Crashdïet. Since that time, aside from the success enjoyed with their cover of Dakota’s ‘Runaway’, the band has been consistently releasing high quality albums featuring top notch AOR originals, including their most recent studio album, “IV” in 2021.
“Re-Launch III” tracklisting:
Live Forever
Slipping Away
Power Over Me
Heart Of Stone
She Don’t (Come Around Anymore)
Do You Believe
She’s Out With A Gun
Modern Day Delilah
Sound Of A Breaking Heart
Outrageous
Running Back
Live Forever (80’S Remix)
Do You Believe (80’S Remix)
Line-up:
Hank Erix – Lead and background vocals
Carl Hammar – Lead guitar
Richard Hamilton – Keyboards, Piano
Niels Walter – Bass guitar
Additional musicians:
Erik Modin – Drums, Percussion, keyboards, backing vocals, rhythm & acoustic guitars
Michael Palace (Backing vocals & rhythm guitars on “Live Forever” & “Do You Believe”)
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