The Rise, Fall, and Inconvenient Return
Fatal Smile formed behind a liquor store off the Sunset Strip in 1984, when four men with six usable brain cells, nine cans of hairspray, and one shared leather vest realized they could play faster than they could think. By 1985 they were packing clubs, terrifying soundmen, and promising every A&R rep in Los Angeles that their debut record would be “like Dokken in a stolen hearse.”
Their first album, Too Pretty To Die, hit in the summer of 1986. The single “Love Bites Back” received heavy late-night rotation, mostly because the video had motorcycles, fire, a panther, and absolutely no plot. Fatal Smile were loud, dumb, beautiful, dangerous, and exactly famous enough to be given a charter plane.
On November 13th, 1986, after a sold-out show in Denver, the band boarded the Black Ridge charter flight with two roadies, one nervous pilot, one nervous-er co-pilot, a case of vodka, several two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew, and what one survivor later described as “an eight ball per gentleman, minimum.”
At 3:17 AM, witnesses reported seeing the plane explode over the Rockies in a flash of pink-green light. The official cause was listed as “mechanical failure.” Unofficially, the band had mixed vodka, Mountain Dew, hairspray fumes, Colombian enthusiasm, and enough eyeliner to poison a lake.
Fatal Smile were declared dead at dawn.
Three months later, they resumed the tour.
No press conference. No explanation. Same outfits. Same setlist. Same guitar solo. Different smell.
