Hanoi Rocks were at their moment of truth. After four studio albums of well-regarded post-New York Dolls sleaze metal, the faux-effeminate Finns were signed to CBS. The union resulted in much press and pontification in the UK, but ultimately redneck snickers in the U.S., America not ready for the first coming of the New York Dolls, and no more prepared for the second.

Two Steps From The Move was a bulked-up Hanoi, strengthened and tightened by legendary producer Bob Ezrin, he of Alice Cooper and Kiss fame, a man perhaps ill-suited to this type of act, yet game all the same. The album was full of bravado, slightly muted by Ezrin who sacrificed underground grit for an increasingly bassy, riff-heavy metal sound. But then the record was paced well, shot like a cannon with joyous lead single 'Up Around The Bend', written by Creedence Clearwater Revival (lone alternate choice: 'Bad Moon Rising' by the same band), spilling into the hard rock of 'High School', eventually into the torrid and florid traditional balladry of 'Million Miles Away' and 'Don't You Ever Leave Me' (a remake of a track from the band's '80 debut) and back out again with the hard rock of 'Boiler' and 'Cutting Corners'. The album marked Hanoi at their overall peak, perhaps less charming than on, for example, '82's Self Destruction Blues, but brimming with confidence, surrounded by good help, thick, muscular, adequately in tune with their essence to refrain from dishing what could have been an overflow of heavy metal.

"Andy (McCoy, guitars) had an old Bobby Blue Bland album called Two Steps From The Blues, so I think he took it from there," begins vocalist Mike Monroe on the curious album title. "There was also a song called 'Two Steps From The Move' and Ezrin thought it was the sickest song he'd ever heard and it didn't end up on the record. Eventually it just came out on a best of compilation and we replaced it with 'Up Around The Bend', because the label wanted a single. We decided on that one because on a German tour we listened to a live album by Creedence Clearwater Revival."

"The album cover, Jude (Wilder (RIP), Michael's late wife) always said was a big mistake, because people thought we were metal or something," says Michael of the classic teased glam look that would become so big a few short years later through the likes of Poison and Cinderella. "That wasn't a good word back then. It was the wrong place at the wrong time. They called us punk, they called us glam, metal... we were just a rock band. But the cover shot was taken in Japan. We were playing in Japan and that was backstage, just before we went on stage, this guy was taking pictures of us, in Tokyo."

All was not well within the band, however, leading up the recording of the album. Monroe places the bad vibes squarely on the narrow shoulders of Andy McCoy, Monroe adding that Bob Ezrin was, among other things, the unifying force for the sessions.

"Yeah! Bob's great, he's a genius, man," recalls Monroe fondly. "It was great to see how he handled Andy and stuff, you know? Because he had to be a bit of a psychiatrist or something with the band. But he handled him great and we had a lot of fun. And we did a lot of work and learned a hell of a lot from him."

"Two Steps From The Move was a natural progression for us. And because Ezrin was working with us, it just got that much better because we had more direction and a great producer with good vision. We had some arguments about stuff after it was done. Andy was the difficult one in the band, right? He was the vibe crusher. He would be very possessive about his songs. He could be nasty and try to manipulate everybody. He wanted to control everything but he did not want to take the responsibility of being the leader. He was sort of rebelling against Bob, while he still was working with him. He must have known that Bob was good. I demanded that Bob be the producer. I mean, we were lucky that he was even interested. The Lords Of The New Church wanted him as a producer and he wasn't even interested. They are good friends of ours. I think Bob thought their name was too long (laughs). But Ezrin was the producer I wanted to use, even just because of Alice Cooper's Love It To Death. And Andy was saying, 'Oh he just wants my publishing', because Ezrin was co-writing a lot of the songs. But they were good! I never cared who got credit, I just wanted the songs to be good. And we were doing the backing vocals on 'Million Miles Away' and Andy would say, 'how are you going to do that live!?' Well, you fucking practice and then you do it! I mean, he produced the Alice Cooper band, fuck yeah, this guy is the right one. And there's those backing vocals on 'Cutting Corners'. Andy was listening to the rough mixes but he wasn't there a lot of the time. When we did the backing vocals and stuff, Andy wasn't even in the studio. But then afterward he would complain about it. And I was, 'well why don't you fucking be there then, man!? Be in the studio. Work with us.' So he would just do his solos and then he'd leave and bitch about Ezrin, that he was making comps of his solos, you know, that kind of thing. But as it turned out, it was a great record and over time people can see, and even Andy can see, that it was a great thing, what we were doing."

"Well, first Bob came to London," says Monroe recounting the recording of the album. "We did quite a bit of pre-production. Bob came to London to rehearse with us for a couple of weeks. At the same time we were finishing a live album which was recorded at The Marquee, called All Those Wasted Years, and there was video too. So the guys were doing some guitar overdubs on it, which I thought was stupid because it was a live album; just leave it. One guitar player does some overdubs and the other guy goes, 'OK, I've got to fix mine too.' And in the end you get a whole new guitar track. But it came out O.K. I guess. I didn't re-do anything. But he came and rehearsed with us for a week or two and then we went to Toronto to do more rehearsals there, another week or two, and then we went to New York to do the basic tracks, the bass and drums for two weeks, and then back to Toronto, to Phase One studios and we did the rest there, guitars and vocals for two or three weeks. So it was a couple of months altogether."

"Bob would do funny stuff once in awhile," remembers an amused Monroe. "He would say, 'OK, we're going to do a take', and then he would go downstairs and walks sideways but sort of kneel down and look like he was going down to the cellar, little stuff like that. And I think we were doing some vocals for the 'Boiler' song, and all of a sudden Bob stormed into the studio with a fire extinguisher and started spraying the foam on everybody. And everybody just jumped up and went 'wah!', except Razzle; Razzle didn't even move. He was just standing there with a beer in his hand, like 'oh, what are you doing Bobo?' That was great. He didn't even react. It was really cute when we were rehearsing. Alice Cooper gave Bob a hat with a dog turd on it, and it says Shithead, and for some reason the cap was in the rehearsal room and Bob started giving it to whoever made a mistake in the song; we had to wear the Shithead hat."

The signature of the Hanoi Rocks sound has got to be Monroe's cranky vocals, a sound that is equally hurting, barking, all showman, often derided, bellowed with a conviction perhaps beyond their technicality. In one word: Jagger. Mike on his influences: "I have my own style, but in terms of my influences, I would say early Alice Cooper, with the band, you know? Love It To Death , Killers, School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies. And also I think Mick Jagger is one of the best singers and frontmen ever. Stiv Bators was a big influence on me and he was my best friend for a long time. And Johnny Thunders also has something that I'm sure I picked up over time (laughs). He was also my best friend. Also I would say Iggy Pop, Steven Tyler. Dan McCafferty is another vocalist I must mention. Even though I can't come close to his voice, he is one of my heroes. I always take care of my physical health. I exercise just to keep in shape, not to build muscles, but just to keep in shape. Vocally, I hope I'm getting better, and I'm trying to get more into the character of the songs. I don't know if your voice changes, but I guess it does, over the years. I think I sing better than before."

"The lyrics were written mainly by Ezrin and Andy," continues Monroe. "I wrote some stuff with Ezrin, like 'Million Miles Away'. We kind of just finished the lyrics before we recorded the song. So that was a test for me, to see how professional I could be (laughs). Usually I have time to live with the song and figure out how I'm going to sing it, and I had to do it all on the spot. And a lot of the songs, I thought the first gigs we did after the album had been done, I had already sung them much better live, because I had time with them. But still, the record is fine."

Monroe recalls one leftover track from the sessions. "There was a song called 'Menaced By Nightingales'. We did a demo of that later before we finally split up. It's like a ballad type thing. That never ended up on the album. And some of the songs on the demos that we had for the album, we used partly, you know? Like the riff for 'Boiler' was from a different song that Andy had. For some reason they took the one part of that song, and the rest of it was no good, I guess."

Ultimately, the album was a moderate success, potentially on its way to bigger and better things, this "continually but not continuously" touring band mounting their longest tour yet, a U.K. jaunt of about a month. But Monroe figures record company politics would have kept these irreverent rusty nails beaten and down.

"Trying to find sales figures is impossible. All the statements, who knows where they go?' reflects Monroe. "I haven't seen royalties or stuff like that. CBS put it out. You asked about who pulled the plug and stuff. CBS was not behind it from the beginning. The guy who signed the band just wanted to fuck with the label. Actually Jude Wilder, who is my collaborator and partner, she worked at CBS at the time. She was there for 10 years. She was the product manager for Hanoi. And she told me that the guy who signed the band, he just wanted to mess with the label, fuck them up, because he knew they were going to hate us or something. And the head of promotions said 'take that shit of the turntable. I don't hear it, I don't hear it, man,' and they were looking at us and the way we looked and they were laughing with all these macho bullshit jokes. We went to do press there, and when I went to the men's room, all the men had to leave because they were too intimidated. They were all probably closet gays themselves or something. That was weird. I was going, 'what the hell is this?' So the label was not even prepared to deal with a band like that. We were way ahead of our time in that sense and years later, all these bands half copied us; Poison for example. They were not a good rock band at all but they got huge, and I'm sure after that, CBS were looking for bands like Hanoi."

And of course the final nail in this band's career was the tragic loss of drummer Razzle, killed in a horrific car accident on December 8th, 1984, passenger in a sports car with an intoxicated Vince Neil, the crash also killing the driver of the other vehicle involved. The result: Hanoi Rocks also crashed and burned at the height of their career, in the midst of what was supposed to be a freewheeling and triumphant American tour.

"Our drummer died, and the band wasn't prepared to go on. First of all, it was a great blow to the band. When Razzle joined, we were kind of down and going through a bad period, and when he joined it just brought life to the band again. His sense of humor and his character... everybody was very important to the band, but especially him. If Sammy or Nasty would have left, we might have continued. Sammy left anyways. Razzle died and then Andy and Nasty went. I'm not saying I was more together than them, but everybody was into self-destruction. There was too much hassle. We talked about some guys, but I knew it was over. I finally said, 'let's leave the nice memory of the band as it was and not ruin anything by trying to cash in and make a quick buck, hiring some other guys and pretending to be Hanoi Rocks. Let's close this with integrity.' After Razzle died, we played two farewell gigs, January 4th and 5th at the concert hall in Helsinki, at House Of Culture. The second night, I think four or five songs were broadcast all over Europe; there was this TV show called Europe A Go Go and they showed four or five songs. One of them was 'Million Miles Away', the ballad, and I dedicated it to Razzle, and it was too soon after the accident. I had trouble singing it. It was too painful."