Tony Harnell recalls being told one out of four households in Norway had the TNT album ‘Tell No Tales’

Tony Harnell recalls being told one out of four households in Norway had the TNT album ‘Tell No Tales’

Former TNT and Skid Row lead vocalist Tony Harnell was recently interviewed by Andrew DiCecco for Vinyl Writer Music. Harnell spoke at length about his time in TNT which includes handling the lead vocals on the studio albums Knights of the New Thunder (1984), Tell No Tales (1987), Intuition (1989), Realized Fantasies (1992), Firefly (1997), Transistor (1999), Give Me A Sign (2003), My Religion (2004) and All The Way To The Sun (2005).

In terms of the alum Intuition being a significant one in TNT‘s music career and what was going on during that period, Harnell indicated (with slight edits):

“We did our own first headline tour in the U.S., which was very successful. I mean, we played clubs, but we played theatres, also. We were the first hard rock band to sell out The Palace Theatre, in Hollywood, and have a lot of celebrities in the audience. That felt good. As the tour progressed across the country, we were breaking attendance records the whole time, all the way to the end, when we ended in New York and did a trio of shows that were all sold out. The album did great over here, and it did great in Europe, also, but it just went nuts in Japan.

I remember getting the phone call from our manager, like, “You guys are number two on the Pop charts, behind Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad.’” Something like that. Michael Jackson was in there somewhere; I think he was number one and we were number two. They put the tour on sale, and these were 7,500-10,000 seat venues, and we were headlining — and I think it was six or seven dates — and the whole tour sold out in like thirty minutes. It was crazy. So, we got there, and it felt like The Beatles; hundreds, thousands maybe, at the airport. Everywhere we went, they were following us around. So, it was quite a heady experience. We had those kinds of experiences here and there in the states, and very similar in Norway, where we had number one albums, and won the Norwegian Grammy in ’87. In fact, Tell No Tales, one out of four households, I was told, had the album in Norway.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Tony Harnell at Vinyl Writer Music‘s website.

TNT‘s “Everyone’s A Star” video (from Tell No Tales album):