The early ’90s were a bloody strange time to own a can of hairspray and a pointy guitar.

One minute, hair metal ruled the planet. MTV was overflowing with leather trousers, enormous choruses, even bigger barnets and enough Aqua Net to punch another hole through the ozone layer.

Then along came grunge.

Suddenly, flannel was fashionable, guitar solos were apparently suspicious, and some of the biggest stars of the Sunset Strip found themselves staring at the musical landscape thinking:

“Right then… what the hell do we do now?”

But plenty of them didn’t disappear. They regrouped, experimented, formed new bands and tried everything from alternative rock and industrial metal to bluesy hard rock and full-on supergroups.

Some worked.

Some lasted about as long as a warm pint at Download.

And some produced genuinely cracking records that have since become fascinating little footnotes in rock history.

So fire up the CD changer, dig out that battered Kerrang! collection and join The Riff Report as we revisit 11 forgotten ’90s bands formed by legends of ’80s hair metal. 🎸🔥

11. Arcade – Stephen Pearcy & Fred Coury

When Ratt’s classic era came crashing to a halt, frontman Stephen Pearcy wasn’t ready to hang up the microphone.

Instead, he teamed up with Cinderella drummer Fred Coury and formed Arcade, alongside guitarist Frankie Wilsey, guitarist Donny Syracuse and bassist Michael Andrews.

Their self-titled debut arrived in 1993, right when the musical climate couldn’t have been less welcoming to a new band with connections to the glam-metal scene.

Arcade nevertheless delivered a muscular collection of hard rock that was heavier and moodier than much of Pearcy’s previous work.

They followed it with A/2 in 1994, but the project ultimately disappeared as Pearcy eventually returned to the Ratt universe.

Still, for anyone who wondered what Stephen Pearcy sounded like once the Sunset Strip party started winding down, Arcade are well worth rediscovering.

10. Neurotic Outsiders – Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum & Steve Jones

Calling Neurotic Outsiders a supergroup almost feels inadequate.

The band featured Guns N’ Roses men Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and Duran Duran bassist John Taylor.

That’s not a line-up.

That’s what happens when somebody hits the random button on the greatest rock jukebox ever built. 😂

Originally coming together for performances at the Viper Room in Los Angeles, the chemistry was strong enough for the group to record a self-titled album released in 1996.

The music mixed punk, hard rock and sleazy rock ‘n’ roll without sounding particularly interested in whatever was fashionable at the time.

Neurotic Outsiders weren’t built for a 30-year career.

They were built to make noise.

Mission accomplished. 🤘

9. Pride & Glory – Zakk Wylde

Before Black Label Society became Zakk Wylde’s long-running riff machine, there was Pride & Glory.

Having already established himself as Ozzy Osbourne’s ridiculously talented guitarist, Wylde stepped into the spotlight with something considerably different.

Pride & Glory blended heavy rock with Southern rock, blues and country influences, showing there was far more rattling around inside Zakk’s musical brain than squealing pinch harmonics.

Their self-titled album arrived in 1994 and remains something of a cult favourite.

The band didn’t last long, but the project was hugely important because you can hear Wylde developing the identity that would eventually explode into Black Label Society.

Think of Pride & Glory as the missing link between Ozzy’s guitar hero and Zakk Wylde: Supreme Riff Overlord™.

8. Blue Murder – John Sykes

Technically formed at the tail end of the ’80s, Blue Murder deserve their place in this conversation because their story rolled heavily into the following decade.

After leaving Whitesnake, guitarist John Sykes assembled one hell of a band.

The original line-up included legendary bassist Tony Franklin and drummer Carmine Appice, with Sykes handling guitar and lead vocals.

Their 1989 self-titled debut was packed with enormous riffs and spectacular musicianship, but despite the talent involved, Blue Murder never became the arena-conquering monster they arguably deserved to be.

A second album, Nothin’ But Trouble, followed in 1993.

Then the project gradually faded away.

For guitar fans, though, Blue Murder remain an essential rabbit hole.

John Sykes absolutely cooked in this band.

7. Freakshow – Frankie Banali & Jeff LaBar

Here’s one for the proper deep-cut merchants.

Freakshow brought together Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali, Cinderella guitarist Jeff LaBar, singer Markus Allen Christopher and bassist Tony Franklin.

Their album Freakshow arrived in 1998, when mainstream rock had already moved several post-grunge-shaped miles away from the sound that had made Banali and LaBar famous.

That didn’t stop them.

The resulting record delivered straightforward hard rock from musicians who clearly weren’t interested in pretending guitars had suddenly become unfashionable.

It never became a major commercial success, but today it’s exactly the sort of obscure ’90s rock record that makes digging through second-hand CD racks so much fun.

Remember those?

Kids, ask your parents.

6. Union – Bruce Kulick & John Corabi

Now we’re getting tasty.

Following his departure from KISS, guitarist Bruce Kulick joined forces with former Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi to create Union.

Joining them were bassist Jamie Hunting and drummer Brent Fitz.

Their self-titled debut arrived in 1998, and if you love melodic hard rock with enormous guitars and Corabi’s wonderfully gritty voice, there’s loads to enjoy here.

Union were never going to compete commercially with the dominant alternative and nu-metal movements of the late ’90s.

But that’s almost beside the point.

These were seasoned rock musicians making the music they wanted to make.

And Corabi remains one of rock’s most criminally underrated singers.

We’ll happily die on that hill, mun.

5. The Scream – John Corabi

Before Mötley Crüe came calling, John Corabi had already made some serious noise with The Scream.

Originally evolving from the band Angora, The Scream featured Corabi alongside guitarist Bruce Bouillet, bassist Juan Alderete and drummer Scott Travis, although Travis departed to join Judas Priest before the group’s debut was completed.

The Scream released Let It Scream in 1991.

And what a voice.

Corabi brought a bluesy, rough-edged power that separated the band from many of their contemporaries.

Unfortunately, timing wasn’t exactly on their side.

Within a couple of years, Corabi was recruited to replace Vince Neil in Mötley Crüe, and The Scream’s moment effectively disappeared.

But Let It Scream remains a cracking example of early-’90s hard rock caught right on the fault line between two musical eras.

4. Contraband – The Ultimate Hair Metal Supergroup?

If somebody asked an AI to generate the most ridiculously 1991 hard-rock supergroup imaginable, it might still struggle to beat Contraband.

The band featured musicians connected with some enormous names from the previous decade, including Michael Schenker, Ratt drummer Bobby Blotzer, L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns, Vixen bassist Share Pedersen and Shark Island singer Richard Black.

Their self-titled album landed in 1991.

On paper, this thing should’ve been massive.

Instead, it became another victim of spectacularly unfortunate timing.

As alternative rock and grunge exploded, the appetite for glossy supergroup hard rock evaporated remarkably quickly.

Contraband split soon afterwards.

Today, they’re almost a perfect snapshot of the precise moment when one rock era collided headfirst with another.

3. Brides of Destruction – Nikki Sixx & Tracii Guns

Okay, we’re bending the decade slightly here because Brides of Destruction officially emerged in the early 2000s.

But spiritually?

This thing was born directly from the strange post-hair-metal world of the ’90s.

Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx teamed up with L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns, eventually releasing Here Come the Brides in 2004.

The project had everything you’d expect: sleaze, punk attitude, dirty guitars and enough leather to upholster a small Welsh pub.

Sixx ultimately returned to Mötley Crüe, while Brides of Destruction continued briefly without him.

Not exactly forgotten ’90s, then — but absolutely part of the wider family tree created by those ’80s legends searching for their next chapter.

2. Slash’s Snakepit – Slash

When Guns N’ Roses descended into one of rock history’s most legendary periods of chaos, Slash did what Slash does best.

He plugged in a Les Paul and started another band.

Slash’s Snakepit originally featured Slash alongside Guns N’ Roses bandmates Matt Sorum and Gilby Clarke, plus bassist Mike Inez and singer Eric Dover.

Their debut album, It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, arrived in 1995.

And bloody hell, what a title.

The record was dirty, loose and unapologetically guitar-driven — basically the musical equivalent of walking into a bar at lunchtime and discovering Slash already three drinks ahead of you.

A completely different incarnation returned with Ain’t Life Grand in 2000.

Snakepit would eventually give way to other adventures, most notably Velvet Revolver and Slash’s hugely successful solo career.

But for mid-’90s rock fans, Snakepit remains a fascinating piece of Guns N’ Roses history.

1. Mad Season – Mike McCready… With a Hair-Metal Connection?

Now here’s where the whole ’80s-to-’90s transition gets wonderfully messy.

Not every musician moving into new projects came directly from glam metal itself. The borders between scenes became increasingly blurred as musicians who had grown up worshipping classic hard rock collided with the alternative explosion.

Projects such as Mad Season, featuring Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin and bassist John Baker Saunders, demonstrated just how radically the idea of a rock supergroup had changed by the middle of the decade.

Their only studio album, Above, released in 1995, was dark, bluesy, psychedelic and deeply emotional.

It was basically the complete opposite of the Sunset Strip’s champagne-and-spandex excess.

And that contrast tells the wider story beautifully.

Rock hadn’t died.

It had mutated.

🎸 The ’80s Didn’t Die — They Adapted

It’s easy to tell the story of early-’90s rock as if Nirvana walked through the door, unplugged every Marshall stack on Sunset Boulevard and sent every glam-metal musician down the Jobcentre.

Reality was far more interesting.

Musicians adapted.

Some went heavier.

Some went alternative.

Some embraced punk.

Some rediscovered blues.

Others simply said “sod it” and continued making enormous hard-rock riffs regardless of whether MTV wanted them.

And that’s why digging through these forgotten bands is so much fun.

Behind every massive name like Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake, Cinderella, Ratt and KISS lies an enormous family tree of side projects, supergroups and gloriously short-lived experiments.

Some deserved to be bigger.

Others were probably doomed from the moment somebody booked the studio.

But every one of them represents musicians refusing to quietly disappear when rock’s fashion police decided their time was supposedly up.

So next time somebody tells you hair metal died when grunge arrived, point them towards the forgotten corners of the ’90s.

The hair might have got shorter.

The riffs didn’t. 🤘🔥

🍺 Over to You, Butt…

Which forgotten post-hair-metal project deserves another listen?

Were you blasting Arcade, Union, The Scream or Slash’s Snakepit back in the day? And what’s the most criminally overlooked ’90s album made by an ’80s rock legend?

Get involved and tell us your picks.

Because here at The Riff Report, we’ll happily disappear down an obscure-rock rabbit hole if there’s a massive riff waiting at the bottom.

Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. Zero Apologies. 🐉🎸🔥