Real Life (band)
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Real Life was a Melbourne-based Australian New Wave band that had hits with its debut single, "Send Me an Angel" (1983) and with "Catch Me, I'm Falling" (1984), both of which were featured on the band's debut album Heartland (1983). The band originally consisted of David Sterry (lead vocals/guitar), Richard Zatorski (violin/keyboard), Alan Johnson (bass), Danny Simcic (drums). Steve Williams (keyboard) replaced Zartoski in the mid eighties who was then replaced by George Pappas (keyboards) in 1996 after a long hiatus of band activity.
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[edit] History
Following the hit singles "Send Me an Angel" (1983) and "Catch Me, I'm Falling" (1984), Real Life released the album Flame (1985), which spawned another single, "One Blind Love". Neither the album nor the single repeated the band's previous success. The next single, "No Shame", failed to chart, and although a video was shot for the second single "Face to Face", getting airplay in Australia, it had nothing in the way of success.
In 1986, Real Life recorded a song called "Babies" for a new North American release "Down Comes the Hammer". "Babies" was the first new recording by the band that was not written by David Sterry and Zatorski. There were two other new songs and a remix of "Send Me an Angel". Incredibly, this was to be the first of three "Best of" albums, all the more so given that the band had previously only recorded two studio LPs. At this point Richard Zatorski left the band to attend law school. (He is now a practising lawyer in Melbourne, Australia, although at some stage he formed a new band Zatorski, and recorded an updated version of "Send Me an Angel".)
In 1989, Real Life released a new version of "Send me an Angel", titled "Send Me an Angel '89", which fared slightly better in the USA than the original. The video for the 1989 version was identical to the original, except that Zatorski was edited out of all shots. In 1990, the band released Lifetime, its first album of all-new material in five years, which would spawn a minor hit with the single "God Tonight".
Steve Williams (keyboard) was the first post-Zatorski keyboardist, and was followed by George Pappas. A falling-out between Sterry and Simcic and Johnson led to a cooling of relations between them.
1997 saw the release of Happy, followed in 2003 by Imperfection (featuring only David Sterry and George Pappas). In 2004, Real Life toured the West Coast of the USA to promote Imperfection, with the band pared down to Sterry, Pappas, and Scott Ingram on drums.
In November of 2005, Pappas announced his departure from the band. Sterry has continued to carry the band name on his own.
Sterry alone will perform Real Life material with the house band on the 2006 Countdown tour of Australia starting in September. He did the TV and radio promo for the tour in July with Tottie Goldsmith (Chantoozies) and Brian Canham (Pseudo Echo).
In 2006, a new album of new mixes "Send Me an Angel" was released, bring the total number of versions of the song to approximately seventeen, including:
- 1983: the original recording
- 1983: the extended version
- 1986: "Down Comes the Hammer" version
- 1989: 4 versions in remix form on the "Send Me an Angel 89" single
- 2006: 10 versions in remix form on the Send Me an Angel album using the same cover as the 2004 release Send Me an Angel - Real Life's Greatest Hits, which has two 1989 versions of the song.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
- 1983 — Heartland
- 1985 — Flame
- 1986 — Down Comes the Hammer
- 1989 — Best of Real Life: Send Me An Angel
- 1990 — Lifetime
- 1998 — Happy
- 2004 — Imperfection
[edit] Singles
| Year | Song | AUS Singles Chart | US Hot 100 | German Singles Chart | US Modern Rock | US Dance | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | "Send Me an Angel" | - | #29 | #1 | - | - | Heartland |
| 1984 | "Catch Me I'm Falling" | - | #40 | #9 | - | - | Heartland |
| 1989 | "Send Me an Angel '89" | - | #26 | ? | - | #5 | Best of Real Life |
| 1989 | "Let's Fall in Love" | - | - | ? | #21 | - | Best of Real Life |
| 1990 | "God Tonight" | - | - | ? | #15 | - | Lifetime |
| 1991 | "Kiss the Ground" | - | ? | - | - | #27 | Lifetime |
