The following is an excerpt from the new book, Fire And Fame, penned by ex-BONFIRE bassist Joerg Deisinger and BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai. In the piece Deisinger recalls working with songwriter Desmond Child in 1989 on the song 'Sword And Stone', penned by KISS frontman Paul Stanley, for the Shocker movie soundtrack.

Go to this location for press quotes about the book from industry insiders such as producer Michael Wagener, SINNER guitarist Christof Leim, ex-BONFIRE members Edgar Patrik and Dominik Huelshorst, SLASH PUPPET frontman Mif and BW&BK; scribe David Perri.

Child's Play

Four days before the beginning of the final recordings back in May, management had organized a two hour writing session with workaholic and hit songwriter Desmond Child. The result was ‘The Price Of Loving You', featuring an infectious chorus and catchy melody that stood out amongst the other songs for the new album. Since then Desmond had been busy working with Alice Cooper on his new album, Trash, and we hadn't heard or seen him since then. In July, however, shortly after the split with Hans, Desmond called us at Amigo Studios out of the blue and asked us if we'd be interested in appearing on the soundtrack for Wes Craven's new film, Shocker, which was due to be out at the end of the year. He had a song ready to go and decided we would be perfect for the job. The soundtrack would also feature Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Dangerous Toys and Saraya. It didn't take us long to reach a decision.

Two days later we were in the kitchen of Record Plant Studios with Desmond listening to the demo version of the song ‘Sword And Stone', recorded on tape in Kiss frontman Paul Stanley's living room. The song had been written by Desmond, Paul Stanley and Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick. Paul Dean, guitarist for Canadian rock act Loverboy, had already released the song as the lead-off track on his solo 1988 album, Hardcore, but Mr. Child wasn't satisfied with his version of it. So, he was up for working with us and producing a new and better version of the song. Each of us would be paid $1,500 as studio musicians, we were given the guarantee that the song would be featured during the end credits of the film, and to top it off the track it would be released as a single and a video would be filmed.

The recording of the basic tracks was done by Sir Arthur Payson, hammered out in only a few hours live off the floor; Angel and me in one room, Edgar in another. It was a hell of a lot of fun, and for the record Edgar racked up his 14 th first take. Claus, on the other hand, didn't have a good time at all. It might have had something to do with the fact that Desmond was right beside him for the duration of the vocal recordings – and we're talking in-your-face right beside him – coaching Claus every step of the way. Desmond wanted absolute perfection and we weren't in a position to argue with him.

I remember watching them from the control room, Desmond waving his arms as he pushed and pushed and pushed Claus to get things the way he wanted them. By the time the song was in the can Claus was at his wits' end and probably would have killed someone if he hadn't been so drained. The result, however, was astounding, and Claus had never sounded so good as far as I was concerned. He had given everything he had and it paid off.

At the end of 1989 we shot a video for ‘Sword And Stone' in Germany with a U.S. film crew headed up by Penelope Spheeris, who had risen to fame with her Decline Of Western Civilization documentaries and would go on to do Wayne's World with Mike Myers. The shoot took place at an 11 th century monastery in Wurzburg, with the performance footage later integrated with scenes from Shocker. It was easily the best video clip Bonfire had ever done and, wouldn't you know it, it received considerable airplay on MTV in the U.S. Unfortunately, the movie wasn't the success everyone had expected it to be. Director Wes Craven had tried to cash in on his success with his Nightmare On Elm Street horror film icon Freddy Kruger by creating a mass murderer named Pinker, but Shocker failed to capture the imagination the way Freddy had. In the end, the Shocker soundtrack was more successful than the movie, largely due to Megadeth's cover of the Alice Cooper classic, ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy'. Craven would go on to create his Scream trilogy, those films becoming international blockbusters.

I attended the premier of Shocker in Munich, sitting through the end credits to see if Bonfire was in fact featured as promised. I wasn't disappointed, and it was a great feeling hearing ‘Sword And Stone' blasting through the theater at full volume. A couple rows in front of me sat four teenage girls, visibly excited about something. I didn't think anything of it, but as the credits of all musical artists involved in the film scrolled up one of the girls jumped out of her chair and screeched triumphantly at her friends:

“See? I told you it's Bon Jovi!”

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