Started in 1976 as the Brick Alley Band by Grushecky, a high school special education teacher in Pittsburgh, the band was a fairly typical bar band. It was distinguished by Grushecky's taut, focused songs about life in the heartland and a distinctive, harmonica-and-guitar-driven sound owing much to the Rolling Stones and the J. Geils Band, but which also seemed to borrow the thrashing fury of punk rock. Most of the members of the Iron City Houserockers came from a genuine blue-collar background: Art Nardini was the son of a mechanic and a part-time college student, Joe Grushecky was a coal miner's son, and Gil Snyder's father was a construction worker.[1] In 1977 they signed with Cleveland International Records, headed by former Epic RecordsA&R chief and Pittsburgh native Steve Popovich. Popovich christened them the Iron City Houserockers, but this caused some problems when touring outside their native Pittsburgh—when they played Cleveland their tires were slashed.[1] The band's debut album, Love's So Tough, was released in April 1979. With dense, no-frills production by Popovich and Marty Mooney (“The Slimmer Twins”), the album successfully captured the band's live sound. "Hideaway" (the first single) and "Dance With Me" were viewed as standout cuts.
The band then changed its name to simply the Houserockers to avoid the geographic limitation the "Iron City" moniker had put them in. It also shed the harmonica player Marc Reisman. Ned Rankin quit and was replaced by Ron "Byrd" Foster (from the recently disbanded Silencers, previously with Sweet Lightning and Roy Buchanan's band), and Gil Snyder added synthesizers to his trademark piano and organ. The subsequent album, Cracking Under Pressure, like all the band's previous efforts, drew critical raves but did not sell well. The band was dropped from MCA Records, shortly after the album's release, and broke up a few months later.
Joe Grushecky went on to a modestly successful career on his own, often under the name Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. He has co-written several songs with another heartland rocker, Bruce Springsteen, and made a number of appearances on stage with him.
The Iron City Houserockers' first two albums, Love's So Tough and Have a Good Time but Get Out Alive! were released on compact disc in 1999. Blood on the Bricks and Cracking Under Pressure are still unreleased on CD, but cuts from both albums are included on Pumping Iron & Sweating Steel: The Best of the Iron City Houserockers.
