The Del Fuegos are an American rock and roll band. Formed in 1981, the group came of age in Boston and its members still consider themselves products of one of the city’s many musical golden ages. After signing with Slash Records, home of X, the Blasters, Los Lobos, Gun Club and more, the band released three records on the label, including their charting songs
“Backseat Nothing,” “Don’t Run Wild” and “I Still Want You.” Touring internationally with acts including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, ZZ Top, and INXS, the group made friends and fans among such notables as Robert Plant, Sam Phillips, and, yes, Boston’s own Steven Wright. The relationship between brothers Warren Zanes and Dan Zanes, then and now, has been described as both “fractious” and “electric,” but the brothers, along with founding band member Tom Lloyd and drummer Woody Geissmann, have gone on to notable post-band successes. Dan won a Grammy and continues to record with his wife Claudia for Smithsonian/Folkways. Warren, a New York Times best-selling author and Grammy-nominee, is currently involved in the cinematic adaptation of his book, Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s
Nebraska. Tom, living in California, earned a Ph.D from CalTech and quietly remains the most successful of the bunch. Woody, a Boston-area fixture, founded Right Turn, an organization focused on recovery in the creative community, and is now promoting a book entitled A Life of Recovery and working on a musical, Rock Bottom. Though the Del Fuegos broke up in the late eighties–as Dan has said, “The ’80s were over, we were over”–they’ve reformed four times in the past thirty years to great celebration.
