The Hooters

The Hooters are an American rock band from Philadelphia. They combined elements of rock and folk music to create their sound. The Hooters first gained major commercial success in the United States in the mid-1980s due to heavy radio airplay and MTV rotation of several songs including "All You Zombies", "Day by Day", "And We Danced" and "Where Do the Children Go". They opened the Philadelphia portion of the Live Aid benefit concert in 1985.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, The Hooters found significant commercial success internationally, especially in Europe, where they played at The Wall Concert in Berlin in 1990, before they went on hiatus in 1995.

Since reuniting in 2001, The Hooters have staged successful tours in Europe and 2007 saw the release of their first album of new material since 1993, Time Stand Still.

Career

Early years (1980–1984)

The Hooters were formed by Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian in 1980 and played their first show on July 4 of that year. They took their name from a nickname for the melodica, a type of keyboard harmonica which is German in origin, created by Hohner. A friend of Eric Bazilian lent Rob Hyman a Hohner model Piano-36 which was used on their recordings, and never returned to the friend. Rob and Eric met in 1971 at the University of Pennsylvania and had played in a band in the late 1970s, based in Philadelphia, called Baby Grand, which also featured local singer, David Kagan. Baby Grand released two albums on Arista Records. In addition, producer/friend of the band Rick Chertoff also had a significant role during these album sessions, and he would later produce several Hooters albums as well.

Private Emotion

"Private Emotion" is a pop song written by Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman and originally recorded by The Hooters, for their 1993 album, Out of Body. The song was picked up by Ricky Martin and included on his Ricky Martin album. It was released as a single on February 8, 2000 and featured Swedish singer Meja. As Turkey was one of the countries where Martin's popularity was at its peak, Ricky Martin sings the song with Sertab Erener instead of Meja in the Turkish edition of the album.

The Australian maxi-single includes "Almost a Love Song", which is an English version of Martin's song "Casi un Bolero", taken from the Grammy-winning album Vuelve.

Music video

The first music video, directed by Francis Lawrence, aired in March 2000 and features Meja. The Turkish version features Sertab Erener instead of Meja.

Chart performance

The song became a top ten hit in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In the United States, it reached number sixty-seven. In Sweden, "Private Emotion" was certified Gold.