The writer of the first hit song for Steppenwolf, “Born to be Wild” is listed as Mars Bonfire; but that is clearly no one’s birth name. It is not even the man’s first stage name; when he was a member of the predecessor band to Steppenwolf, the Sparrows, he used the name Dennis Edmonton. He was born Dennis McCrohan; he and his brother Jerry Edmonton (born Gerald McCrohan), who was also in the Sparrows, had changed their surnames at the same time. Interestingly, Mars Bonfire had his song shopped to other bands before Steppenwolf got their shot at it; one was a Los Angeles psychedelic rock band called the Human Expression. Front man Jim Quarles chose one of Bonfire’s songs, “Sweet Child of Nothingness” as the “A” side for the band’s third single; but he wasn’t impressed with “Born to be Wild” and passed on that song.
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The Human Expression had a chance to record “Born to be Wild” before the song was made available to Steppenwolf, but the band wasn’t impressed with that song and chose another Mars Bonfire song instead, “Sweet Child of Nothingness”.
(September 2013)
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This month’s Under Appreciated Rock Band of the month is the Human Zoo, a band having numerous connections to a truly legendary band called the Human Expression, one of the garage rock and psychedelic rock bands where I wrote up the Wikipedia article many years back. The Human Expression was from Orange County, California and formed in 1966. The father of one of the bandmembers (who was also one of their songwriters), Jim Foster served as the band’s manager. They released only three singles on Accent Records in 1966 and 1967, with “Optical Sound” being a regional hit. The band had the opportunity to record “Born to be Wild” before Steppenwolf when they were presented with two demos from songwriter Mars Bonfire; bandleader Jim Quarles selected “Sweet Child of Nothingness” as the “A” side of their third single over the future 1968 hit song (and he has a point if you ask me).
(July 2015)
