Hardline was formed when brothers Johnny and Joey Gioeli, originally from the band Brunette, teamed up with Journey/Bad English guitarist Neal Schon. The original plan was for Neal to produce Hardline, but since he was having so much fun that he decided to join the band as soon as he left Bad English. They immediately added established musicians Todd Jensen (David Lee Roth, Alice Cooper) on bass and Deen Castronovo (also coming from Bad English) on drums to the mix and the result was …HARDLINE. They went on to record their debut album “Double Eclipse” for MCA in 1992 and then went on the tour circuit with such heavy hitters as Van Halen and Mr. Big.
The first single from “Double Eclipse” was the song “Hot Cherie“. Radio stations worldwide started to play it and Hardline’s fanbase started to grow. They toured across the US as well as the UK and Europe. They released a video to MTV, but did not get much airplay. By that time grunge and alternative had already taken over and Melodic Rock was being pushed aside. While Neal re-started his adventure with Journey in 1995 (again together with Deen Castronovo), Johnny stepped out of the music business eventually to return as Axel Rudi Pell’s singer in 1998 on the album “Oceans Of Time”.