# The 1973 Album by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band That Sounds Like Rocky Horror Meets AC/DC

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dig-me-out-70s-80s-metal-6762076/the-1973-album-by-the-sensational-alex-harvey-band-that-sounds-like-rocky-horror-meets-ac-dc
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dig-me-out-70s-80s-metal-6762076/the-1973-album-by-the-sensational-alex-harvey-band-that-sounds-like-rocky-horror-meets-ac-dc.md
Podcast: [Dig Me Out: 70s & 80s Metal](https://stenobird.com/podcast/dig-me-out-70s-80s-metal-6762076)
Published: 2026-03-03T14:59:31+00:00
Episode link: https://www.digmeoutpodcast.com/p/faith-healer-gang-bang-and-the-weird
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/189725178/7b43f0571ba5caf590b936837dc37f8c.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/dig-me-out-70s-80s-metal-6762076/episodes/the-1973-album-by-the-sensational-alex-harvey-band-that-sounds-like-rocky-horror-meets-ac-dc
Duration seconds: 3368

## Resource

A Scottish cult hero. A seven-minute pseudo-electronic epic. A song literally called “Gang Bang.” This episode dives into Next (1973) by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, a glam-adjacent, piano-driven, theatrical rock album that turned Cleveland into a true-believer city while barely registering anywhere else. If you’ve ever wondered how a band could sound like AC/DC fronted by a cabaret singer, this one’s for you. The conversation unpacks how Next won a community poll over Santana, Mountain, and Babe Ruth, then zooms into what makes this record so strange and so compelling: Alex Harvey’s gravelly, Bon Scott–adjacent vocal sneer; Hugh McKenna’s barroom piano at the center of the mix; Zal Cleminson’s clown-faced guitar theatrics; and a tracklist that veers from swampy 70s glam rock to French-tango whorehouse drama to 50s sock-hop pastiche. The hosts dig into the band’s ties to Cleveland’s WMMS, the album’s inclusion in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and why “The Faith Healer” feels like a proto-electronic blueprint hiding inside a 70s hard rock record. Along the way, they wrestle with whether Next is a fully realized album or a brilliantly messy collision of pub-rock instincts and art-rock ambition. Is this bar-band filler padded with covers, or the sound of a band inventing a theatrical rock universe on the fly? If you’re into Alice Cooper (early band era), Slade, Mott the Hoople, AC/DC’s Bon Scott years, or even the weirder corners of 70s glam and proto-metal, this episode will hit that sweet spot between grit, camp, and cult. Episode Highlights: - 0:00 – Swampsnake (intro clip) – Setting the scene with the swampy, bluesy glam groove that defines the album’s tone and why this 70s poll got “weird in the best way.” - 1:40 – The 70s album poll – Santana, Mount…

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