Steelheart

Steelheart is an American hard rock and glam metal band, formed in 1989 in Norwalk, Connecticut. It is on Muzika-Balkan because of its singer and main songwriter, Miljenko Matijević, who was born in Zagreb on 30 November 1964. He lived there with his brother and grandparents until 1970, when his parents took the boys to Scarsdale, New York; when he was seven, the family moved on to Greenwich, Connecticut. In 2008 the Charlottesville weekly C-Ville wrote that he had moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, from Los Angeles a few years earlier and opened his own SteelHeart Studios there.

His father loved country music, and the young Matijević sang along while his brother learned the guitar. He joined a church choir at nine and discovered Led Zeppelin at eleven. Spotted with a local band called the Mission, he was invited to rehearse at Showcase Studios, where he met guitarist Chris Risola, bassist James Ward and drummer Jack Wilkenson. Together they formed Red Alert; rhythm guitarist Frank DiCostanzo and drummer John Fowler, both from Rage of Angels, came in later. The band moved to Los Angeles, landed a record deal within a month and became Steelheart.

The debut album Steelheart came out on 10 May 1990, reached number 40 on the Billboard 200 and went gold in 1991, mainly thanks to "I'll Never Let You Go", which climbed to number 23 on the Hot 100. Tangled in Reins (1992) did far less in America, but its single "Mama Don't You Cry" went to number one in several East Asian countries, including Hong Kong, and took the band on an Asian tour. On Halloween night 1992 in Denver, during "Dancing in the Fire", Matijević was badly injured when a lighting truss fell on him on stage, and that ended the original line-up.

He brought Steelheart back with new musicians for Wait (1996), whose "We All Die Young" was used in the film Rock Star with Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. The EP Just a Taste (2006) and the album Good 2B Alive (2008) followed, then Through Worlds of Stardust (2017) on the Italian label Frontiers Records, the live album Rock'n Milan (2018) and the compilation 30 (2022). In 2010 Matijević toured with Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors, singing Jim Morrison's parts.

He also has a large following in South Korea, where he has recorded songs for television series; in 2016 he spent six months there. Steelheart today is Matijević, James Ward, drummer Mike Humbert and guitarist Joe Pessia, and in 2026 the band released a new version of "Without You".