When I returned to England after completing Andy Frasers album in California I began to work on tracks with Andy Piercy from After The Fire. CBS wanted to make a follow up album to Der Kommissar and although the band had now split arrangements had been made for him to continue using the name. (at least that was my understanding). Andy had started a new co writing partnership after his split with Pete Banks and we had enough material to start the album. In the first batch of songs we cut we did a cover of "We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place" and a new song he'd written "Stop Go".
We used several different studios for these recordings due partly to completion of songs and part down to availability of time.
We'd come of a huge hit with "Der Kommissar" and although Dancing In The Shadows charted in the USA it didn't sustain its chart position for long. So the pressure was on for a radio friendly single to promote the album.
At one point I expressed to Andy I didn't feel we had enough single options in the material recorded. We still had time I felt to find more single material but Andy wanted this album to represent the styles of Artist's he aspired to and insisted we continue with material he had written.
I had thought "Stop Go" would have made a better choice of single to follow "Dancing In The Shadows". As a side note Michael Jacksons former manager Frank Dileo and other N.Y. Epic execs came by the studio and I played them the mix of "Stop Go". Frank was beaming after the playback and said to me we'd done it again ! He especially loved the acoustic breakdown section.
However despite Frank's reaction CBS went with "8 Ball In The Top Pocket" as the single, radio didn't pick it up and CBS subsequently dropped the project. There are many great songs on this album and I certainly gave each one of them the best treatment production wise I could.
We will never know the course if a different single had been chosen but maybe CBS felt with no actual band to tour and the lack of obvious singles on the album it was best to pull the plug.
A shame for us all after the huge USA success of Der Kommissar.