DesmondChild.gr (Official Fan Club of Greece)

DesmondChild.gr, the 1st official Desmond Child fan club was the result of hard work but mostly great appreciation for the music of Desmond Child that accompanies our lives for more than 20 years now. The whole thing started back in the summer of 2007 when we had the honor and joy to meet the Man in person during his visit in Greece. Desmond was more than happy to meet us, talk with us and share some stories from his illustrious career! Let me tell you this: Despite the fact that he's one of the most famous and successful persons in the music industry he was very kind, good-humored and all in all a very down to earth guy. We decided to start the fan club in order to promote Desmond Child's name and work but most importantly spread the word about the legend and his legacy. This is your chance to be a part of the extended "Desmond Child family". We want you together for the ride...and Desmond wants you too!
The DesmondChild.gr Team
“I’ll never give up the fight, I’ll go the distance!” - DC
With remarkable consistency songwriter and producer Desmond Child has spent more than two decades as one of the music industry’s most successful creative forces, racking up no less than 59 Top 40 singles (it will probably be in the 60s by the time you read this) while generating a mind-boggling 200-million-plus albums sold worldwide. Practically everyone on earth has heard – and probably sung along with – a Desmond Child song, even if they didn’t realize it.
Just take a big breath and read only some of the artists that Desmond has collaborated with: KISS, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Cher, Richie Sambora, Billy Squier, Meat Loaf, Ratt, Cinderella, Kane Roberts, John Waite, Bonnie Tyler, Robin Beck, Iggy Pop, Joss Stone, Kelly Clarkson, Hilary Duff, Clarence Clemons, Joan Jett, Jennifer Rush, Michael Bolton, Scorpions, Steve Vai etc. And of course this list is just a small token of Desmond’s diverse and multi-faceted talent.
The best way to read a full and detailed biography of Desmond Child is to look up to the “Discography Section”. There, you can easily see that Desmond not only has written many Top 40 hits, but also he can’t fit in any category. He creates a category and sound of his own. He’s the contemporary equivalent of the skillful, pragmatic songsmiths who operated out of the Brill Building and points west in the 1950s and ’60s – Goffin & King, Mann & Weil, Leiber/Stoller, Bacharach & David, Greenwich and Barry, Phil Spector, Bob Crewe.
STEVEN TYLER (Aerosmith): “Desmond’s a chameleon! The first time we met, we wrote ‘Angel’ in about an hour and 45 minutes – and I’m not bullshitting. The guy’s a fucking genius.”
JON BON JOVI: “The Desmond you don’t know about, is the one who not only taught me the next level of songwriting but so many of the true aspects of friendship: truth, honor and loyalty. We’ve been through a lot together – the ups and the downs…and the ups again.”
Born in Gainesville, Florida, Desmond saw first-hand how tough the pursuit of a musical career can be early on as he watched his mother, Cuban composer Elena Casals, attempt to get her songs placed. As a teenager in Miami, Desmond became friends with Jerry Wexler’s daughter, Lisa, and through her he crossed paths with the pillars of Atlantic Records – Ahmet Ertegun, Wexler, Arif Mardin and the brilliant producer/engineer Tom Dowd.
DESMOND CHILD: “From Lisa’s house Tom would often give me a ride back to the projects. On these rides I would ask him dozens of questions about music and the record business. I was bitten.”
After Lisa played him Laura Nyro’s first album, all bets were off. “I was transfixed,” Desmond says, “and knew to my core that I wanted to be able to move people in that way.”
In 1973, Child’s musical ambitions – intensified by his continuing obsession with Nyro – took him to New York City, accompanied by his friend Maria Vidal. A few months later they formed Desmond Child and Rouge and quickly became the darlings of the wide-open downtown club scene with their innovative merger of music and theater. After being hotly pursued by several labels, the group signed with Capitol, which released two albums of solid material that nonetheless only hinted at the seductiveness of their live performances; consequently, neither made much of an impression on the marketplace.
Even as things were winding down for Desmond Child and Rouge, his songs caught the ear of KISS guitarist Paul Stanley, who asked Desmond to co-write a track for the band’s 1979 Dynasty album. Stanley and Child had written together once again a year ago a song (“The Fight”) for the first Desmond Child & Rouge Record. This time the result was “I Was Made For Loving You,” one of the biggest hits of KISS’ long career – making the savvy novice one for one as a collaborating songwriter. A delighted Stanley gave Child’s number to the struggling New Jersey rockers Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, and in the basement of the house where Sambora still lived with his parents, the three banged out what would become Bon Jovi’s first number-one single, “You Give Love a Bad Name.” The collaborators followed that coup with two more chart-toppers: “Livin’ on a Prayer” from the band’s breakthrough Slippery When Wet album and “Bad Medicine” from the follow-up, New Jersey.
Child soon duplicated the feat with Aerosmith, collaborating on “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” and “Angel” (from the band’s 1987 comeback album, Permanent Vacation) and “What It Takes” (Pump, 1989). During the same period, along with co-writing Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You” and Alice Cooper’s “Poison,” he began branching out from his rock base, collaborating with Michael Bolton and Diane Warren on “How Can We Be Lovers” and co-writing (again with Warren) and producing “Just Like Jesse James” for Cher. Again, these are only a few highlights of Desmond’s rise to stardom as he began to handle more writing and production duties.
In the year 1991, Desmond found time to record the solo album Discipline (Elektra), which contained his own Top 40 hit, “Love on a Rooftop”. Special guest on the album included Richie Sambora, Tico Torres, Joan Jett, Steve Lukather and of course his old friends from the Rouge days: Maria Vidal, Dianne Grasselli and Myriam Valle. Of notice is his collaboration with Aerosmith for the Get A Grip album (Geffen, 1993) which included the Grammy-winning “Crazy” and his tenure with Bon Jovi for Keep The Faith (Universal, 1992) and These Days (Universal, 1995).
In the late ’90s, Child reached back to his Latin heritage via his collaboration with Ricky Martin. Their efforts resulted in the number-one worldwide smash “Livin’ La Vida Loca” (produced and co-written by Child) and the 1998 World Cup Theme “The Cup of Life” (which he co-wrote and co-produced), a chart-topper in 20 countries. “Livin’ La Vida Loca” received Grammy nominations for Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Album, and is enjoying a second life as the end-title of Shrek 2. Martin’s second English-language album, Sound Loaded (1999), contained seven Child co-writes, including the hits “She Bangs” and “Nobody Wants to Be Lonely,” the latter a duet with Christina Aguilera, as was the Spanish version of the song, “Solo Quiero Amarte.”
During that time Child also co-wrote the hit single “Kiss the Rain” for Billie Myers and produced her Growing Pains album for Universal through his own Deston Entertainment production company. The song had its accidental genesis at Jon Bon Jovi’s house, where the two old friends were working out. A track came on the radio, and Desmond locked right in on it.
DESMOND CHILD: “I kept hearing ‘kiss the rain’ and said, ‘That is such a great title’, Jon looked at me and said, ‘He’s singing “Glycerine,” you asshole.’ I had misheard the Bush song, but in doing so, ‘Kiss the Rain’ was born.”
In addition, Child co-wrote “Weird” for Hanson’s debut album, Middle of Nowhere, which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
In January of 2000, Child combined his hitmaking skills and experience with those of Winston Simone and David Simoné as the three song men formed Deston Songs. While still in its infancy, the publishing company started notching up hits, including the Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out” and the above-mentioned “Nobody Wants to Be Lonely.” Since those auspicious beginnings, Deston has gone on to score smashes with artists as varied as 50 Cent, Celine Dion, LeAnn Rimes, Clay Aiken (whose recording of “This Is the Night” was the biggest single of 2003) and Diana DeGarmo (whose “Dreams” was the second biggest single of 2004). Of course, he didn’t forget Bon Jovi with whom he collaborated on their smash-album Crush (Universal, 2000), the powerful Bounce (Universal, 2002), the commercially successful Have A Nice Day (Universal 2005) and the experimental Lost Highway (Universal, 2007). At the same time he worked once again with Paul Stanley for the second solo album of the gifted KISS’ frontman called Live To Win.
Finally, Desmond wrote, mixed and produced the third installment in Meat Loaf’s Bat Out Of Hell saga which gained worldwide critical acclaim and did the same for The Scorpions’ Humanity Hour I record. As we write these lines, Desmond has put the final touches on the new album by the famous Finnish wonder kids…The Rasmus!
And the journey goes on…or as Desmond puts it: “I’ll never give up the fight, I’ll go the distance”!
Watch the Making of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell Part III: The Monster Is Loose":
Watch the Making of Scorpions' "Humanity Hour I" ("Humanity Hour I" project idea was also by Desmond Child):
Watch the mastermind Desmond Child in studio recording with Motley Crue's Vince Neil: