u/AlphaBettyPersketty — reddlx

There are plenty of hair metal or hair metal adjacent bands whose traditional lineup is one or two guitarists, a bass player, and drummer, but keyboards or piano play a significant role in part of their sound, and even in some of their biggest hits.

I count songs such as Mötley Crüe's Home Sweet Home and You're All I Need, Warrant's I Saw Red, Cinderella's Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone), Poison's Something to Believe In, as the best example of piano driven songs by traditional guitar focused acts.

Of course, all of those that you can think of off the top of your head are probably going to be ballads, but then you have have the song Right Now by Van Halen, albeit, not during their hair metal era, that is driven by piano and is not a ballad.

Again, when it comes to keyboards or synths being used by guitar focused hair metal acts, you can't go past Eddie & Co.'s Jump. From the opening synth lead to the keyboard solo, that song is more about the keyed instrument than the stringed one. In fact, you can find many diehard EVH fans cite Jump as one of his worst solos. I disagree, but that's for another time...

Many guitar bands used keyboards, mainly on a synthesized strings setting to add atmosphere to songs, especially acoustic ballads such as Poison's Every Rose Has Its Thorn, and Warrant's Heaven, but also electric guitar driven ballads such as Ratt's Givin' Yourself Away uses them in the intro and chorus.

There are plenty of guitar bands that have synths, strings (on synths), keyboards (playing indescribable sounds, maybe "pad" might be best), or even organs that are low in the mix, and you probably don't know they are there because no one is listed playing them on the liner notes, but if the producer, engineer, or even one of the band members can play the keyboards, they may have chucked it in and not listed it.

There are plenty of examples that I have not included. I also didn't include those songs during Whitesnake's hair metal era as they are an anomaly. Previously, with John Lord on board (that rhymes) they were a band where keyboards were used by a listed keyboard player who was an official member. When he left, they toured with a keyboard player who was not an official member. Then they record their biggest selling album that has a shit ton of keyboards, and they look like a guitar band.

Anyway, give me some examples of songs with keys, piano, organ, etc by bands that don't have a keys, pianist or organist in their midst.