1978–1981: Origins and early albums
Before Survivor formed, Jim Peterik was the lead vocalist–guitarist for the band The Ides of March from 1966 to 1973. Later, the Jim Peterik Band formed after Peterik had released his album Don't Fight the Feeling on Epic Records in 1976. The liner notes of the album, written by Jim Charney, refer to Peterik as a "survivor". This note inspired the name of Peterik's next grouping.
Drummer Gary Smith and bassist Dennis Keith Johnson had both been members of Bill Chase's jazz-rock fusion band Chase; Peterik had worked with Chase in 1974. One of the other inspirations for Peterik's choice of the new band's name was his narrow escape from death when he was unable to make a guest appearance at a Chase concert scheduled for Jackson, Minnesota on August 9, 1974. He ended up not being on the plane that crashed, killing Bill Chase and most of his band.
In 1978 the Jim Peterik Band had dissolved, and Jim was considering returning to singing and producing jingles. After several days of pleading with Peterik, road-manager/sound man Rick Weigand persuaded him to meet with guitarist Frankie Sullivan (ex-Mariah). Within an hour of that first meeting, the band Survivor was born. Johnson and Smith were recruited and Peterik brought in singer Dave Bickler (ex-Jamestown Massacre), who had worked with Peterik in Chicago on commercial jingles sessions.
In May of 1978 the band played the Elgin High School (Illinois) Prom at the Blue Moon Ballroom in Elgin, Illinois. When the band returned after a break, Dave Bickler was introducing the band members and said that from that point on the band would be called Survivor.
In September 1978 Survivor performed at Lyons Township High School in La Grange, Illinois. And after they played in small clubs during the rest of that year (one venue was the original My Pi pizzeria near Loyola University Chicago, where they headlined every Saturday night in the upstairs bar area), Atlantic Records A&R executive John Kalodner signed Survivor.
One of Survivor's earliest performances (their second gig, according to Peterik's autobiography Through the Eye of the Tiger), at Haymakers Rock Club in Wheeling, Illinois on September 15, 1978, has appeared as a bootleg recording in trader's circles in recent years.
The group's first album, the self-titled Survivor, was recorded in 1979 and released on the Atlantic subsidiary Scotti Bros. in December 1979. The album produced no Top 40 singles ("Somewhere in America" only peaked at number 70) and did not achieve the level of success that the band had hoped for.
On Survivor's first album, Peterik played rhythm guitar. All keyboards were performed by lead singer Dave Bickler (who plays several instruments), but Peterik's role quickly became backing vocals, keyboards and co-songwriter by 1981, with some keyboard parts being performed on records by session players per the producers.
In 1981 it was decided to let Johnson and Smith go as they had schedule conflicts with their other projects and were a bit "too jazzy" in their approach, according to Peterik. They were replaced by Sullivan's friend and drummer Marc Droubay and bassist Stephan Ellis, whom Peterik and Sullivan had spotted playing in a band at Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace in the Los Angeles, CA area.
Both Droubay and Ellis came aboard in time for the recording of the band's follow-up album, Premonition (August 1981). By this time, Scotti Brothers had switched their label's distribution from Atlantic over to Columbia Records and Premonition charted higher than the debut, achieving popularity with American audiences, and gave the band its first Top 40 single, "Poor Man's Son". The album also showed off Bickler's range as a vocalist with its second single, "Summer Nights" and fan favorite non-singles, like "Heart's A Lonely Hunter", "Take You On A Saturday", "Runway Lights" and "Love Is On My Side".
During the early 80s, Peterik also co-wrote hit songs for others, including 38 Special ("Rockin' into the Night", "Hold On Loosely and "Caught Up in You").
