A New Documentary Rescues Disneyland’s Amazing Sci-fi Rock Band from the Dustbin of History
Photos and poster art provided by the film's producers
For a few weeks in the summer of 1981 you could see something truly extraordinary at Disneyland. Well, okay, you can always see truly extraordinary things at Disneyland, and lots of them—that’s why it exists. Something special happened at the park that summer, though, something that was never seen again. From June 20 to September 11, 1981, you could stumble upon a full-blown rock ‘n’ roll show by an original band, playing original songs, with an original look that was part Star Wars, part KISS, and entirely amazing. The band’s name was Halyx, it only existed for that one summer, and there’s now a feature-length documentary about its short history and unrealized dreams. It’s screening for free on YouTube, and if you’re at all interested in rock ‘n’ roll, theme parks, late ‘70s / early ‘80s pop culture, or insider stories about the music industry, you should block off the 80 minutes it’ll take to watch all of Live from the Space Stage: A Halyx Story.
Disney’s theme parks have always been home to a variety of live music. You can randomly encounter jazz groups, marching bands, barbershop quartets and more throughout the day, or let your kids burn through their excess energy at dance parties blasting Disney Radio pop songs. As Matthew Serrano’s film details, Halyx was conceived by Disney Records exec Gary Krisel to fill a gap in the park’s musical offerings, playing the kind of slick, professional arena rock that the teenagers of the day would listen to on AOR stations, and which would eventually wind up on classic rock playlists. To that end Disney hired professional songwriters and assembled a band of experienced, highly talented musicians—what one interviewee in the movie calls “real players’ players.”
And then Disney dressed them up in elaborate alien and robot costumes and said they were from outer space.
When Halyx was being assembled, Star Wars was the most popular thing in the country. It was only a couple of years after KISS was at its peak as a pop culture phenomenon. American teens loved space operas and extravagantly costumed rock bands. And since everything at Disneyland is about the show, Disney’s rock band couldn’t just be any group of musicians. It had to be something extraordinary, something unforgettable—something you could only see at Disneyland. And eventually, as the company hoped, at your local arena, once Halyx got signed to a label and became a breakout sensation.
And so Halyx was born. As Bambi Moé, one of the Disney execs behind the whole thing, says, “if KISS played in the Star Wars cantina, that would be Halyx.” The bassist was a seven-foot fur-covered beast that everybody just called a Wookiee, copyright be damned. The keyboard player wore a robot suit and sat in a motorized cart made to look like a small, futuristic, one-man tank. A dancer and acrobat was hired as a second percussionist, decked out with a latex lizard mask, and did light Cirque du Soleil-style stunts during the show. And the singer and lead guitarist were basically Leia and Luke if they were played by Pat Benatar and Billy Squier.
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