Eventually three more singles were released, but only one, "I Gotta Make You Love Me" (#46, 1970), made the charts. Leka produced the LP of his songs under the Steam banner using a variety of local musicians. None of DeCarlo's preferred singles charted, but Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" sold millions of copies around the world, and hit number one in the United States for two weeks in December of 1969.ĭeCarlo was approached to record a Steam album, but he turned down the project in favor of his own career. (One story of the name’s origin is that Leka was inspired by steam pouring out of a manhole outside the recording studio another that it was steam hissing in a radiator inside the old Manhattan building.)ĭeCarlo's solo singles (which Leka, Reno and the singer himself had preferred to "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye") were released under his pseudonym, Garrett Scott. Since neither Leka or DeCarlo wanted to have their names on the song, the song was attributed to a non-existent band, "Steam". Much to the musicians' chagrin, Mercury's A&R man, Bob Reno, liked "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" so much that he decided to have it released as an A-side single. To make the song less palatable to DJs, they lengthened the song with a repetitive chorus of "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye". Leka used the drum track from one of DeCarlo's singles and played the keyboard himself. With Scott as lead vocalist, the trio recorded the song in a single night without the back-up of studio musicians. Their former bandmate from the Chateaus, Dale Frashuer, stopped by the studio the night of the recording and inspired Leka to dig up a song the three had written in 1961 during their Chateau days but had never recorded.
To fill up the B-side of the first single, DeCarlo and Leka were asked to cut a throwaway flip side.
With Leka producing, DeCarlo recorded four singles, all of which Reno thought would do well issued as an A-side. In 1969, Leka, who was working at Mercury Records, convinced the label's A & R man, Bob Reno, to sign on his old Chateaus' bandmate and solo artist, Gary DeCarlo. Leka became a tunesmith with Circle Five Productions and, in 1967, he wrote and produced the Lemon Pipers' "Green Tambourine" and other Pipers' numbers with Shelley Pinz.
As the Chateaus, they recorded some failed 45s in the early 1960s for Coral and Warner Bros. The second Steam group recorded the band’s final two-sided release and, after a year-long national tour, disbanded in 1970.ĭeCarlo, Frashuer and Leka were members of a Bridgeport, Connecticut band called the Chateaus. When "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" topped the pop charts, Paul Leka quickly assembled a band to send out on tour as "Steam." When that band broke up almost immediately, a second group was signed and toured as “Steam.” Paul Leka and the studio group recorded the first album and two additional singles. The single was attributed to the band "Steam," although at the time there was actually no group of that name.
The song was written and recorded by studio musicians Garrett Scott, Dale Frashuer, and producer/writer Paul Leka at Mercury studios in New York City. Steam (band) was a pop-rock music group best known for the 1969 number one hit song and perennial favorite "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye". There are at least two bands and a DJ known as "Steam":ġ.