Watch On <\/a><\/p>\nThe gigs got bigger, and so did their earnings. And with them a slew of new challenges, opportunities and inevitable dysfunctions. \u201cIt was a long year with many rewards,\u201d Haycock recalled. \u201cA couple of us had developed expensive hobbies involving white powder and noses. As for myself, I was pretty busy writing songs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Climax kept things rolling, but that all-important follow-up hit eluded them until 1980, when one of guitarist Derek Holt\u2019s songs, I Love You, took them back into the spotlight. A syrupy, AOR ballad, it became both a blessing and a curse for Climax. While it boosted their status, especially in the US, it would ultimately break them apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was purely the producer\u2019s idea,\u201d Haycock said. \u201cI hated most of it. Unfortunately, the producer was nominated mainly by the record company and turned out to be an idiot. I ended up writing bland pop crap, too, thanks to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disillusioned, Haycock left the band soon after. Climax carried on, operating first as a modern rock band, and then returning to Colin Cooper\u2019s first love, the blues. Peter Haycock\u2019s post-Climax career included a successful run with ELO Part Two. While he stayed in touch with most of the original Climax band members, it was strictly business.<\/p>\n
Climax Blues Band settled into a comfortable groove, playing blues festivals. But things took a turn for the tragic in 2006, when founder Colin Cooper was diagnosed with cancer. He continued to play with the band until his death in July 2008. Haycock, who collaborated with Hans Zimmer on several Hollywood film scores after leaving ELO Part Two, died in October 2013 of a heart attack.<\/p>\n
After Cooper’s death, the band rallied and continued to tour without any remaining original members. Their most recent album, 2019’s Hands Of Time, included a bonus track featuring vocals from the late singer.<\/p>\n
This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 140, published in January 2010. The story was updated in 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 1970s were nuts, just completely bonkers; a decade where love and hate mashed into one big ball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-420374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Climax](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768980788_807_maxresdefault.jpg\")
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