Steelheart is the headliner at Rockin’ at Riverbottom on Saturday

WILLIAMSPORT — Steelheart frontman Miljenko Matijevic can trace his love of music back to spending time with his grandma in his homeland of Croatia.

“I think music really hit me, I would say, in the kitchen with my grandmother. I couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 years old,” he said during from a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. “I was chewing gum and singing with the radio. And I just felt a connection with the music. ... That’s how I really connected. We were always singing with the radio.”

It would be decades before one of those songs on the radio would be his own Steelheart hits such as “I’ll Never Let You Go (Angel Eyes),” “She’s Gone” and “Can’t Stop Me Lovin’ You.”

Steelheart will perform Saturday, Sept. 14, at Riverbottom Park in Williams-port as part of Rockin’ at Riverbottom.

By the time he was 6, Matijevic, now 50, and his family, including his brother John, moved to the U.S. They settled first in New York and then Connecticut.

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It was his father who Matijevic said was his first judge. He would sing while John would accompany him on guitar.

They sang songs by Johnny Cash and John Denver.

“My dad used to grade us,” Matijevic said. “Every Sunday, we would hang out. He’d have this tape recorder, put up the microphone and record us. And he’d grade our performance.”

But it was when he was exposed to Led Zeppelin, that’s when Matijevic found the music that spoke to him.

“That just struck a chord. These guys tapped into the other side. I just found this amazing connection with the side,” he said. “That’s when everything went downhill with the relationship with my father.”

Matijevic said he started to grow his hair long and got into the music scene.

“It got to the point where my dad literally paid off the barber,” he said.

He was about 12 when Matijevic said he went to his favorite barber to get a hip haircut. But his dad had gotten to the barber first with a little bribery money and Matijevic left the shop with a buzz cut.

He first started with a pop-punk band called The Mission. He was just 15 and playing a show at The Night Owl. After the show, a guy approached Matijevic about fronting another band.

He said he went in, the band did a few Zeppelin songs. The band, which at first was named Red Alert and eventually be renamed Steelheart, would play together for 13 years.

In the meantime, Matijevic decided to toe the line with his father and went to college to study mechanical engineering.

But one night while he was drafting in his third-story room, his friends said they were going to rehearsals and asked if he wanted to come.

“I said ‘Yeah, I’ll be down.’ I sat there and thought, ‘Really? I’m going to be stuck behind a desk drawing. No. I’m a rock star. That’s not what I do.’ I took the books — swear I’ll be struck by lightening from where I sit — I just threw the books out the window. It’s over. I’m done. Music is my life.”

In Steelheart’s early years, the band had its ups and downs, Matijevic said. They also learned the hard way about the business side of music when they realized the contract they were signed to with one of their managers basically would have left the group with nothing.

But Matijevic decided that in order for the band to survive, they needed to go to California.

First, he and Chris Risola on guitars went into Matijevic’s bedroom and recorded a demo of four songs, which included “Angel Eyes.”

Before he left, he stopped at his parents’ house and his dad asked what he was doing.

“I told him, ‘Well, I’m leaving for Los Angeles Friday to become a star.’ That’s what I said it to him. He said, ‘Do it. Do it,’” Matijevic said.

Within his first week of being in California, Matijevic managed to make a connection to get his demo in front in a new manager. They were quickly signed to MCA Records. The band had made it.

In 1990, the band released its self-titled album. They found immediate success in Japan selling 33,000 albums on its first day. International charts blew up with “She’s Gone.” The band’s second single, “I’ll Never Let You Go (Angel Eyes),” reached No. 14 on the U.S. Billboard charts and was MTV’s second-most requested video that year. The album reached No. 40 on Billboard’s charts.

The band’s sophomore effort, “Tangled In Reins,” saw more success again in Japan.

But in 1993, an accident during a show in Denver changed Matijevic’s life to which he calls “the beginning of the end and also the beginning of a whole other journey.”

Steelheart was finishing the first leg of their tour with Slaughter. They had done 49 shows and were asked to do one more show. He said they wanted to round it out at 50 and go back out gain.

During the song “Dancing in the Fire,” he said he saw the truss and his inner rock star urged him to climb the truss.

“I basically didn’t touch it very hard, but I felt it wobbling,” he said.

Matijevic said he tried to get off the truss, jumping over monitors as the truss started following him down.

“Just as I took my last step to get out of the way, it hit me in the back of the head,” he said. “ ... I hit the stage face first. I broke my nose, my cheekbone, twisted my jaw, my hips, my back and cracked my head open.”

He said he was irate because he thought of what could have happened if it went into the audience.

Mayhem ensued as a bleeding Matijevic was ushered backstage. He sat in a chair while he waited for the ambulance.

“I had a major moment with myself and with God,” Matijevic said. “Basically, it was just a question of which way I want to go. Do I want to end this and live a normal life? Or do I want to keep going and do the things that have been coming to me throughout the years? So I didn’t think twice. Of course, I’m going to pick door No. 2. So this all happened in 60 seconds. It was a huge moment.”

That’s when Matijevic said his new journey began. A week later after being released from the hospital, Matijevic’s brain swelled. He said he couldn’t even talk and the pain was “unbearable.”

He said he couldn’t leave the house for months because he couldn’t even stand without pain.

“That’s my journey,” he said. “Everything fell apart. Completely to the point. I was in Denver arena. A year and a half later I was on the floor. Literally on the floor sleeping in friends’ houses. Houses, cars, kids — everything was gone. I was married. Everything was washed up. But I still kept going. I felt this was my job and this was what I do. Making music and singing and connecting people with their soul is what I do.”

He went made a solo record and slowly tried to restart his career.

As he finally got his feet underneath him, Matijevic was approached to be the singing vocals for Mark Wahlberg in 2001’s “Rock Star.”

Matijevic said he was disappointed in the fact the movie used his vocals, yet he wasn’t given proper credit. Nor was he even allowed to talk about it.

He said he was in the arena during a “live” shot of Wahlberg lip-synching to his voice. That’s when he had a moment.

“OK, now you’re freaking me out,” he recalled. “Now this is weird. Now this is not cool. It’s like somebody’s taking your identity.”

Eventually, Matijevic formed a new Steelheart. The band has been making music and touring and Matijevic is right where he wants to be.

And for those who want to experience Steelheart live at Rockin’ at Riverbottom, Matijevic promises a show filled with “love, energy, power, excitement freedom. It’s fun, good energy. That’s what it should be.”