re: Obscure “hair band” that is actually a good rock band? One of the ones I’m thinking of…

Tyketto:
They came along just a bit too late but they were incredible. If they would’ve been a couple of years earlier they probably would’ve been huge but the emergence of grunge swallowed them up.

Sweet F.A.:
More of a personal favorite. I wore the crap out of their first album. Not sure how big or well known they could’ve been….again, the grunge thing happened….but they were a bit more rooted in the blues than just a “hey, hey baby tonight…come on” group of hairspray drenched screamers and the groups that had a strong presence of blues in their stuff are the hair metal bands I gravitated towards.