Head East was a hard rock quintet originally from south central Illinois, then Champaign, Illinois. They released their first album, Flat as a Pancake, in 1974 on their own record label (Pyramid Records) selling all 5,000 records and 500 eight-tracks produced. A&M was impressed enough to sign the band and re-release the album in 1975 which went gold by 1978.

Flat as a Pancake would remain their most popular album spawning two charting singles, the well-known anthem "Never Been Any Reason" and "Love Me tonight", both written by guitarist Mike Somerville.

This lineup of John Schlitt (vocals), Mike Somerville (guitars), Roger Boyd (keyboards), Dan Birney (bass) and Steve Huston (drums) would last through four more studio albums and a double-LP live album when in 1980 Schlitt, Birney and Somerville left the band although Somerville would return for 1994 through 2003.

Roger Boyd took over leadership of the band for one mildly successful album, U.S. 1, and two more studio albums before the band became an oldies act