The 1980s were a decade of material girls with skyscraping hair, popped collars and parachute pants, Ronald Reagan and The Terminator. Everybody wanted to rule the world, and everyone listened to bluegrass. OK, maybe that very last part isn’t exactly accurate. Everyone did, however, watch a cavalcade of scantily clad pop maidens and their heavymetal counterparts on MTV, including, in their youth, the five members of Love Canon.

It was a few years ago, on a long drive between gigs, when guitarist/singer Jesse Harper and string player Adam Larrabee went back to the future, reacquainting themselves with those big, bold synthetic sounds as they picked on hits they heard blasting on an ‘80s radio station. According to Harper, it didn’t take long for them to realize that some seriously great songs lived beneath that ‘80s polish. “As we played through the tunes, we were like, ‘This is ridiculous,’” he recalls. “These are really good musically. They’re really good compositions.”

Not a culture club, Love Canon operates with more than a nostalgic smile and wink—notwithstanding the derriere in acid-washed denim on the cover of their 2012 debut, Greatest Hits Vol. 1.—though the group’s logo does pay homage to the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun. There is a genuine appreciation, perhaps even a longing, for those pastel days and neon nights. “The ‘80s was unapologetic in its passion for virtuosity and expressing of feelings,” says  Harper, who eschews the band wearing costumes or even, for that matter, always remaining true to a song’s original arrangement. “We’re not a tribute band. We really want to showcase the songs that we love from that period.”

There are, however, those that will typecast these bluegrass aficionados from Charlottesville, Va., and Harper is a little concerned that as the band’s popularity rises, there are some people who will write them off as a novelty act. Perhaps that explains why Love Canon’s next two records, which might be released simultaneously in the spring of 2016, will be a fourth volume of ‘80s classics and an album of all-original material.

“I think there has got to be somewhat of an expiration on the ‘80s thing,” says Harper. Still, it’s a whole lot of fun covering Mozart—the 1780s king of pop—and searching for the right fit for the composer’s modern equivalent. “We’ve tried, but we haven’t found a Michael Jackson song that’s stuck,” he admits.

In the meantime, Love Canon will keep singing about girls who just want to have fun after the boys of summer have gone. “I would say 99 percent of bluegrass is cover-band music, except that they are covering bluegrass,” says Harper. “What if we get everybody to start jamming on ‘Eye of the Tiger?’ It’s a great experience for the people playing and for the people listening to it.”