He contributed to hit singles in three consecutive years, all with different bands: Survivor's "American Heartbeat" in 1982, LeRoux's "Carrie's Gone" in 1983 and Toto's "Stranger in Town" in 1984.

While living in Chicago, he helped form a local progressive rock band called Trillion with keyboardist Patrick Leonard.

He sang two tracks ("Samantha" and "Sound Of The City") on the soundtrack to Can't Stop The Music (which reached number 47 on the Billboard 200),[3] as well as a more AOR-style solo album in 1981, with his friend Mark Christian as the lead guitarist.

He would drop the stage name soon after, officially going by his childhood nickname "Fergie", which stemmed from his grade school classmates once incorrectly thinking his last name was "Ferguson".

[4] While at Casablanca, he met Gregg Giuffria, of the recently defunct glam-rock band Angel (one of the few rock acts signed by the record label).

[5] However, Kansas manager Budd Carr spotted Fergie during auditions and began working with him soon after, which ultimately would prove instrumental for Frederiksen's career.

It was around this time that long-time friends Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan from Survivor invited Frederiksen to their studio during the recording of their third album, while lead singer Dave Bickler was experiencing vocal cord strain.

[7] In late summer of 1982, Frederiksen and Asia (not the hit-making British supergroup) guitarist Jim Odom were both recruited by manager Budd Carr,[6] to replace lead singer/guitarist Jeff Pollard of LeRoux, who had recently left the band to start his own Christian ministry.

Meanwhile, Frederiksen reunited with Ricky Phillips to start a brand new band called Abandon Shame, featuring Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain, and his wife Tane.

The Kevin Elson–produced "You Can't Do That", "Burnin' in the Third Degree", and "Photoplay" appeared in the soundtrack to The Terminator,[9] and were credited to Tahnee Cain and Trianglz.

[11] Toto, who had fired lead singer Bobby Kimball in the midst of recording their fifth album Isolation, invited Frederiksen to come audition for his spot.

After touring with Toto through 1985, Frederiksen was fired from the band during the initial recording sessions for Fahrenheit, mainly due to his difficulties with performing in the studio.

Phillips also assisted Frederiksen with his solo album Equilibrium in 1999, which also featured artists like Neal Schon, Steve Porcaro, Jason Scheff, Ron Wikso, Rocket Ritchotte, Dave Amato, Bruce Gowdy and many others.