Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Holly Johnson once said "I wanted to make the kind of records that I heard in the discos that I danced in at that time. Funky, electronic sounds, while the musicians in the band were more rock oriented. This I suppose created the sound we know as Frankie Goes To Hollywood" Frankie Goes To Hollywood consisted of Holly Johnson, Peter 'Ped' Gill, Mark O'Toole, Brian 'Nasher' Nash, and Paul Rutherford. They dominated the late 80' and their t-shirts are still the in fashion today.

Move with me through the history of Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Formed in 1982 with Holly on Vocals, Nasher, Guitar and on DrumsPed .The rest of the ensemble was John Crowney on Bass, and Julie Irving on the Keyboards. They decided to call themselves Sons and Egypt after the album Sons And Fascination by simple minds Here is a video Shake Shake

*note* the Video says "Sons *of * Egypt " and in fact on many Frankie pages it says "Of" Nasher has confirmed that it is "and"

1982 Ped and Holly joined Jed O'Toole Mark O'Toole and Sonya Mazunda (backing vocals.) On there very first live performance as a group Paul joins them on stage, dancing away enjoying the music, and Sonya didn't have a chance. At the time the band had a whole different image, S&M, leather, and naked bums. Jed left the band for a more steady "job" and Nasher joined the band.

Here they are before they were signed to ZTT

Two record companies were interested in Frankie Goes to Hollywood Beggars Banquet Records and Ztt. They chose Ztt

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1st time on the Top Of The Pops goes from #35 on the charts to # 6

The BBC Bans Relax

On January 11th Mike Read abruptly removed the song Relax in mid play calling it obscene! Having taken a look at the cover of a woman's bare bottom pressed against a man back he also. Disgusted by the lyrics, after all the air play, he finally figured out what the word "come" meant. The BBC (who Mke Read works for) banns Relax

Other radio stations continued to play the song. It goes to #1 and stayed there for 5 weeks

In this Video Holly talks about the banning and accepts a gold record for Five hundred thousand copies

*note* "Slave To The Rhythm" was recorded but never released, later it was recorded by Grace Jones

Banned by the BBC And MTV

Banned Because someone wanted to relieve himself ..... not so good for the people down below

Along with the T-shits Two Tribes and Relax hold the number one and number 2 spots on the UK charts A feat only equaled by The Beatles

To close out the year they relased The Power Of Love not surprisingly reaching #1

Reaches # 2

Born to Run

War

Disneyland

Do you Think I'm Sexy (Paul on Vocals)

Spending six weeks in a Leinster Ireland castle Frankie Goes To Hollywood write for their new album and then off to Jersey to finish writing for the album. Their Album Liverpool is released on October 20, 1986

Rage Hard

Their first single is Rage Hard #5 On the UK charts

Warriors of the Wasteland

Topped at #19 on the charts Frankies say that this song should have been the debut single

Watching The Wildlife

Topped at 28

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April 1987 the band splits up due to miscommunications arguments and different points of view Holly talks about it in his book "A Bone In My Flute" and Nasher in his book "Nasher Says Relax"

Ped Nasher and Mark tried carry on with another vocalist but they run into legal battles with using the name "Frankie Goes To Hollywood"

The band was up for seeing each other, but had two different points of view about performing. Holly and Nasher did not want to, they felt that VH1 was exploiting them, the others wanted to perform.

The band members that did want to perform auctioned for a new lead violist and went onto perform for the Princes Trust Afterwards. The newly formed band wanted to continue to perform, and did play a few gigs, but the band disintegrated. Personally I don't like Ryan Molloy's voice it doesn't fit with the band, and you can definitely miss the guitar sound of Nasher.

Olympic opening ceremonies 2012 Frankie & June Say... thanks Tim: @ 10:15

Gabrielle Aplin does a great rendition of The Power Of Love

This is currently running in the UK. As of today (December 9 2012) Gabrielle Aplin rendition is # 1 in the UK charts and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's is in the top 40 for the first time in 12 years at #33.

Do you want Frankie Goes To Hollywood, with the original five members, to reform?