Bow Wow Wow - History

History

McLaren persuaded guitarist Matthew Ashman, bassist Leigh Gorman and drummer David Barbarossa (also known as Dave Barbe), of the then line-up of Adam and the Ants to leave the founder of the band Adam Ant and form a new group.

After a six-month-long audition process for a lead singer, the band hired Annabella Lwin. Musician David Fishel, originally from Liverpool, an acquaintance of McLaren's, discovered 14-year-old Lwin while she was working a Saturday job at her local dry cleaning shop. She was singing along to a Stevie Wonder song on the radio. The group's sound was a mix of her "girlish squeal," Balinese chants, surf instrumentals, pop melodies, and Barbarossa's Burundi ritual music influenced tom-tom drum beats.

Among the regular faces at the band's early London gigs were Latin songwriter/producer Richard Daniel Roman and Boy George, then known as Lieutenant Lush. McLaren was also going to use Boy George (later of Culture Club fame) as a second lead singer, but he was deemed to be "too wild" for the band.

In 1981, having split with their record label EMI after a dispute, Bow Wow Wow signed to new A&R head Bill Kimber at RCA Records where they had their first U.K. top 10 hit with "Go Wild in the Country" in early 1982.

The band's most popular U.S. hit was the New Wave staple, "I Want Candy" (originally a 1965 hit by The Strangeloves) which was featured in an early music video on MTV. Bow Wow Wow's recording of "I Want Candy" also appeared in film soundtracks and media and advertising events such as the 2005 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

Their most notorious recording was "Sexy Eiffel Tower," with excitedly heavy breathing and moans; this was a song that went far beyond the slightly later Cyndi Lauper hit "She Bop", about similar subject matter.

By 1983, the group had released three full-length albums, and were due to embark on a world tour but tensions in the group were rising, as the members were suffering from illness and exhaustion after intense US touring. After a rest, the guys in the band ousted lead singer Annabella Lwin in order to form a new group with guitarist Ashman as its lead singer. The new group was called Chiefs of Relief, playing with other groups such as Max, Rams, and Agent Provocateur.

In 1995, Ashman died from diabetes complications at age 35.

Since his time in Bow Wow Wow, Barbe has worked on other musical projects such as Beats International, Live with Adam Ant in 1995, Republica, dance band Chicane, the London-based 'Faith' music collective, and Amber Gate. Barbe also wrote a novel entitled “We Were Looking Up".

Gorman continued to perform and has had success as a record producer and composer for films and advertising.

In 1997, Lwin and Gorman re-created the Bow Wow Wow sound embarking on the "Barking Mad" reunion tour in 1997 and 1998, adding guitarist Dave Calhoun and drummer Eshan Khadaroo. The tour produced the live CD Wild in the U.S.A., which also included remixes of previous Bow Wow Wow tracks. "Eastern Promise" was a single released through a deal with Swedish Egil, at "Priority Records" in 1998 and was the most requested by listeners on Kiss FM. The song "A Thousand Tears" made it into the 1999 film Desperate But Not Serious starring Christine Taylor and Claudia Schiffer, and this song, along with some other previously unrecorded songs. Bow Wow Wow appeared on stage in a 20 September 2003 Inland Invasion show that was part of KROQ's 25th Anniversary celebrations, this time with Los Angeles guitarist Phil Gough and Adrian Young of No Doubt on drums. The band then maintained a touring schedule through 2006. In September 2005, Philadelphia, PA native Devin Beaman was brought in as the new drummer.

In June 2006, Bow Wow Wow recorded a cover of The Smiths' song "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" for a proposed Smiths tribute record. A promotional edit of the recording can be heard on Bow Wow Wow's MySpace page. Bow Wow Wow played on 2 November 2006 at the Maritime Hotel's Hiro Lounge in New York City to promote the inclusion of their music on the soundtrack of the Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette.

On the fifteenth anniversary of Ashman's death, the band, featuring original drummer Barbarossa, performed at a tribute concert for Ashman on 21 November 2010 at the Scala in London, in a show with Adam Ant topping the bill and also featuring later Ashman bands Chiefs of Relief and Agent Provocateur.

2012 sees Bow Wow Wow touring together again in California and the UK.