The Buggles - Formation

Formation

Horn and Downes first met in 1976, at auditions for Tina Charles' backing band, and worked with her producer, Biddu, whose backing tracks had an influence on their early work. After this stint they briefly went their separate ways, Horn playing bass guitar in the house band at Hammersmith Odeon for a while, where he met Bruce Woolley. During this period Horn yearned to become a record producer, but was frustrated by not being able to find ideal songs or artists to work with. As a result he reunited with Geoff Downes, and the trio of Horn, Downes and Woolley began writing their own songs to record themselves as a studio band.

The Buggles' sound was characterised by a deliberately synthetic quality in keeping with the technological subject matter of their songs. Two different stories are claimed for the origin of the band's name. Horn said he chose "The Buggles" because "It was the most disgusting name I could think of at that time", while Downes claims that it arose out of a joke and was actually a pun on "The Beatles":

It was originally called The Bugs. The Bugs were studio insects—imaginary creatures who lived in recording studios creating havoc. Then somebody said as a joke that The Bugs would never be as big as The Beatles. So we changed it to The Buggles.