ROCK ON
NINETIES alt-rock band EMF are still going into their 50s, decades after their single Unbelievable topped charts in America.
It all started with vocalist James Atkin, drummer Mark Decloedt, bassist Zac Foley, and keyboardist Derry Brownson when they first met in school.
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They came up with the band name EMF, which stood for Epsom Mad Funkers, a name taken from a fan club of the band New Order in 1989.
They later met keyboardist and guitarist Ian Dench after previously enjoying music success in group Apple Mosaic.
Ian previously told The Guardian: “I hitched a lift home and the lorry dropped me on the M50.
"I remembered this cool kid called James that I’d met at Glos Music Co, who had kept saying, ‘You should come to the Forest of Dean. We’ve got this great band. We wear Afghan coats and play death metal.’
"I phoned him from a call box. 10 minutes later he arrived with Zac, we went out and got drunk and I didn’t go home for three days.”
The group from Cinderford in Gloucestershire began writing their own music and it is believed that Ian's break-up served as the inspiration behind their first single Unbelievable.
It reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart, and was a number 1 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.
He told the New York Times: “More than the music, EMF is about an attitude and that attitude comes more from punk than anywhere else.”
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Meanwhile their debut album, Schubert Dip, went to number 3 on the UK Albums Chart.
During their eight-year run, from 1989 to 1997, the band released three studio albums before a hiatus.
The band broke up in 1997 after their third record.
James told XSNoise: “It did make it hard because you have to be selling records to have a record deal and you have to have a record deal to pay your wages.
"When you’re that age, you’re really confused, you don’t know why things aren’t happening the way you want them to.
"Simply, we didn’t make a great record. Stigma didn’t sell that well either compared to the first album.
"We were all growing up as people and doing our own thing, the gang mentality had gone out of us a little bit.
"We were maturing and having girlfriends and going off doing other projects, we weren’t all living in the same town.
"In hindsight looking back, I can see that’s how we lost our way after all that success you kind of loses yourself a bit.”
Last year, the band made a surprise return to the music scene to release their first album of new material in 27 years, Go Go.
The band reformed five times from 2001 to now.
But sadly bassist Zac Foley died in 2002 of a drug overdose at the age of 31.
During their two decade break, the band members went onto forge different career paths.
James became a teacher specialising in GCSE and A-level music.
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In 2014 he announced his debut solo album A Country Mile and tour.
While Ian is a senior executive at Epic Records in New York and has co-writes music for megastars Beyonce and Shakira.
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