Bow Wow Wow

Bow Wow Wow biography

Bow Wow Wow are an English 1980s New Wave band created by Malcolm McLaren to promote his and business partner Vivienne Westwood's New Romantic fashion lines. The group's music is described as having an "African-derived drum sound".

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). "I Want Candy" was featured in an early music video on MTV. Bow Wow Wow's recording of "I Want Candy" continues to appear 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. thumb

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.

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