It's ideas that are important, not proficiency'.īill Drummond recalled: group only lasted 12 months but that's about as long as any punk band should last. But it gave me a healthy disregard for musicianship. Ian Broudie said:'It was more performance art than rock and roll. We wanted to be a cartoon, and that's how we tried to sell ourselves to the record companies'.

We always wanted to be like The Monkees or something. Jayne Casey later states:'We were all a bit too eccentric at a time when punk was quite macho and clear cut.a bit too much for people to handle. Singer/songwriter Gold later said that 'we never got to speak with him but he must have wondered 'who is this German group with a song named after my band?'!' Coincidentally, Frankie Goes to Hollywood's single 'Relax' displaced Alphaville's 'Big in Japan' from the top of the German charts.

As of 2005, five out of these recorded songs are commercially available, on the compilation album, The Zoo: Uncaged 1978-1982.Ironically, the band never performed or released any disc in Japan.Īccording to the Liverpool Echo, Big in Japan were 'a supergroup with a difference - its members only became super after they left' former members of Big in Japan would later find fame in The KLF, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Lightning Seeds and Siouxsie & The Banshees.The German group Alphaville's first single was called 'Big in Japan', named directly after the band. Balfe and Drummond then formed the short-lived Lori and the Chameleons.īig in Japan left a recorded legacy of seven songs: one on a single, four on their EP From Y to Z and Never Again, and two released on compilation albums. They also recorded a Peel Session on 12 February 1979, with a line-up of Casey, Broudie, Johnson and Budgie the session was broadcast on 6 March 1979. The unintentional consequence of the EP was the formation of the Zoo label, which went on to release early material by Echo & the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes, amongst others.

During their time, Big in Japan recorded four songs which were included in From Y to Z and Never Again EP, released afterwards to pay off debts. The band broke up after a last gig at Eric's on 26 August 1978. In the 1980s, Drummond became manager of Cope's band, The Teardrop Explodes. According to Cope's autobiography, 'Of course, Bill Drummond was into the whole thing and told us we needed 14,000 signatures, then they'd split up. Displayed in local shop Probe Records the petition gathered numerous signatures, including those of the band themselves. In January 1978, Budgie (previously in The Spitfire Boys and later member of The Slits and Siouxsie and the Banshees) replaced Allen on drums, and in early June, Johnson was sacked and replaced with ex-Deaf School Steve Lindsey, who was replaced in July by Dave Balfe (previously in Dalek I Love You), the last member to join.Hatred of the band reached such a level that a petition calling on them to split up was launched by a jealous young Julian Cope. In October, Ambrose Reynolds joined to replace Ward who then left that December, but Reynolds himself quit shortly afterwards and was replaced by Holly Johnson. In August, the line-up grew, joining Jayne Casey (vocals), Ian Broudie (guitar) and Clive Langer (guitar), who quit in September, but not before the band recorded their first song released, 'Big In Japan', which appeared in the 7' single compilation Brutality Religion and a dance beat, released the same year. Their stage show was unique: lead singer Jayne Casey would perform with a lampshade over her shaved head, guitarist Bill Drummond played in a kilt and bassist Holly Johnson performed in a flamboyant manner which he would later take further in Frankie Goes to Hollywood.Īs an initial idea of Deaf School's Clive Langer, his friend Bill Drummond (guitar, vocals), Kevin Ward (bass, vocals) and Phil Allen (drums), formed the band in May 1977, playing only three gigs, the first of them at Bretton Hall College, in Yorkshire. They are better known for the later successes of their band members than for their own music.Ĭoming from the same Merseyside scene which would produce Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, OMD, and Dalek I Love You, Big In Japan started off playing gigs around Liverpool, such as Ruffwood School in Kirkby along with Wah! Heat, but most notably at Eric's Club. Big in Japan were a punk band that emerged from Liverpool, England in the late 1970s.

Big in japan band