Pop Will Eat Itself

Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI, or the Poppies) was formed in Stourbridge, England with band members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country.

Biography

The Beginning

An early version of the band formed in 1981 under the name From Eden and members included Clint Mansell, Adam Mole, Chris Fradgley, Malcolm Treece and Miles Hunt (Treece and Hunt went on to form The Wonder Stuff). After changing their name to Wild and Wandering for a while and recruiting Richard March and Graham Crabb (Graham the only respondant to replace the 'piss poor' Miles Hunt on drums), they eventually became PWEI in 1986, taking the name from a quote in an NME article about band Jamie Wednesday (later to become better known as Carter USM). Pop eating itself suggested that all popular music continues to recycle ideas and that ultimately, the perfect pop song would be written that would contain the best of those ideas.

The bands early EP's (Both as Wild and Wandering and Pop Will Eat Itself) had a definite post-punk sound that was in vouge in the early and mid eighties and the band honed there song writing skills with a string of catchy 2 minute pop songs. This earned them plenty of plays in student bars as well as airplay with the help of John Peel. Later, just as the band feared they had already acomplished all they could with the sound, they found a new influence in the form of bands such as the Beastie Boys, Run DMC and Public Enemy. Graham dropped the drum sticks (replaced by a drum machine called 'Dr. Nightmare') and picked up the mic. Their pop formula progressed to the next level with classics such as 'There Is No Love Between Us Anymore' and the amthemic the anthem 'Def Con One'. As a result, they were signed to major label RCA and they achieved top 40 hits with 'Can U Dig It?', 'Wise Up! Sucker' and the album 'This Is the Day... This Is the Hour... This Is This!'.

The RCA Years

With the big studio budget that a major label can provide the bands genius began to shine through and they released 3 successful albums on the label. The first two ('This is This!' and 'Cure for Sanity') were recorded with the aid of legendary producer Flood (who had produced Nine Inch Nails and U2 amongst many others). Cure for Sanity was perhaps there most experimental album and very much more electronic than previous efforts as the band became tired of guitars. Unfortunately RCA demanded chart success and failed to understand PWEI`s lack of commerciality and wanted the band to cut the lenthy instramentals from their songs and a return to pop sensibilities.

On the follow up in 1992, 'The Looks Or The Lifestyle' the band recruited live drummer to complement the array of loops and pre-programmed drums thay had thus far relied on and also saw the guitars make a return. The record was arguably the Poppies' high point, with top 20 hits like 'Karmadrome and 'Bulletproof' it was the most commercial and polished work they they had done. Single 'Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!' registered as their biggest hit in January 1993. Unfortunately, RCA had already grown tired of the band's stuborness and dropped the band (many indie bands suffered the same fate as groups such as Take That were obviously a much safer bet) before the single was even released (ironically enough the song peaked at 9 in the UK singles chart) and the band became the first ever to perform on Top of the Pops without actually being on a record label. The album also introduced a hitherto understated concern with politics. The album inlay used the "red arrow" emblem of the Anti Nazi League extensively and also gave the organisation's address. At the time, it looked possible that the UK would be seeing a revival in far right politics, with the British National Party causing uproar in Tower Hamlets by winning a council seat.

The Industrial Influence

Being dropped from RCA turned out to be a blessing for the Poppies as the label agreed to right off the massive debts the band had accumalated in studio fees in return for them leaving quietly and giving RCA there back catalogue. After the Poppies were dropped from RCA there was a frenzy as other labels tried to sign them. However the band saw sense and decided to sign to 'Infectious Records', a label recently started by friend Korda Marshell (who signed them to RCA in the first place and had since left the label) and this gave them all the artistic freedom they required.

PWEI always suffered somewhat from their stubbornly "cartoon like" image, despite producing thoughtful and sometimes surprisingly dark tracks (ref "Wake Up! Time To Die!", "88 Seconds", "Mother"). The music press although acknowledging their undoubted popularity could never quite bring itself to take them completely seriously. By the time of 1994's 'Dos Dedos Amigos' the band had toned down its garish public persona and instead veered off in a new and more industrial based direction with the aid of long time fan Trent Reznor. Many fans were upset that the 'Is everybody happy?!' pogoing Poppies were gone and put off by the new direction. The band did make themselves a whole bunch of new fans thogh, first from being signed to Reznors 'Nothing Records' in the US and touring with Nine Inch Nails, and then having their songs used on the Playstation game 'Loaded'.

PWEI's foray into the political was made even more explicit with the release of the single "Ich Bin Ein Auslander", a joint collaboration with Asian group Fun-Da-Mental, it was scathing attack on the far right and the apathy that seemed to greet its apparent resurgence. A different version of this song later appeared as the opening track on 'Dos Dedos Amigos' album.

The following year the band released the Dos Dedos remix album 'Two Fingers My Friends' which featured remixes by The Orb, Apollo 440, Renegade Soundwave and many more. It was about this time that Graham Crabb left the band and they instead recruited 'The Buzzard' of [Yeah! God]] (who had recorded 'wild guitar' on previous albums but was never a full time member) and Clint took over full vocal duties. The band apparently continuing down the industrial route and were still recording and touring until 1996, even recording a collaberation with Orbital. However the band took a break before finishing production of their next album with Trent Reznor, and while not officially splitting, failed to complete the work sighting boredom and musical differences as the reasons. One track from this period was released though, a cover of Gary Numan's Friends, and provides some indication of the band's direction at the time.

The Designers Republic

An interesting footnote is the staggering number of T-shirts endorsing the band that have been produced (apparently with their permission). Of approximately 100 designs available, the best known is probably one which subverts the familiar "PEPSI" cola logo by replacing the legend "PEPSI" with "PWEI" and the phrase "Sample It, Loop It, Fuck It, Eat It" encircling the design. Other T-Shirts feature the outlandish (often space-themed) cartoon characters that appear from time to time on the band's album artwork, from the round headed alien with toy ray gun known as 'Craig' (thought to be after the bands manager 'Craig Jennings'), to the jagged toothed, sinister robotic head (complete with futuristic earpiece) that appears to have become the "official" logo for all "PWEI Product". At one stage in the 1990's, it was, possibly apocryphally, observed that PWEI had sold more T-Shirts than actual records.

Almost all artwork and coporate identity for the band's record sleeves and merchandising was designed by the now hugely successful Sheffield based The Designers Republic. It is considered that much of what would become the design company's metatextual and self-referencing motifs were first carved out on the sleeve of PWEI records, to the point where, unless one had a good understanding of the Designers Republic at the time, it was difficult to decipher which were PWEI icons and logos and which belonged Designers Republic.

The Future

Crabb left in 1995 to concentrate on his Ambient side project Golden Claw Musics. After the rest of the band split in 1996, March and Townsend went on to form Big Beat band Bentley Rhythm Ace. Townsend also released two solo albums and Mansell has written a number of acclaimed film scores.

The band reformed to play their first gigs in 8 years, in Nottingham, Birmingham and London in January 2005. Many thought this would never happen as the band hand apparently lost all the tapes and disks of samples and backing tracks they needed to perform live with. Mysteriously, these were recently found in a friends garden shed and so they decided to reform partly due to the massive community support at pweination.org. There are as yet, no plans for further gigs, but the band have reportedly been back in the studio together working on new meterial.

Members

Pop Will Eat Itself was composed of the following artists:

• Clint Mansell: Vocals/Guitars
• Graham Crabb: Vocals/Keyboards (left in 1995)
• Adam Mole: Keyboards/Guitars
• Richard March: Guitars/Bass
• Robert "Fuzz" Townsend: Drums

Discography

• 2000 Light Ales From Home EP (1986)
• The Poppies Say Grrr EP (1986)
• Poppiecock EP (1986)
• Sweet Sweet Pie Single (1987)
• Love Missile F1-11 Single (1987)
• Beaver Patrol Single (1987)
• Go Box Frenzy LP (1987)
• There Is No Love Between Us Anymore Single (1988)
• Now for a Feast! LP (1988)
• Can U Dig It? Single (1989)
• Wise Up! Sucker Single (1989)
• This Is the Day... This Is the Hour... This Is This! LP (1989)
• Very Metal Noise Pollution EP (1989)
• Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina Single (1990)
• Cure for Sanity LP (1990) (expanded reissue in 1991)
• Dance Of The Mad Single (1990)
• X Y & Zee Single (1991)
• 92F Single (1991)
• Karmadrome/Eat Me Drink Me Love Me Kill Me Single (1992)
• Bulletproof! Single (1992)
• The Looks or the Lifestyle LP (1992)
• Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies! Single (1993)
• Weird's Bar And Grill LP (Live) (1993)
• R.S.V.P/Familus Horribilus Single (1993)
• 16 Different Flavours of Hell LP (Best of) (1993)
• Ich Bin Ein Auslander Single (1994)
• Amalgamation EP (1994)
• Everything's Cool Single (1994)
• Dos Dedos Mis Amigos LP(1994)
• Two Fingers My Friends LP (1995)
• Wise Up Suckers (BMG best of) (1996)
• Radio 1 Sessions 1986 - 1987 (1997)

External links

• Pop Will Eat Itself official site
• Photos from the 2005 Reformation tour
• The Desigbers Republic