Paul Caplin

Paul Caplin (born 31 December 1954 in London) started his musical career in New Romantic rock group Animal Magnet, which had a dance hit in 1981 with a synthpop track called Welcome to the Monkey House.

Caplin left Animal Magnet to help create the 1980s avante-garde new-wave pop project Haysi Fantayzee, the other members being Jeremy Healy and Caplin's then girlfriend, Kate Garner. Their music combined reggae, country and electro with political and sociological lyrics couched as nursery rhymes.

Haysi Fantayzee combined their extreme clothes sense, described as "Rasta meets hillbilly meets Dickens character meets pearly king and queen" with a quirky musical sound comparable to other new wave musical pop acts of the era, such as Bow Wow Wow, Adam and the Ants and Bananarama.

The group disbanded after releasing two hit singles and an album that went gold.

Caplin then launched his own record label, The Love Organization. This had a success with Marilyn (real name Peter Robinson), a cross-dressing singer and friend of Boy George who cashed in on the mid-1980s vogue for andogynous pop stars. Caplin managed Marilyn and co-wrote most of his material.

Caplin quit the music business in 1985 and went into technology. He now runs Caplin Systems, an internet software company.

External links

• Financial Times article about Caplin
• Article about Caplin
• Haysi Fantayzee
• Haysi Fantayzee