Bad News (band)

Bad News made their television debut during 1983, in the first series of The Comic Strip Presents...[1] (written by Edmondson, and produced by Michael White/Comic Strip Productions). The episode, "Bad News Tour", took the form of a satirical fly-on-the-wall rockumentary, in which the incompetent band is followed travelling to a gig in Grantham, by an almost equally inept documentary film crew: It seemed to take much inspiration from Mark Kidel's 1976 BBC documentary So You Wanna Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star? that followed the Kursaal Flyers around Scotland and northeast England.[2] In the episode, Bad News is a band just starting out; they have no recording contract, no management, no crew, and have apparently only been together for a short while. The 30-minute documentary follows them on their "tour" (apparently only one gig), which is an unqualified disaster ... only four people show up. Along the way, there is much inter-group squabbling as Bad News are profiled by "rock journalist extraordinaire" Sally Freidman (Jennifer Saunders), and pick up a schoolgirl groupie named Tracy (Dawn French). The episode was coincidentally in production at the same time as the similar mock-documentary This Is Spinal Tap, which was released the following year to a much wider audience.

The "Bad News Tour" episode is notable for featuring songs (written by Edmondson and Simon Brint) that do not appear on either of the Bad News albums or in the later TV episode. These rare tunes are "Bad News" (Version 1), "The Motorbike Song" (a.k.a. "Doing A Ton Down The Highway"), a brief snippet of a song whose title is unknown, and an almost complete live version of "Mr Rock N Roll". These tunes represent the only released Bad News material not co-produced by the Queen guitarist, Brian May.

After a pause of a few years, the previously fictional-only band became an entity in real life when Bad News were invited to play at the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in 1986.[1] A feature of the band's on-stage antics that day was a method of coping with the crowd's plastic (and often urine-filled) bottle barrage, which was then a traditional (if somewhat awkward) welcome for bands playing at the festival in those days. Before the performance began properly, the band spent time just running around on stage dodging missiles, with Mayall using his guitar as a bat in an attempt to return some. They also played a low-key London show at the Marquee Club, with guest appearances by Jeff Beck and Brian May, and several other gigs, including opening for Iron Maiden and a show with a guest appearance from Jimmy Page.

All this was in aid of promoting an eponymously titled Bad News album, consisting of thrashy rock songs punctuated by frequent squabbling amongst the band's members.[1] Brian May produced the record, which included a cover version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". That track peaked at No. 44 in the UK Singles Chart in September 1987.[3] A 1987 UK tour was put on, with May appearing during the encores.

The band's performance at the Monsters of Rock festival was the centre piece of a follow-up Comic Strip episode, "More Bad News", broadcast by Channel 4 in 1988. In this one-hour mock-documentary, the band is once again profiled by "rock journalist extraordinaire" Sally Freidman (Jennifer Saunders); Dawn French plays a different character this time, the band's manager Rachel. It is explained that Bad News "broke up" in 1983, six months after the original documentary was filmed, due to extreme personality conflicts. (A snippet of a supposed 1983 appearance on The Tube is shown, with Bad News being interviewed by Jools Holland before it devolves into a screaming match.) Five years later, the band is put back together again at Freidman's instigation, and now has an opportunity to record a song ("Warriors of Ghengis Khan") and make a video for it. Behind-the-scenes footage of the recording and video shoot are shown, but the single flops, and the band is in debt to their record company ("Frilly Pink Records") when the opportunity to play the Monsters Of Rock festival comes along. In the film, highlights from the concert are shown, but it ends with Bad News' terrible performance causing a riot, and the members of Bad News being beaten mercilessly by the crowd and by the police. The documentary ends with all four members of Bad News in hospital, severely injured. Dennis (the only band member still actually capable of speech) muses that if Vim dies from his injuries and they market it properly, the band might be successful yet.

Later in 1988, the band issued the largely spoken word album Bootleg, which ostensibly consisted of dialogue (mostly interband arguments) recorded during the sessions for Bad News. In 1989, a CD reissue of the Bad News album combined tracks from both albums; the later Cash In Compilation (1992) compiled many of the same tracks.

In 2012, for the 30 Years of Comic Strip documentary, Planer and Richardson returned as Den Dennis and Spider Webb respectively to recall stories from their time as Bad News. In the documentary, the post-1988 fates of the Bad News members were revealed: Alan (Vim) returned to his business as a painter and decorator, with Den assisting him; Colin's father got him a job as a bank clerk; and Spider retired to the West Country with his partner and three children. It's also revealed that Vim and Sally eventually married -- just as their portrayers Adrian Edmonson and Jennifer Saunders were married in real life.

On 9 June 2014, Bad News member Rik Mayall (Colin Grigson) died at his home in Barnes, Richmond-upon-Thames, London, from a sudden heart attack after jogging.[4]

In 2019, a vinyl record of Bad News rarities (Almost Rare) appeared. The following year, the band issued a 2-CD live compilation of material recorded in 1986, including a complete gig at the Hammersmith Odeon and their Monsters Of Rock show live at Donington.