Friends' theme tune nearly destroyed band

By Fiona Sturges

You'll have heard it hundreds, no, thousands of times. Chances are you don't know who sings it though, if requested, you could probably recite it word for word, backwards if necessary. It's a song that has, over the last 10 years, wound its way into your consciousness uninvited and languished there like a drunk that doesn't know when to leave the party.

"I'll Be There", the jingly-jangly, relentlessly upbeat theme soundtrack to the comedy series Friends (the final episode of which goes out next month on Channel 4) is the work of the southern California band The Rembrandts.

It was the song that both made their name and signalled their demise. Theirs is a typically rock'n'roll tale of band-struggles-to-be-heard, band-makes-it-big, band-vow-never-to-work-together-again - though nowadays their singer, Danny Wilde, is philosophical about the song which nearly finished his career.

"I don't have any feelings about it either way any more," Wilde sighs. "First it was this albatross, but now it's become a part of pop culture and there are moments when I'm really very proud of it. At a time when bands are constantly trying to promote themselves via television or the movies or whatever, what happened to us doesn't seem so extraordinary.

When Friends first began in 1994, however, The Rembrandts found themselves accused by both fans and fellow musicians of selling out. "We went from being the darlings of the alternative scene to a proper mainstream band," recalls Wilde ruefully.

"Before Friends we'd been playing all these underground venues. But 'I'll Be There' was so huge that we ended up playing stadiums almost overnight. We'd do these matinee shows and see 10-year-old kids in the crowd, singing along. When we were interviewed we were always asked how many claps there were in the song. I think we lost a lot of our original fans at that point, and many people stopped taking us seriously."

Though they were barely known in this country, the Rembrandts had already had a handful of minor hits in the United States, among them "That's Just the Way It Is", "Baby" and "Johnny, Have You Seen Her?" before they landed the Friends gig.

It was Kevin Bright, the producer of the show and a self-confessed Rembrandts fan, who put them forward as contenders for the theme tune (other artists under discussion were Natalie Merchant and REM's Michael Stipe, though both reportedly turned it down).

"He and the writers Marta Kauffman and David Krane wanted a proper song, not just something that had been dreamt up by a jingle writer," Wilde explains.
"He also wanted a real band involved, one who already had a bit of a following."

Wilde and his songwriting partner Phil Solem were invited to the Friends' studios and shown the pilot. "We liked it immediately, and it had some good people working on it. So we thought 'Why not? Nobody will even know it was us, anyway'. During the first season, we weren't even listed on the credits."

The Rembrandts had always written their own material but with "I'll Be There," their input was minimal. The musical director Michael Skloff had already came up with a tune, while a lyricist named Allee Willis had written some lyrics. Wilde and the band were brought in to tweak the lyrics and provide the instrumentation.

Did he like the end result? "Oh sure," he exclaims. "We completely made it our own. I remember thinking it was awesome, a really cool little pop tune. It had great harmonies and this upbeat vibe. More than anything, it was fun. Plus, Phil and I were really jacked to hear it on the TV show. It was only when it all blew up and we became known for this Monkees-style jingle, that the shine kind of wore off."

As the series' popularity burgeoned, US radio stations found themselves besieged by requests for "the Friends' theme tune." But, being only 40 seconds long, the song wasn't available as a single.

In the end, DJs at a Nashville station took matters into their own hands and, with the help of some studio trickery, made their own extended version. Spotting an opportunity to make some cash, The Rembrandts' record company then dispatched the band to an LA studio to record a full-length single. "I'll Be There" stayed at Number One in the charts for 11 consecutive weeks. Against the band's wishes, it was also tacked on to their third album, LP, which went on to sell two million copies.

"It wasn't so much added at the eleventh hour as the thirteenth," grumbles Wilde. "We felt that the song went against the more serious, alternative vibe of the album. It sounded like nothing else we had done. Mind you, we stopped complaining when we saw the sales figures."

Wilde concedes that the band's split in 1997 was a direct result of the single. "You could say it became something of a curse, yes. We were tired of it being the only thing we were known for, and we were tired of being on the road. After the third album came out and did so well we toured for three years. We weren't writing any new songs and we weren't spending any time in the studio. The whole thing became a grind. There was no outright animosity between us, but we needed a break from each other."

Wilde subsequently made music as a solo performer, while the bass player, Graham Edwards, went on to become part of the production team The Matrix, which produced hits for Avril Lavigne and Liz Phair. The drummer, Pat Mastelotto, joined prog-rockers King Crimson. After a four-year period of silence, Wilde and Solem finally got in touch again in 2001.

"We decided to let bygones be bygones and get back to work," Wilde remembers. "We always knew we had this great chemistry in the studio. It seemed a shame to let that go."

Now in their late forties, Wilde and Solem have struggled to make their presence felt in a pop landscape dominated by scantily clad teens and graduates of reality TV. In a last-ditch attempt to capitalise on glories past, they are preparing to put out a collection of greatest hits which will, yes, include "I'll Be There" along with "a couple of new tunes for the kids".

Wilde admits that, when all's said and done, he's got much to be thankful for. The success of Friends indirectly turned The Rembrandts into millionaires and, briefly, the toast of the music scene. But he still comes over all bashful when I ask if dollar signs appear in his eyes whenever he sees Friends on the telly. "To be honest I don't even notice it any more," he mumbles unconvincingly.

But you can't be short of a bob or two? "Well, let's just say I'm not going to retire on it, but I've managed to put both my kids through college. We get paid for performance, which means we make something every time it's on TV, but we never got publishing royalties."

Now, even with the show coming to an end, Wilde knows that there will be no escaping That Song. "With the repeats, that show is sure to outlive me," he says with a sigh, adding, "But I guess that's kind of cool, isn't it? That way, The Rembrandts will never be forgotten."

- INDEPENDENT