 BIG
FUN
THE BAND
Philip Creswick [Phil Creswick] - born 12 October 1965,
Charlwood, Surrey, UK
Jason John [Jason Herbert] - born 18 March 1967, Coventry, Warwickshire,
UK
Mark Gillespie - born 28 November 1966, Elgin, UK
The "Fab 3" were one of the first UK
boy bands ever! Jason, Philip and Mark met as dancers in a group called
Seventn Avenue in 1986. They had no record deal at the time. All they
had to do was dance at clubs and miming as Seventh Avenue, which was a
very successful band managed and produced by an Levine. Two Seventh
Avenue records came out while Mark, Jason and Philip were the band
members: "The right Combination" and "The Love I lost".
After that they formed their own band called BIG FUN ("because fun is
the point of what we do"). They were managed by Bill Grainger and got
a record contract on Jive. Jason, Mark and Phil started working with the
house producer Marshall Jefferson, who wrote the first BIG FUN single
ever "Living for your Love" (after the release of "I feel the Earth move"
was cancelled).
BIG FUN took the interests of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman
and the rest is history. They got really famous in Europe and Asia
selling millions of records and touring all over the world. The success
of the songwriting team Stock Aitken Waterman seems to be (unfortunately)
gone with the 80's. In 1990-1991 they released a couple of flop singles,
which didn't even reach the top 40 in the UK. BIG FUN's last single
release as a trio was "Hey there lonely Girl". It reached only number 62
in the UK charts and the group was dropped from Jive Records.
Jason John left the band in the early 90's, but BIG FUN still didn't
split up trying to find another way out. Mark Gillespie and Phil
Creswick renamed their band to BIG FUN II and signed to the independet
label called Scratch, which released the CD and 12 inch vinyl single "Stomp"
in February of 1994 (credits: Mark Taylor, Terry Adams with remixes by
Jim Thias and Danny Tenaglia). "Stomp" was a cover song originally sung
by Brothers Johnson in 1980. The record was distributed by Imago Records
in the USA and by ZYX in Europe. The track "I don't wanna hurt you" was
put on the B-side of the single. Some people say that the single has not
been promoted the way it should be, because Imago Records got financial
problems in 1994 and went insolvent trying to promote Kylie Minogue's "Confide
In Me" and Duran Duran's Warren Cuccurullo in America. The album of BIG
FUN II was cancelled and the "Fab 2" split for good.
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