Mark O'Toole

Frankie Goes to Hollywood are an English pop band that formed in Liverpool in 1980.

They comprise Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Mark O'Toole (bass), Brian Nash (guitar) and Peter Gill (drums).

Frankie Goes to Hollywood formed in Liverpool in 1980.

The lead singer, Holly Johnson, had previously played in Big in Japan and had released some unsuccessful solo singles.

He formed the first version of Frankie Goes to Hollywood with local musicians Phil Hurst (drums), Ambrose (bass), Steve Lovell (guitar), but the group soon split.

The band's name comes from an advertisement announcing the first film by Frank Sinatra.

In 1982, Johnson restarted the group with Peter Gill (drums) and the brothers Mark (bass) and Jed O'Toole (guitar).

Frankie Goes to Hollywood signed to ZTT Records in 1983.

Jed left before 1983, replaced by his cousin, Brian Nash.

Within the band, O'Toole, Nash and Gill constituted a group known as the Lads.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood played their first gig at a Liverpool pub, Pickwick's, where they recruited the dancer and backing singer Paul Rutherford.

Nash said the band admired the Liverpool groups Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the Teardrop Explodes: "That was music from Liverpool but from our generation. You would see these people walking around town, you'd see Ian McCulloch getting on the bus. I never saw any of the Beatles on the bus."

In February 1983, Frankie Goes to Hollywood performed on the Channel 4 show The Tube, dressed in fetish wear.

That May, they became the first act signed by ZTT Records, a new record label co-founded by the producer Trevor Horn.

Horn admired the "dangerous" sexuality of their music.

"Relax" was selected as their first single.

After recording several versions, Horn created a dramatically different arrangement without the band, using electronic instruments such as a drum machine and the Fairlight, an early sampling synthesiser.

"Relax" was released in October 1983, backed by a music video set in an S&M club.

Sound on Sound described it as a "hi-NRG brand of dance-synth-pop" that "broke new sonic ground, while epitomising '80s excess in all its garish, overblown glory".

Initial sales were slow, but rose after the band appeared on the BBC series Top of the Pops the following January.

Soon after, the BBC banned "Relax" from its radio and television broadcasts, deeming it obscene.

The ban created publicity, associating Frankie Goes to Hollywood with youth rebellion.

Within two weeks, "Relax" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart and stayed there for four weeks, and the BBC was forced to reverse its ban.

Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984), produced by Trevor Horn, achieved advance sales of more than a million, and their first three singles, "Relax", "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", reached number one on the UK Singles Chart.

Their provocative sexual themes led them to be briefly banned by the BBC, drawing further publicity.

Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Two Tribes".

The shirts quickly became popular, and Music Week reported in July 1984 that they were outselling the singles in some stores.

By the end of the year, more than 250,000 T-shirts had been sold.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood appeared in the 1984 thriller Body Double by Brian De Palma.

In 1985, Frankie Goes to Hollywood won the Brit Award for British Breakthrough Act and were nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards and MTV Video Music Awards.

"Relax" won the 1985 Brit Award for Best British Single.

One of the ZTT co-founders, Paul Morley, devised a promotional campaign involving "advertising-based slogans, playful propaganda and pseudo-philosophy".

This included a line of T-shirts inspired by shirts created by Katharine Hamnett, bearing slogans such as "Frankie say relax" and "Frankie say arm the unemployed".

Morley said he wanted to challenge the idea of music merchandise, asking: "Why did it have to have a face on it, couldn't it be a walking billboard?"

Frankie Goes to Hollywood's second album, Liverpool (1986), sold fewer copies, and they disbanded acrimoniously in 1987.

Johnson successfully sued ZTT to leave his contract and began a solo career.

He declined invitations to reunite and tried to block the band from using the name.

The band reunited with Johnson and Nash for the first time since 1987 to perform for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest.

In 2004, Frankie Goes to Hollywood reunited without Johnson and Nash to perform at a Prince's Trust charity concert, with Ryan Molloy on vocals, and held a tour in 2005.

In 2014, the music journalist Paul Lester wrote that "no band has dominated a 12-month period like Frankie ruled 1984".