Fast Food Rockers

The Fast Food Rockers were a British pop group known only for their novelty music. The band claimed to have met at a fast-food convention in Folkestone in summer 2003.[1]

Fast Food Rockers
OriginFolkestone, England
GenresBubblegum pop, novelty
Years active2003–2004
LabelsBetter The Devil Records
Associated actsThe Honeytraps
Past membersMartin Rycroft
Lucy Meggitt
Ria Scott

Career

Their most successful hit was their 2003 release, "Fast Food Song", which parodies the traditional folk melody "A Ram Sam Sam". The Dutch DJ Eric Dikeb claims to have made a Dutch song out of that traditional melody in 2001, called "Pizzahaha", explaining that at that moment, he was taking part in the Dutch television show Big Diet, in which contestants had to lose as much weight as they could over a few months. Dikeb claims to have come up with the idea to use the names of his favourite fast-food restaurants in the song. The same fast-food restaurant lyrics and tune, together with hand signals, are a scout camp-fire song which pre-dates Dikeb's claim by a number of decades. "Pizzahaha" did not make it to the Dutch charts, but in Belgium the band Dynamite made a big hit out of it, with a Belgian version called "De Pizzadans". It also topped the charts in Germany, called "Burgerdance", by DJ Otzi.[2]

The Fast Food Rockers' version, adapted by Mike Stock, Steve Crosby and Sandy Rass, was the first release of independent record label Better The Devil Records. The song mentioned Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's. In June 2003 it reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart and number 1 in Scotland, despite the criticism of cultural analysts who lamented the "collapse of culture into product placement".[3] The single would go on to sell 150,000 copies in the UK, and was in the year-end Top 40.[4]

The band had its own mascot, a giant blue dog called "Hotdog" (performed by Adrian Reed) who followed the band around and appeared in all three music videos.[1]

Their second single, "Say Cheese (Smile Please)", reached #10.

In 2003, there were rumours that the band did not sing on their own records. However, in an interview with CBBC Newsround, Lucy stated she "trained for three years at a performing arts school, Ria's been in the business for a long time, Martin's been in the business for a long time and we're very proud to say we do sing on [this] song".[1]

After their attempt at a Christmas single only reached #25, and an album that failed to make the charts, their management company decided to drop the band in March 2004.

After the split, the band members found jobs outside of the music industry,[5] and in 2006, former band member Martin Rycroft was poached from his bar-tending job to take part in the Channel 4/E4 show Boys Will Be Girls,[6] where three former male popstars (including Russ Spencer from Scooch) tried to convincingly create a new girl band by former Brother Beyond star Nathan Moore.

Discography

Albums
Title Details
It's Never Easy Being Cheesy

Singles
Title Year Peak chart positions Album
UK
[7]		 SCO
[8]
"Fast Food Song" 2003 21 It's Never Easy Being Cheesy
"Say Cheese (Smile Please)" 1010
"I Love Christmas" 2522 Non-album single
gollark: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide or use my mirror at https://peter-is-stupid.osmarks.tk/en/Installation_guide.html
gollark: You just need to manually do a few things, is all.
gollark: Arch is not actually that hard to install, I was joking.
gollark: Time to install Arch on your computer... by force, if necessary.
gollark: I mean, not needing dedicated hardware is great, but otherwise I think MacOS is sort of better. In some areas.

References
  1. "CBBC Newsround | MUSIC | Full interview: Fast Food Rockers". BBC News. 2003-10-13. Retrieved 2018-11-11.
  2. "Emimusicpub.com". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
  3. Stuart Jeffries (2003-06-28). "Stuart Jeffries: Pizza pop | Global". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-11-11.
  4. "ChartsPlus YE2003" (PDF). ChartsPlus. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  5. "CBBC Newsround | MUSIC | The Fast Food Rockers are axed". BBC News. 2004-03-31. Retrieved 2018-11-11.
  6. "Channel4.com". Archived from the original on 2007-03-07. Retrieved 2006-12-24.
  7. "FAST FOOD ROCKERS | full Official Chart History". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  8. Peak positions on the Scottish Singles Chart:

Band

Members

Songwriters and producers
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.