Vitamin Z

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Vitamin Z were an English pop group, formed in 1985 by vocalist Geoff Barradale and bassist Nick Lockwood. Their lone hit "Burning Flame" charted well, but the group never gained this success again, and eventually went on to other projects. Although Geoff Barradale did manage the Arctic Monkeys.

[edit] History

Vitamin Z founders Geoff Barradale and Nick Lockwood, both just 25 years old, were born and raised in the industrial wastelands of Northern England’s Sheffield, a city whose pop heritage included such notables as Dave Berry and Joe Cocker, as well as, Human League and Cabaret Voltaire. The group originally took shape around a loose-knit collection of local musicians who came together in a common rehearsal space.

With the guidance of Geffen A&R executive John Kalodner, the band's debut album Rites Of Passage, was released in 1985, It's most prominent single, the inspirational "Burning Flame," did well on the U.S. dance charts and the band toured England with Tears For Fears. Vitamin Z also made news when its video for the song "Circus Ring" filmed in Istanbul, making them the first Western Europeans to be allowed to film in Turkey since Midnight Express prompted government officials there to close the border to foreign film units.

A year or so further on and the follow-up album was ready to go. "But we sat down and listened to it and it didn't do anything," recalls Barradale. "If it didn't move us, it wasn't going to move anybody else. The songs were good, but the treatment was wrong, contrived, plastic. We see ourselves as far more edgy, spiky. It was the wrong marriage with a producer."

While they awaited the results of a lawsuit that would hopefully allow them to re-work the songs, they wrote a number of new ones. They liked what they were hearing so much that they paid for another demo out of their own pockets. "We knew," says Barradale, "that this was our moment. We had to take it." By the time the legal matters were settled , they were already in the studio working on Sharp Stone Rain, beginning with producer Pete Smith (Sting, The Adventures) but ended up co-producing tracks.

Also seizing the moment, Lockwood decided to move from bass and keyboards to guitar. "In a songwriting sense, it's more creative being able to write on the guitar.