Ian Dench (born 7 August 1964, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) is a British songwriter and musician. Dench was the guitarist and principal songwriter for EMF,[1] who scored a major international hit reaching number 1 in the United States with "Unbelievable" in 1991.
He recently co-wrote 'Bedroom Hymns' from Florence and the Machine's 'Ceremonials' album and is writing with Mary-Jess Leaverland and Anna F.
He has been working with Amanda Ghost since 1995 when they started writing for her Ghost Stories album which was released in 2000 on Warner Bros. Records
In 2007 they wrote the duet "Beautiful Liar" for Beyoncé and "Shakira", and "Tattoo" for American Idol winner Jordin Sparks.
Beyoncé's 2008 album I Am Sasha Fierce saw a further three Dench/ Ghost collaborations: Disappear, Ave Maria, and Satellites.
From March 2009 till November 2010 he was Vice President of A&R at Epic Records in New York where he A&R'd albums by Alice Smith and Augustana and signed acts Progress in Color and HeyHiHello.
Dench won an Ivor Novello Award for "Beautiful Liar" in the Best Selling British Song Category in 2008. He had been nominated in the same category for "Unbelievable" in 1991. In 2009 he was nominated for a Golden Globe as co writer of "Once in a Lifetime" sung by Beyonce for the film "Cadillac Records". He was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2010 , one as co-producer of two tracks on Beyoncé's album "I Am... Sasha Fierce" which was nominated as Album of the Year and the other for "Once In A Lifetime", which he co-wrote with Amanda, Scott McFarnon, The Rural and Beyoncé.
He co-wrote "Colours" on the Prodigy's 2009 album, "Invaders Must Die", and "Red" a top 5 hit for Daniel Merriweather in the UK in May 2009. "Gypsy" another collaboration with Amanda Ghost, was the third single from the album "She Wolf" by Shakira.
Dench began his music career playing in a punk band although his father, Harold Dench a classical guitarist, later taught Ian classical guitar. Dench was also a promising artist who dropped out of Ruskin Art College, Oxford University to pursue a full time career in music. Before EMF, he was a member of Gloucester based band Apple Mosaic who were signed to Virgin Records. After leaving EMF, he found independent success with the band, Whistler, signed to Wiiija Records. Whistler released 2 albums, Whistler and Faith in the Morning.