Francis Dunnery
Francis Dunnery is an English musician, singer-songwriter, record producer and record label owner.
Dunnery was the lead singer and guitarist for British prog-pop band It Bites between 1982 and 1990. Since 1990 he has pursued a solo career, and has owned and run his own record label, Aquarian Nation, since 2001.
He has collaborated with artists including Robert Plant, Ian Brown, Lauryn Hill, Santana and Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe and as a producer and/or collaborator with David Sancious, Chris Difford, James Sonefeld, Erin Moran, Steven Harris, and Ashley Reaks.
Dunnery was one of the candidates invited to audition as a lead singer and frontman for Genesis following Phil Collins' departure in 1996. He also played in the reformed 1960s beat/prog band The Syn between 2008 and mid-2009.
Early life
Francis Dunnery grew up as part of a working-class musical family in the small Cumberland town of Egremont. He is the younger son of Charlie Dunnery and his wife, Kathleen.He displayed an interest in music from an early age, with his mother later recalling that "he was always drumming with his hands. Asking him what he wanted for his tea, he'd be drumming on something the whole time." His elder brother Barry "Baz" Dunnery was a guitarist with heavy rock band Necromandus and subsequently Ozzy Osbourne's first post-Black Sabbath band and the ELO-spinoff Violinski.
Dunnery has described his family home as having been like "a bustling café" full of musicians and family friends of all generations, and recalls "my Mam and Dad were the greatest. They were kind, funny and gracious in a working class way. They were giving people. They had a way about them that made everyone feel welcome in our home... My Mam and Dad would feed them great food, share cigarettes and partake in humorous and interesting conversation."
His childhood was blighted by his parents' mutual alcoholism. He described them as "binge drinkers, two weeks on and two months off... Once my Mam and Dad started drinking alcohol I never knew what was going to happen. Everything seems to happen fast. One minute it was paradise and the next minute it was sheer hell. It was horrific.... Anyone who has lived under this nervousness will know exactly what I mean. I lived under this constant threat all my life."
From the age of eleven, Frank spent four days a week living by himself on a trailer park to avoid problems at home, going to school during the day and bolstering his independence and living expenses by working as a musician at night. His first professional work was as half of an early teens duo with his friend Peter Lockhart which played local venues including the Tarnside Caravan Club and various cabaret venues. He recalls "we were the cute little duo that would open up for the main act... I would just bash along as Peter sang Elvis songs and played the organ." Adding guitar and singing to his musical skills, Dunnery moved on to other projects of varying levels of commitment – "I played in a few local bands and with lots of different musicians, especially a group called Waving at Trains I was in with Don Mackay, who is a fantastic musician. He wrote some really good songs, too." Waving at Trains featured Mackay as frontman, Dunnery on lead guitar and vocals, and Glyn Davies and Frank Hall on bass guitar and drums respectively.
Regarding this period, Dunnery commented "There was no one I could rely on... I somehow made sure that I had other places to live and spend my time because I couldn't bear to be at home when my parents were drinking. I can still remember the smell of the house when my parents were drowning in hops. To this day the smell of Carlsberg Special Brew makes me want to vomit."
Career
1982–1990: It Bites
In 1982, when he was nineteen, Dunnery formed the rock band It Bites. The other members of the band were his Egremont school friends Bob Dalton and Dick Nolan ; plus John Beck who came from Mirehouse, a suburb of Whitehaven. Following a career playing the pub and youth club circuit the band temporarily split, with Dunnery moving to London. The band reformed when Dunnery convinced the other members to leave Egremont entirely and relocate to London in 1984. The quartet squatted a house in Peckham and wrote and rehearsed every day, eventually signing a record contract with Virgin Records.It Bites released three studio albums, the debut The Big Lad in the Windmill, the critically-acclaimed Once Around the World and the rock-oriented Eat Me in St Louis. There were three singles from each album, with the biggest hit being "Calling All The Heroes" in 1986. This was the second single from The Big Lad in the Windmill and reached No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart after extensive radio play and TV coverage. The band gained a very loyal cult following due to the exceptional Once Around The World album and, arguably, their career peaked with a rapturous show at the Astoria in London in May 1988 to promote it. It Bites split up in mid-1990 on the eve of recording their fourth studio album in Los Angeles.
Commenting on the breakup, Dunnery said: "the band had come to the end. It was a natural process. We fell out over a few things, there wasn't one big issue or problem, it was daft little things. We had just drifted apart. It wasn't anyone's fault, but we split." In 2024, however, he recalled:
Following Dunnery's departure, It Bites briefly continued with a new frontman and a succession of new names but split up after failing to sign a new recording deal. A post-breakup It Bites live album called "Thank You and Goodnight," was released in 1991.
1990–1995: Los Angeles and London
Following the 1990 break-up of It Bites, Dunnery moved to Los Angeles, indulging what he later acknowledged to be a disastrously hedonistic lifestyle. During this period he recorded his first solo album, Welcome to the Wild Country, which was released on Virgin Records in 1991 and produced by David Hentschel. The record enjoyed little success and was released only in Japan. He regained the rights in 2001, re-issuing it on Aquarian Nation Records.Dunnery has since described Welcome to the Wild Country as "having been recorded at a time when I didn't know who I was". Towards the end of his time in Los Angeles, Dunnery addressed his drugs and alcohol problems and cleaned up his lifestyle. He has subsequently been open about his problems with alcohol addiction and drug abuse during this period.
In 1993, Dunnery returned to the UK and joined Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant's live band, performing on several tracks on Plant's 1993 album Fate of Nations and on the accompanying world tour. Regarding this period, Dunnery has commented. "I have a good relationship with because I think I’m as spunky and aggressive as he’d like to be... He likes the way I go at , so we always get on well. In those two or three years we spent together I got to do things I could never have done otherwise. Staying in big hotels, playing massive stadiums and flying first class, I went to the top of the hill. At that time it was the biggest guitar job in the world and for a while it was mine. It made me feel complete... I didn't apply for that job, which made me realise that I’m not very effective at strategies. I see others making plans and going from A to B and it makes me think, "Wow!" In my life I tend to get blown around in the wind, I end up in the most fantastic places that nobody could even imagine. I didn't want the job with Robert, I wasn't after it and there were five thousand guys that were, but they called me up and that was it. When things come into your life, embrace them, and when they leave, let them go – simple." Dunnery has also credited his time with Plant as " me an education in the blues".
Dunnery then released Fearless on Atlantic Records in 1994, promoting the album with his first solo tour of the UK. The Glasgow date of the tour was recorded for a live album, One Night in Sauchiehall Street, released in 1995.
1995–1999: New York and Vermont
In 1995, Dunnery relocated to New York City. His third studio album, Tall Blonde Helicopter, was released on Atlantic that year.In 1996, Dunnery was approached to audition as lead singer for Genesis. Dunnery has reminisced "I did audition for them, though I knew I wouldn’t get the job. I can sing Peter Gabriel better than Peter Gabriel, but I just can’t do Phil Collins... all that screaming on "Mama", no way. Singing Genesis is all about the phrasing; you don’t add blues because it’s like classical music. So I knew I wouldn’t get it, but I wasn’t about to turn down the chance to go to Genesis' studio, sit there and sing "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". And you know what? I believe I was the best man for the job because I'm creative enough to make Tony Banks angry... I wouldn't back down to any of those guys because I'm incredibly creative, probably more than they are."
Dunnery's next album, Let's Go Do What Happens, was released in 1998 on Razor and Tie Records, initially only in the United States. During this period, Dunnery also played on Lauryn Hill's 1998 debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and Carlos Santana's 1999 album Supernatural.
Dunnery went into semi-retirement as a musician later in 1998 and set up a new home in the Vermont mountains where he devoted the next few years to breeding and training horses as well as carpentry, astrology, and Jungian psychology.
2000–2003: Return to music
In 2000, inspired by watching a televised Shakti concert, Dunnery later admitted he "realised there was still a musician in me, and that I had to be as true to that side of my character as I was being to the other sides." He decided to re-engage with the music business by returning to the UK for the first time in five years to play a few concerts, and by creating his own internet-based record label, Aquarian Nation, with the intention of releasing his future albums as well as albums by other artists.For the UK tour, Dunnery formed a new backing band called The Grass Virgins, featuring second guitarist Dave Colquhoun, bass guitarist Matt Pegg, and singer/keyboard player Erin Moran, followed soon afterwards by a larger tour and support slots with Hootie and the Blowfish.
Dunnery's first new album following his comeback was Man, released in 2001. On the album, Dunnery said: "I was very depressed when I wrote the 'Man' CD. It was a difficult birth. I was going through such turmoil in my life. My mother was dying, my relationship was ending, and in complete contrast, my daughter Ava was being born. I think I'm at peace with that side of my life now." Dunnery toured the UK to promote Man, accompanied by Matt Pegg on bass guitar. A live album – Hometown 2001 – was recorded 14 June 2001 at the Whitehaven Civic Hall in Cumbria and released later the same year.
During 2002, Dunnery played on and produced several albums released on Aquarian Nation. The first of these releases was Chris Difford's I Didn't Get Where I Am, with whom Dunnery also toured to promote the album. This was followed by John & Wayne's debut Nearly Killed Keith, and Songs From the Mission of Hope, the debut album by Stephen Harris.
In 2003, Dunnery performed with fellow former It Bites members John Beck, Dick Nolan and Bob Dalton at the Union Chapel during the headline slot of an Aquarian Nation showcase. Dunnery and Beck performed 'Hunting The Whale' and Nolan and Dalton then joined them for 'Still Too Young To Remember'. The event was recorded and released on DVD as Live at the Union Chapel the following year.