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Badfinger: Bands
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Joey Molland of "Badfinger" will be working alongside Laine as one of the judges. Molland's "Badfinger" was one of the first bands signed to Apple, a label launched by the Beatles. With numerous gold and platinum albums to his credit he was invited to perform and collaborate on two of George Harrison's solo albums and the John Lennon album "Imagine".
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Badfinger was a popular British pop-rock band in the early '70s. Originally called the Iveys, the group signed with Apple Records in late 1968 after its demo tape found its way into Paul McCartney's hands. In 1969 McCartney supervised the quartet's soundtrack work on the Ringo Starr-Peter Sellers film, The Magic Christian, for which he wrote "Come and Get It," Badfinger's first hit (#7, 1970).
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Badfinger disbanded after Ham's death, and for years afterward, lawsuits and bankruptcies haunted the members on both sides of the Atlantic. Evans and Molland were both unsuccessful in separate new band projects, and by 1977 they were both out of the music business; Molland was laying carpet while Evans worked with a company that insulated pipes. That year guitarist Joe Tansin recruited Molland for a new band he was putting together, and when they needed a bass player Molland suggested Evans. Pressure from record companies led to the decision to call themselves Badfinger, and together they recorded their "comeback" album Airwaves which was released in 1979. Tansin left the band immediately after the album was recorded.
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After its fourth album, 1973’s Ass, sold disappointingly, Badfinger moved to Warner Bros. the following year for a reported $3 million advance. It proved a disastrous relationship. The group’s second album for its new label, Wish You Were Here, was selling a brisk 25,000 copies a week when Warners, claiming (erroneously, it would turn out) that $600,000 in a band escrow account was missing, pulled the album from stores. In frustration over management problems, Molland quit. A despondent Ham, the leader and chief songwriter, hanged himself in his London home on April 23, 1975.
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In preparation for their first American tour in 1970, Badfinger hired a New York manager named Stan Polley. Although Polley's reputation was impressive at the time, his alleged connections to organized crime and dubious financial arrangements would only later become known to the group. Under Polley's direction, Badfinger toured in America and were generally well received, although the group complained they were living in the shadow of The Beatles because of the their close connection to the band. Media comparisons between Badfinger and The Beatles frustrated the group for years to come.
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Badfinger has finally gotten some of their due (if not much of their money). Now recognized as a band that bucked the trends in the early 70's, sticking to melodic, basic rock in the early 70's when it was considered uncool to do so, they really did help establish the template later power-pop bands would draw from. Their Apple and Warners albums have been re-released with bonus cuts (Straight Up, in particular has good ones; early Geoff Emerick produced versions of songs upon which George Harrison would heap layers of production for the released versions). Head First finally gained its release, a quarter of a century late. They have been the subject of an excellent book, and some smart anthologies. Two albums worth of Pete Ham demos have ... been released.
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