Bow Wow Wow were a quartet organized by U.K. manager
Malcolm McLaren (best known as the mastermind behind
the Sex Pistols) at the start of the '80s.
McLaren matched the trio of musicians who had constituted
Adam Ant's Ants --
Matthew Ashman (b. 1962, d. 1995) on guitar,
Leigh Gorman (b. 1961) on bass, and
David Barbarossa (b. 1961) on drums -- with teenage singer
Annabella Lwin (b. Oct. 31, 1965), retaining the earlier group's African-derived drum sound. In 1983,
Lwin quit the group for a solo career, and the remaining three changed their name to
the Chiefs of Relief. Both
Lwin and
the Chiefs issued their own albums. In 1995,
Ashman passed away due to diabetes. Headed by
Lwin and
Gorman, a re-formed
Bow Wow Wow resurfaced in 1998 with
Wild in the U.S.A., which featured both remixes and concert performances from the reunion tour; guitarist
Dave Calhoun and drummer
Eshan Khadaroo filled the other slots. Another tour was announced in 2004, with
No Doubt drummer
Adrian Young and
Common Sense guitarist
Phil Gough joining
Lwin and
Gorman; the group toured through 2006, although by September 2005 Devin Beaman had replaced
Young. In January of 2007 the first new
Bow Wow Wow recording in over two decades -- a cover of
the Smiths' "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" recorded the previous year -- was made available via digital download as the b-side to an "I Want Candy" (1982) maxi-single.
–
William Ruhlmann, Rovi