Simon and Johnnie’s post Rats project, Gung Ho.

In 1984 the Rats release their final album ‘In the Long Grass’, two years after their last Top 30 hit House on Fire from ‘V Deep’. With the first single Tonight reaching number 73, and the excellent Drag Me Down only reaching 50, I assume the band knew the writing was on the wall. Then came Do They Know It’s Christmas and Live Aid, with Bob putting all his energies into that, I suppose, if you were anyone other than Bob, you probably were wondering, “what next?”!

Throughout their first 10 years, whilst Bob was the main song writer, Johnnie and Simon were accredited with some co-writes, with Johnnie the sole writer for Sleep. In various interviews over the years, I sometimes wondered if there were tensions within the band regarding song writing. In an interview Simon did in 1979 with Record Mirror (don’t ask!) he was asked about the exact roles of the band in the composition of the songs. He replied “in a band like ours, everyone contributes to the arrangements, but it’s the guy who brings the initial idea who gets the credit”.

Johnnie said in an on-line interview (possibly 2009) that “After Live Aid Bob wanted to do a solo thing and so myself and Simon took the opportunity to put some ideas together”. So, with Bob being offered a solo deal, Gung Ho became the project that Simon and Johnnie probably hoped would give then the opportunity to show what they could do outside of The Rats.

They were joined on vocals by Yoko Kurokawa, who later became Johnnie’s wife and signed a deal with Magnet records around 1986. The first single from the album released in 1987 was Play to Win, with writing credits given to Gung Ho. It came in a variety of formats, of which I think I still have 3….somewhere. Verdict? I really liked it at the time and have enjoyed listening to it again over the last couple of weeks. Although providing the main backing vocals at live performance for the band, Simon’s only lead vocal for the band was Fall Down. In contrast to the fairly high and gentle vocal performance on that, on Play to Win we get to hear Simon for first time demonstrating his vocal range on his new project. The b-side to Play to Win is Ike Gung Ho, an interesting song, with Yoko taking lead vocals. I liked the fact it suggested the band were going to trying other styles than standard ‘pop’ formats.

(the 80’s advert image when playing disappears after 44 seconds!)

Was Play To Win ever going to be the hit they hoped it would be, probably not, but it may remain something they are really proud of? Remember was the follow up, also released in 1987, a catching song, but with Play to Win failing to grab the public’s attention, there was no momentum for Remember to build on. And then disaster, Magnet records were bought out before the album ‘10’ could be released in the UK. It was released in Europe and Japan, but never the UK. Do any COB’s have copies? It would be great to hear if you do have one and how you got hold of it?

It appears Play To Win was credited in reaching number 18 on South Africa’s Radio 5. How it reached this position is not explained!

Many of the tracks from ‘10’ can now be found on YouTube.

And I looked up what IKE (Gung Ho) meant in Japanese…..just in case there was some cool meaning. There may be as I found two possibilities….’Go Go’, or……….Pond. I’ll leave you to decide which one works best!

Does anyone else have memories or views of Gung Ho? If so, then please share them.