ZTT

RECORD LABEL PROFILE

RADIO BANS, TERRORISTS AND GIRLS DRESSED IN LEATHER… AS RECORD LABELS GO, ZANG TUUM TUMB – WHICH WAS FORMED IN 1983 – WAS ANYTHING BUT BORING. IN THIS FEATURE FROM THE CLASSIC POP ARCHIVES, WE SPOKE TO THE MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE LABEL’S HISTORY, AND DISCOVERED HOW TREVOR HORN AND HIS FRIENDS TOOK ON THE WORLD AND WON…

ANDY JONES

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Most of us can remember the first time we heard Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood – and the first time we saw that video. Rarely had anything this sexually charged been seen or heard in the mainstream – and the insinuation was gay sex, remember; something that was still very much taboo in the 80s. The impact was huge: banned by Radio 1, the single soared to the top of the UK charts, catapulting these five likely lads from Liverpool

But there was a silver lining: “Chris also offered us our own record label because he wanted Trevor.”

So, after Horn had produced ABC’s debut album, The Lexicon Of Love, and stood in as singer on the Yes album, Drama, in 1983 he and Sinclair formed Zang Tuum Tumb (the name comes from a sound poem by the Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Matrinetti). Horn would manage the music (he was given a studio, Sarm Studios on London’s Basing Street, as to worldwide fame. And suddenly, everyone who was anyone was wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Frankie Say Relax” – and following the release of the band’s follow-up single, Two Tribes, “Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself”.

“Everyone wanted a piece of them and Relax has to be one of the iconic songs of the generation, especially with the folklore that developed following the ban saga”