IT BITES FD
What’s in a name? Great British prog maverick Francis Dunnery reconnects with his past and moves forward at the same time.
Words: Gary Mackenzie Illustration: Michael Robinson
When It Bites folded in 1990, Francis Dunnery quickly left his own past behind him.
But this supremely gifted, mercurial and sometimes perplexing musician’s initial dismissiveness and coolness towards his former band didn’t last. A brief reunion in 2003 came to nothing, leaving his ex-bandmates to continue with replacement singer John Mitchell, but Dunnery began introducing their songs into his solo sets and, from 2009’s There’s A Whole New World onwards, sporadically re-recorded their songs under his own name.
With the future of the Mitchell-fronted It Bites unclear, a gap opened up in the market, to be filled by It Bites FD. They made their recorded debut on 2023’s Live From The Black Country double live album, though Dunnery has since dispensed with all of the musicians who played on that record except bassist Paul Brown, giving no explanation as to why.