Audio Autopsy, 1989: Francis Dunnery & It Bites, "Calling All the Heroes" and the "Eat Me in St. Louis" Album

Get thee to a Dunnery! Prog finally whelps a creative, pop-driven dynamo, and its mastermind is a Brit named Francis born on Christmas Day. If only IB could've prevented early '90s plaid-clad grunge!

The Lamb Lies Down on Spilt Milk?

What might you get if you crossed early-‘90s power pop kingpins, Jellyfish, with venerable prog giants, Genesis?

Well, besides a band called Jellysis (or worse, Genefish), you’d whelp It Bites, a musical unit who, in Über-Rock’s accurate assessment, “Have always been one of the more curious cases of the progressive rock world: Their first impression on us back in the 1980s was that of a pop band. But, a pop band doing what no pop band had the right to do – successfully mix catchy tunes with complex musicianship and, God forbid, distorted guitars.”

The Genesis of the Unknown Juggernaut

It Bites is an English progressive rock and pop fusion band (hey, they’ve gotta be called something, and that fits as well as anything!), formed in Egremont, Cumbria (northern England), in 1982.

For their late ‘80s heyday, the band was comprised of Francis Dunnery (guitars, lead vocals), John Beck (keyboards, background vocals), Dick Nolan (bass, backing vocals), and Bob Dalton (drums, backing vocals).

They are best known (in most parts of the planet except the US) for their 1986 single, “Calling All the Heroes,” which gained them a Top Ten UK Singles Chart hit (and a stifled yawn from US radio programmers).

What American radio listeners were missing, then, was the roller-coaster dynamism of Dunnery’s “Calling All the Heroes,” filled with sudden stops’n’starts, madcap violin and piano solos, gunfire, a smooth, Tony Banks-ian synth break, and plenty of production twiddles to send the engineer to an early coffee urn…oh, and an irresistibly catchy chorus!

The band split in 1990, eventually returning in 2006 with new frontman, John Mitchell.

Earning Their Prog-Heavy Mettle

Those of us who date back to the vinyl-dominant days of the ‘60s through (even the) ‘90s might have moments where you’ve discovered an artist for the first time, and their music immediately speaks to you…they’re yours, in essence. Those in your friend-orbit don’t get them, and you’re left being alone in your fandom, knowing your buds are missing out.

For our story (‘cause it’s relevant moving forward), it’ll help to know that I’ve been all in on prog giants Jethro Tull (since their 1968 This Was debut…I was 13) and Genesis (since their 1972 fourth album, Foxtrot), when my lead guitarist turned me on to them. Thank you, David, and thank you, “Watcher of the Skies.”

I’ve seen both bands about a half-dozen times each (my meeting with Peter Gabriel after one 1974 concert has been written about here). Ian Anderson’s flute playing inspired me to buy one of my own in the early ‘70s. I took one lesson (to learn fingering and embouchure), and then proceeded to learn, by ear, all his licks listening to Tull albums, all the way from “Bourée” to Thick as a Brick, and everything in between!

Related: More Tull Coming Down the Tracks:

Inside Tracks #22: Ian Anderson, "Locomotive Breath"🚂Jethro Tull w/Covers by Rabbitt, Styx, Helloween, Tempest, Axxis + 5 More!

“My Genesis Albums Were My Security”-F.D.

The only thing that was ever permanent in my life was my Genesis collection. When things got weird at home and the alcohol cycle was in full rotation, I could return to that little piece of upper-class England where Peter Gabriel [photo montage above] and his boys were playing croquet on the lawn, eating cucumber sandwiches and deciding which one of their country cottages they would visit next.

Still to this day, old Peter can soothe my anxiety faster than Eckhart Tolle. My Genesis albums were my security.—Francis Dunnery, on the inspiration he found in the music of Genesis, from “Nothing Lasts For Long (2009 article by Francis Dunnery on the music of Genesis, his childhood and reimagining his music).”

Dunnery, as serendipitous coincidence would have it, was one of the candidates invited to audition as a lead singer and frontman for Genesis following Phil Collins’ 1996 departure!

He must’ve felt as I would if I was invited to audition to front Jethro Tull!

It Bites Discography

For the ‘80s albums, It Bites was distributed by Virgin Records in the UK, and Geffen in the US:

• The Big Lad in the Windmill (Virgin/Geffen, March 1986)

• Once Around the World (Virgin/Geffen, March 1988)

• Eat Me in St. Louis (Virgin/Geffen, June 1989)

• The Tall Ships (InsideOut, October 2008)

• Map of the Past (InsideOut, March 2012)

It was sometime in mid-’88 that I discovered the Once Around the World CD (produced by the band, Mark Wallis, and Steve Hillage) at the Moby Disc in Orange County (south of Los Angeles). Becoming instantly enamored of it, I eagerly shared it with my “posse” of high schoolers.

I was in my second year of being a certified, full-time youth minister at a Lutheran church in the southern L.A. county suburb of Cerritos, and routinely shared with them my musical loves gleaned from my previous years in radio and retail records.

They then grew into “little Brads,” developing new musical faves like Tull, Genesis, Todd Rundgren, Jellyfish, power pop…anything my Chevy Cavalier’s cassette player was hungry for at any given time!

For the following few months, I was sure that It Bites would be the new beloved discoveries of Jon, Joe, Scott, Brian, and Jason! For some reason, they weren’t the easy “sells” for It Bites as most of my tuneful finds usually seemed to be!

Sometime in early ‘89, the lads and I were excited to learn Jethro Tull were slated to play the Universal Amphitheatre on May 12, 1989. We immediately secured our tickets, wondering just who they’d eventually announce as the opening act.

Then, one Sunday morning, I took the entertainment section of the L.A. Times into my office, awaiting their individual arrivals for our high school Sunday Bible class. Knowing something they didn’t know, I couldn’t wait to tell them!

When all of my fellow Tull ticket-holder charges were assembled, I said, “Guess who’s opening for Jethro Tull!” They couldn’t wait to shout, in unison, “WHO?” Just as eagerly, I sat back, and savoring this delicious moment way more than I should have, I blurted, “It Bites!” “Oh, no WAY!” I showed them the ad in the paper.

Needless to say, a veritable line of high schoolers suddenly showed up at Moby Disc after church to bone up on some It Bites!

Just as needless to say, It Bites opened the show with Track #2 from Once Around the World, “Kiss Like Judas,” with its opening line, “So glad you could make it……..”

The original (UK) version of Eat Me in St. Louis was not released in the United States. Instead, that same title was used for a 1989 “compilation” album collecting together tracks from all three of It Bites’ studio albums for US consumption on Geffen.

This included all three singles from the UK Eat Me in St. Louis (plus album opener “Positively Animal,” “The Ice Melts into Water,” and “Murder of the Planet Earth”), plus two singles each from Once Around the World and The Big Lad in the Windmill.

Eight-minute documentary, featuring interview with Dunnery and a look around the recording studio, while in action:

Some Dunnerys have all the luck. Tull’s Ian Anderson at the right shoulder of the brains of It Bites. Is it possible to be envious of both at the same time?