This band came into being in Los Angeles, California in 1983 after the lead singer of the Billy Bond Band, Bill Wadhams, and members of the band Red Zone got together to form a new synth-pop group called Animotion. It comprised the singers Bill Wadhams, Astrid Plane, Paul Antonelli on keyboards, David “Frenchy” O’Brien on drums and Charles Ottavio on bass. Don Kirkpatrick on guitar was also taken on to add to their sound. The name of the band was to bring over the idea of energy and motion, being a suggestion by the singer Astrid Plane, and was the name used by the 6-member line-up from then on.
The band released it’s first self-titled album in 1984 that produced its first single “Obsession” which reached No. 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 on the UK Singles chart and remains the band’s biggest hit to date. The follow-up single was “Let It Go” which didn’t see the same success but reached No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 41 in Germany and No. 78 in the UK.
By 1986 the drummer David “Frenchy” O’Brien and the keyboardist Paul Antonelli had left the band, with the new drummer being Jim Blair and the new keyboardist being Greg Smith, who had performed as a session musician on their first album. Their second album was Strange Behaviour which was not as successful as their debut had been in the US, reaching No. 71 on the Billboard 200 chart, but became very popular in various European countries, reaching No. 21 in Switzerland. It produced the singles “I Engineer” which reached No. 2 in Germany, No. 6 in Switzerland and No. 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “I Want You” which reached No. 27 in Germany and No. 84 in the US. During 1986 the band appeared with top artists that include Phil Collins, Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Genesis and Simply Red among others and had a very busy touring schedule.
During the time they were recording their next album the singer Bill Wadhams left the band after the record label had refused to allow him to write further songs for the band, even though he had been principal songwriter on the first album, along with the singer Astrid Plane and the bass player Charles Ottavio, who were now a couple and later a married couple. Astrid Plane was replaced by the singer and actress Cynthia Rhodes and Bill Wadhams was replaced by Paul Engemann from the band Device with just Greg Smith and Don Kirkpatrick being the only previous members left. The third album, also self-titled, was released in 1989 and produced the single “Room to Move” that had previously been written and recorded by Climie Fisher. It reached No. 9 on the US Billboard Hot 100, No. 21 in Canada and No. 87 in the UK and was used as a song on the soundtrack of the 1988 film My Stepmother Is an Alien. The album did not repeat the same success as the single though, not being able to achieve a top 100 chart position so the band decided to break up.
Over a decade later in 2001 a DJ from the Portland, Oregon radio station 94.7 NRK requested the band get back together. They re-united with several of the original members and gave a sell-out performance. This success saw the members stay together and continue to perform many more shows, with various other members such as Kevin Rankin joining as a drummer in 2002, Chris Wadhams, who is Bill’s son, playing bass from 2011 and the guitarist Kevin Hahn joining them as a substitute when Don Kirkpatrick isn’t available. In 2005 Charles Ottavio, Astrid Plane and Bill Wadhams performed “Obsession” in the TV show Hit Me Baby One More Time and in 2009 they achieved the position of No. 12 in VH1’s Top 100 One Hit Wonders of the 80s.
Another nine years later, in 2014, Joman who is a Colorado DJ, played a remix of “Obsession” and after Wadhams had heard it he asked Joman to remix some of the band’s new material. His remix of “Raise” was enough to get the band a new record deal in London and an album of the same name was released in 2016 with the title being Raise Your Expectations in the US with several of the original members still performing.
Still performing in the 2020s, the band performed in Pasadena, California, at the Cruel World Festival in May 2023.
Sources:
- https://animotion-obsession.com/
- https://animotion-obsession.com/videos/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animotion
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/animotion-mn0000572578/biography
- https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2540155/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20080423050251/http://www.the-trades.com/article.php?id=3648
- https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/animotion/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsession_(Animotion_song)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Him_Go_(song)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_to_Move
- https://animotion-obsession.com/the-genius-insanity-tour/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_World_Festival
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/animotion-mn0000572578/credits
- https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/animotion
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/73205-Animotion