THE ART OF NOISE ONLINE www.theartofnoiseonline.com

Lol Creme

Laurence Neil Creme was born on the 19th September 1947 in Manchester. As a child he was interesting in drawing and playing the guitar. In 1968 he graduated from the Royal College of Art in Birmingham with a BA degree after studying art and design.

A year later he became a professional musician and co-founded the group Hotlegs with Eric Stewart & Kevin Godley in 1970. The group released their debut single Neanderthal Man in June 1970 which peaked at number two in the UK singles chart. The following year they released their first album Thinks: School Stinks and the single Lady Sadie, both releases failed to chart. The trio then added Graham Gouldman and became 10cc. During his time with the group, Lol appeared on two number one singles Rubber Bullets and I’m Not In Love (a song famous for it's multi-tracked vocals) before departing the group with Godley in 1976 to form Godley & Creme where they would pioneer the use of their Gizmo guitar device.

Although the duo only had three hit singles Under Your Thumb; Wedding Bells and Cry, they released a series of long players including the tripple album Consequences; L; Freeze Frame; Ismism; Birds Of Pray; T and Goodbye Blue Sky. The two men became better known as music video directors. They directed the controversial Duran Duran video Girls On Film as well as videos for Culture Club, Tina Turner, The Police, Eric Clapton, Huey Lewis and The News, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Herbie Hancock, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the late George Harrison to name but a few. They’re most remembered video was for their own 1985 single Cry which morphed faces from various people miming to the words of the song with a cameo appearance from Trevor Horn. The single was taken from their 1985 album The History Mix Volume 1 that also included material from 10cc. and production work from Horn & JJ Jeczalik, in that same year Godley & Crème were inducted into the MTV Hall of Fame.

After Godley & Creme ended in 1989, Lol moved to Los Angeles where he produced/directed television commercials for the likes of Packard Bell and Chrysler before winning the Silver Lion Award as well as the Clio Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1990 the director made the film The Lunatic as well as contributing towards the music for another, Toys that was scored by Horn & Hans Zimmer in 1992. During the mid 1990s he directed the videos for The Beatles Free As A Bird and Real Love along with being involved with music for the TV series The Glam Metal Detectives, again with Horn.

Around this time Lol had started to use computers to produce some of his art before using the then new digital printing hardware to print his work. In addition to that form of art, he also began painting in oils, a medium him still uses to this day.

In late the 1990s he became a member of the Art of Noise when Anne Dudley, Paul Morley & Horn reformed the group to begin work on the concept album The Seduction Of Claude Debussy that was released in 1999. However he wasn't the first member of his family to be involved with an Art of Noise record, as his son Lalo, as part of the group Arkarna remixed Yebo (The Arkarna Dub) in 1995. During the Art of Noise’s 1999/2000 tour, Lol and Horn produced material that would end up being released as the DVD video Into Vision – The Compleat Compedium. Four years later Lol played live once more with the Art of Noise at the Produced By Trevor Horn – A Concert For The Prince’s Trust at Wembley Arena in London where he was also part of the house band along with Horn, Dudley Geoff Downes, Luis Jardim, Steve Lipson, Phil Palmer, Paul Robinson and Bruce Woolley.

In 2006 he teamed up once more with Horn to form a new group called the Producers and released the single Barking Up The Right Tree in 2007 and the long awaited debut album Made In Basing Street in 2012 in addition to playing live gigs with the band.