The Executive
George and Andrew's first musical collaboration was started on Guy Fawke's night 1979. The band which was calle The Executive, consisted of George and Andrew and his brother Paul, and also two school friend, David Mortimer and Andrew Leaver:
The first gig was not a prestigious one, but it was a great success. At the 2nd Bushey Scouts hut on November the 5th they played at the sixth form disco. George and Andrew were given their first taste of success when they were recognised at the bus stop as members of the band!
However Andrew remembers that things didn't always run smoothly within the group, "Every time we rehearsed there was ludicrous arguments. People used to come to blows."
Band practices were held in the traditional place for school groups - at home. Remembering their early difficulties says; "We were always pestering mum to let us practice at our place and she'd say: 'But you practiced here last week - can't Andrew's mum have you?' but she always gave in."
When George's mother put her foot down and told him that all the time spent rehearsing with the group was interfering with his schoolwork, she met with a reaction she didn't really expect. "I turned on her and told her that if she tried to stop me I would leave school and home. She looked absolutely shocked because she knew I meant it. Later she told me that it was the first time she fully realised that I was really serious about singing."
Despite all of the hard work at rehearsals The Executive lacked the professional touch that made Wham! a huge success. Andrew remembers a gig at his college which he looks back on as one of the funniest moments in his career as a musician. Both the guitarists and the bassist had left the band just two days before the gig. Leaving George to play bass (learning the set at the soundcheck) and Andrew to sing alone. After only two numbers George had forgotten all the right notes, and he improvised by singing them to the audience! Meanwhile Andrew retired to the dressing room, and reappeared wearing a kilt and a huge bow tied in his hair. He danced madly around the stage singing a verse here and there. The improvisation displayed all of the vitality that was later to become charachteristic of the live Wham! shows, and Andrew remembers the evening as a tour-de-force.
The Executive lasted for 5 shows. Plenty of work was avaliable but both George and Andrew realised that they could do much better.
Looking back on the kind of material they performed, George said: "We had some quite quite good ska numbers actually. The arrangements were really poor, because they were the first songs we had written. But a couple of them could've been really big hits. If someone had been clever enough to pick us up, organise us properly, we could've had some really big hits."
After the short lived Executive the boys turned again to Funk music. Andrew remembers "The record that put us back into funk, get down baby, blow my mind thing! was The Gap Band's 'Burn Rubber'. I was sitting in the bath listening to Capital Radio's 'Beat Disco' and I heard this track, and it was such an absolute breakaway from all the rest of the real MOR s**t, I couldn't believe it. I went out and bought it the next day."