Local Arts
ABOVE: A promotional photograph of the original line-up of FM – featuring Merv Goldsworthy, Didge Digital (Philip Manchester), Pete Jupp, and Chris and Steve Overland. Chris himself is fourth from the left.
Chris Overland’s lessons in life as a rock star... It’s not every day you rub shoulders with Jon Bon Jovi and see yourself featured on the front of Kerrang! magazine. Co-founder of the rock band FM Chris Overland talks to KL magazine.
C
hris Overland was only ten years old when he picked up his first guitar, and for many years he had a very specific ambition – to play on stage at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, one of the most iconic music venues in the world. It was an ambition he realised on Friday 3rd November 1989, taking to the stage with FM, the band he’d formed with his brother Steve some five years previously. Today, Chris is a professional guitar tutor in King’s Lynn and he has fond memories of life as a rock star. “Most people think it’s a really KLmagazine January 2015
glamorous life, but it does have its downside as well,” he says. “It’s hard work living on a tour bus, and spending months in the recording studio can get really tiresome. Yes, it is glamorous, but only for about 45 minutes a day!” Chris’ entry to the world of rock started with Wildlife, a short-lived band he founded with his brother. The band released a couple of albums and featured members such as Simon Kirke (best known as a member of Free and Bad Company) and Phillip Soussan (who would go on to work with artists such as Ozzy Osbourne). Something wasn’t quite right,
however, and when Wildlife disbanded Chris spent a year with his brother writing new material and auditioning new band members, putting together a group they called FM and launched in the summer of 1984. The band’s first album ‘Indiscreet’ was recorded in Ibiza and released on September 8th 1986 on the Portrait Records label. It featured the songs ‘Frozen Heart’ (which became a successful single) and ‘That Girl’ – which was later covered by Iron Maiden. “We went all the way to Jamaica to film a video for the song That Girl,” says 111