Greater Than One

1985: Greater Than One

In 1985, Newman and Wells met at the Royal College of Art in London, formed Greater Than One, and released their first album Kill the Pedagogue on cassette. During the late 1980s they organised art installations and exhibitions accompanied by their own music: "When the whole audience were in, we started a soundtrack ... war sirens and searchlights. This was designed to disorientate the audience, throwing them into an unexpected nightmare. After the shock, Islamic chanting began which then changed to Song For England, during which we came onstage wearing illuminous skull masks...". They formed their own label Kunst=Kapital and released four further albums under this alias between 1987 and 1990.

1990: First hits

Their first hit single was the trance record "Pure" as GTO on Chrysalis Records, a club hit around Europe, closely followed by "Tricky Disco" as Tricky Disco on Warp Records, which peaked at number 14 in the UK Singles Chart in July 1990.

They used many aliases because, releasing so much material, they feared the press would not write about it all, if they knew it all came from the same band. As Newman said, "if you give them a Tricky Disco one week and then a John and Julie two weeks later and GTO a month later they’ll write about all of it". Their aliases also allowed them to release different types of material on different record labels. The single "Double Happiness" as John and Julie appeared on XL Recordings; the 1993 Tip of the Iceberg album as GTO was released on REACT, and the 1995 album Headsex as Technohead appeared on Mokum Records.

1995: Technohead

Headsex contained their biggest hit, "I Wanna Be a Hippy". The remix by Flamman & Abraxas was accompanied by a video featuring three youths with shaved heads, wearing Mokum T-shirts and carrying inflatable hammers, chasing a hippy on a bicycle around a park in Amsterdam. It reached number 1 in 12 different countries including Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, and number 6 in the UK in February 1996, which culminated in two performances on Top of the Pops in January and February of the same year.

Two Technohead follow-up singles followed in 1996. "Happy Birthday" fared mildly well in Europe, cracking the top 20 in the UK and Finland in April at #18 and #20, respectively, reached the top 40 in Ireland and the Netherlands with peaks at #23 and #28, respectively, and managed to chart in Germany at #100. The follow-up single, "Banana-na-na", which was released in October, cracked the top 40 in the Netherlands at #38 and peaked at #64 in the UK.

Wells has recorded many singles and three more albums since, including two Tricky Disco singles in February 2007 and two Technohead singles in 2010 and 2014, both of which were released on Mokum Records.

Greater Than One

GTO

Church of Extacy

Technohead

Signs Ov Chaos

The Man

Signs of Chaos

S.O.L.O.