Background Bill Drummond was an established figure within the British
music industry, having co-founded
Zoo Records, played guitar in the
Liverpool band
Big in Japan, and worked as manager of
Echo & the Bunnymen and
the Teardrop Explodes. Artist and musician
Jimmy Cauty was the guitarist in the three-piece
Brilliant – an act that Drummond had signed to WEA Records and managed. In July 1986, Drummond resigned from his position as an
A&R man at record label
WEA, citing that he was nearly 33⅓ years old (33⅓
revolutions per minute being the speed at which a
vinyl LP revolves), and that it was "time for a revolution in my life. There is a mountain to climb the hard way, and I want to see the world from the top". In the same year he released a solo LP,
The Man. Drummond intended to focus on writing books once
The Man had been issued but, as he recalled in 1990, "That only lasted three months, until I had an[other] idea for a record and got dragged back into it all". The JAMs' primary instrument was the
digital sampler with which they would
plagiarise the history of popular music, cutting chunks from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, underpinned by rudimentary
beatbox rhythms and overlaid with Drummond's
raps, of social commentary, esoteric metaphors and mockery. A later piece in the same magazine called the JAMs "the hottest, most exhilarating band this year .... It's hard to understand what it feels like to come across something you believe to be totally new; I have never been so wholeheartedly convinced that a band are so good and exciting." The JAMs re-edited and re-released "All You Need Is Love" in May 1987, removing or doctoring the most antagonistic samples; lyrics from the song appeared as promotional
graffiti, defacing selected billboards. The re-release rewarded the JAMs with praise (including
NME's "single of the week") and the funds necessary to record their debut album. The album,
1987 (What the F**k Is Going On?), was released in June 1987. Included was a song called "The Queen and I", which sampled the
ABBA single "
Dancing Queen". After a legal showdown with ABBA and the
Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, the
1987 album was forcibly withdrawn from sale. Drummond and Cauty travelled to Sweden in hope of meeting ABBA and coming to some agreement, taking an
NME journalist and photographer with them, along with most of the remaining copies of the LP. They failed to meet ABBA, who they didn't realize already lived in Britain at the time, The song uses samples of the
Mission: Impossible and
Shaft themes alongside
Whitney Houston's "
I Wanna Dance with Somebody". Drummond has claimed that the KLF were later offered the job of producing or remixing a new Whitney Houston album as an inducement from her record label boss (
Clive Davis of
Arista Records) to sign with them. The second single in this sequence – Drummond and Cauty's third and final single of 1987 – was "
Down Town", a dance record built around a
gospel choir and "
Downtown" by 1960s star
Petula Clark, with lyrics that commented on poverty and homelessness. These early works were later collected on the compilation album
Shag Times. A second album,
Who Killed the JAMs?, was released in early 1988.
Who Killed the JAMs? earned the duo a five-star review from
Sounds magazine, who called it "a masterpiece of pathos".
The Timelords In 1988, Drummond and Cauty released a '
novelty' pop single, "
Doctorin' the Tardis" as the Timelords. The Timelords claimed that Ford Timelord was the "Talent" in the band Ford fronted the promotional campaign for the single and was "interviewed" on TV. The car would later be
banger raced at
Swaffham Raceway in 1991. They later portrayed the song as the result of a deliberate effort to write a number one hit single. In interviews with
Snub TV Drummond said that they had intended to make a house record using the
Doctor Who theme. After Cauty had laid down a basic track, Drummond observed that their house idea wasn't working and what they actually had was a
Glitter beat. "pure, unadulterated agony" and "excruciating" and from
Sounds "a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny". The Timelords released one other product, a 1989 book called
The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way), a step-by-step guide to achieving a number one hit single with little money or talent. In 1990, he recalled that "We wanted to make [as the KLF] something that was... pure dance music, without any reference points, without any nod to the history of rock and roll. It was the type of music that by early '87 was really exciting
me... [although] we weren't able to get our first KLF records out until late '88." Also in 1989, the KLF embarked upon the creation of a
road movie and
soundtrack album, both titled
The White Room, funded by the profits of "Doctorin' the Tardis". Neither the film nor its soundtrack were formally released, although
bootleg copies exist. The soundtrack album contained pop-house versions of some of the "pure trance" singles, as well as new songs, most of which would appear (in radically reworked form) on the version of the album which was eventually released to mainstream success. A single from the original album was released: "
Kylie Said to Jason", an
electropop record featuring references to
Todd Terry,
Rolf Harris,
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and BBC comedy programme
The Good Life. In reference to that song, Drummond and Cauty noted that they had worn "
Pet Shop Boys infatuations brazenly on [their] sleeves." The film project was fraught with difficulties and setbacks, including dwindling funds. "Kylie Said to Jason", which Drummond and Cauty were hoping could "rescue them from the jaws of bankruptcy", flopped commercially, failing even to make the UK top 100. In consequence,
The White Room film project was put on hold, and the KLF abandoned the musical direction of the soundtrack and single. Meanwhile, "What Time Is Love?" was generating acclaim within the underground clubs of continental Europe; according to KLF Communications, "The KLF were being feted by all the 'right' DJs". Cauty's ambient album
Space and the KLF's "
ambient house" LP
Chill Out ambient video
Waiting were released in 1990, as was a dance track, "
It's Grim Up North", under the JAMs' moniker. The first "stadium house" single, "What Time Is Love? (Live from Trancentral)", released in October 1990, reached No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart and hit the top-ten internationally. The follow-up, "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)", was an international top-five hit in January 1991, reaching No. 1 in the UK and No. 5 on the US
Billboard Hot 100. The album
The White Room followed in March 1991, reaching No. 3 in the UK. A substantial reworking of the aborted soundtrack, the album featured a segued series of "stadium house" songs followed by downtempo tracks. The "stadium house" singles trilogy was characterised by Tom Ewing of
Freaky Trigger as applying "the possibilities for mass lunacy" to "awe-inspiring, colossal, unprecedented dancefloor bulldozers." He adds: "For novelty scam-mongers and pranksters, they knew the public well, particularly that strain in British pop listening which likes an occasional brush with the gigantic. The KLF did to house what
Jim Steinman did to rock – they turned it into a thing of tottering
grand opera absurdity, pushed the excitement in the music to hysteria, traded content for ever-huger gesture. The difference being that the KLF never lost track of what made the music special in the first place. Maybe because there's less inherent 'meaning' in the KLF's music, or maybe just because the 'meaning' in house music is less fragile". After successive name changes and dance records, Drummond and Cauty ultimately became, as the KLF, the biggest-selling singles act in the world for 1991, still incorporating the work of other artists but in less gratuitous ways and predominantly without legal problems.
BRIT Awards and retirement from the music business On 12 February 1992, the KLF and
grindcore group
Extreme Noise Terror performed a live version of "3 a.m. Eternal" at the
BRIT Awards, the
British Phonographic Industry's annual awards show. Drummond and Cauty had planned to throw buckets of blood over the audience, or to disembowel a dead sheep on stage, but were prevented from doing so due to opposition from
BBC lawyers and vegetarians Extreme Noise Terror; Sheep were a symbol of the KLF, The performance was instead concluded with a limping,
kilted, cigar-chomping Drummond firing
blanks from an automatic weapon over the heads of the crowd. As the band left the stage, the KLF's promoter and narrator
Scott Piering proclaimed over the
PA system that "The KLF have now left the music business". There have been numerous suggestions that in 1992 Drummond was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The KLF's BRITs statuette for "Best British Group" of 1992 was later found buried in a field near
Stonehenge.
K Foundation and other pre-millennium projects The
K Foundation was an arts foundation established by Drummond and Cauty in 1993 following their 'retirement' from the music industry. From 1993 to 1995 they engaged in art projects and media campaigns, including the high-profile
K Foundation art award (for the "worst artist of the year"), and in 1993 released a limited edition single – "
K Cera Cera" – in Israel and
Palestine "to create awareness of peace in the world". They
burnt what was left of their KLF earnings – a million pounds sterling in cash (equivalent to £2.35m as of 2022) – and filmed the performance. Cauty and Drummond announced a 23-year moratorium on all K Foundation activities in November 1995. Also in 1995, Drummond and Cauty contributed a song to
The Help Album as
The One World Orchestra ("featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards"). "
The Magnificent" is a
drum'n'bass version of the theme tune from
The Magnificent Seven, with vocal samples from
DJ Fleka of Serbian radio station
B92: "Humans against killing... that sounds like a junkie against dope". On 17 September 1997, Drummond and Cauty re-emerged briefly as 2K. 2K made a one-off performance at London's
Barbican Arts Centre with
Mark Manning,
Acid Brass, the
Liverpool Dockers and
Gimpo; a performance at which "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of
Dettol, caused havoc in their motorised
wheelchairs. These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." The song performed at the Barbican – "
***k the Millennium" (a remix of "What Time Is Love?" featuring Acid Brass and incorporating elements of the hymn "
Eternal Father, Strong to Save") – was also released as a single. These activities were accompanied by the usual full page press adverts, this time asking readers "***k The Millennium: Yes/No?" with a telephone number provided for voting. At the same time, Drummond and Cauty were also
K2 Plant Hire, with plans to build a "People's Pyramid" from used house bricks; this plan never reached fruition. K2 Plant Hire Ltd had been registered at
Companies House since 1995; Cauty and Drummond are directors. The Directors' Report for the period ending 31 March 1996 listed the company's activities as "a music company," and the accompanying accounts noted a transaction with "KLF Communications Residual Royalties", a Cauty-Drummond partnership.
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu return On 23 August 2017, in Liverpool, 23 years after they burnt a million pounds, Drummond and Cauty returned as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The duo launched a novel,
2023: A Trilogy, and staged a three day event, "
Welcome to the Dark Ages". Ending their self-imposed moratorium, the festival included a debate asking "Why Did The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid?" The JAMs also announced new plans for a People's Pyramid New bricks will be laid at the annual "
Toxteth Day Of The Dead". Cauty emphasised to the
BBC in 2018 that the People's Pyramid project, inspired by his brother's death, is serious: "It's easy to make it sound like a joke", he said, "but it isn't a joke, it's deadly serious and it's a long-term project." On 23 March 2021, the collection was followed by its part
2 featuring 12" versions of the singles. On 4 February 2021, a re-edited version of
Chill Out was released, retitled
Come Down Dawn, with previously
unlicensed samples from the original release removed, and added "What Time Is Love? (Virtual Reality Mix)," originally from the 1990 remix EP
What Time Is Love? (Remodelled & Remixed), integrated in the new mix. On 23 April 2021, ''The White Room (Director's Cut)'' was officially released as the fourth part of the series. The album's edition includes tracks from the unreleased 1989 album, as well as an extended version of "Last Train to Trancentral" from the 1991 album. The documentary
Who Killed the KLF?, directed by
Chris Atkins, was released on April 4, 2022. Atkins began creating the documentary against Drummond's and Cauty's wishes, but was incarcerated in 2016 for tax fraud for two years; he continued editing the film while in prison. ==KLF Communications==