Just one week before a brand-new NBC sitcom, set in New York City and staring a relatively unknown cast of young actors, was set to air on Sept. 22, 1994, Los Angeles-based pop rock duo The Rembrandts got a call from the show’s executive producer and director Kevin Bright about helping his team come up with a theme song.
The 43-second recording, which had already been fleshed out by producers David Crane and Marta Kauffman with help from Michael Kloff and Allee Williams, needed something a little more punchy and that’s where Phil Solem and Danny Wilde of The Rembrandts came in. Bright was a fan of the band and within 48-hours of making the call, he was in Wilde’s home studio in his garage in the valley. The guys cut the song the following Saturday and by Tuesday, the now iconic TV show “Friends” aired for the first time-ever with the catchy, clap-along theme song, “I’ll Be There For You.”
“We took their idea and turned it into a Rembrandts idea,” Wilde said during a recent interview. The show, which ran for 10 seasons and last aired on May 6, 2004, is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2019 and has enjoyed a great resurgence as it was found by a new generation thanks to it being streamed on Netflix. Even Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations in West Hollywood and Santa Monica have transformed into the “Friends” coffee house, Central Perk, with themed drinks through Aug. 23 to celebrate the occasion.
“At the time, we thought it was pretty cool,” Wilde continued. “But we were a little apprehensive about becoming that sort of TV theme band, you know? At the time it set our career off at an angle we weren’t really prepared for because that song became so huge. It was number one for eight weeks and we saw our audiences start to change from a cool, alternative, kind of theater crowd, into a lot of younger people and kids with their parents. We sort of turned into a matinee show and we were thinking, ‘What in the hell just happened?’”
“I’ll Be There For You” topped the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart and garnered the band a Grammy nomination. Though the band’s third album, “L.P.” was already in the can, distribution was halted and the band was asked to go back in and work out a longer version of the track for that album.
“That’s when we really became more involved with the writing of the second verse, the bridge and all of the other stuff,” he said. They even starred in a music video for the full version of the song with the cast of “Friends.”
“When we look back on it now, it was such a great break of us,” he added. “Who knows what would have happened? Now it’s sort of us grabbing the brass ring because all of the new bands and younger kids, their dreams are to get some kind of killer sync in a movie or TV show.”
In the ’80s, Wilde met Solem when their respective bands would play shows together in the L.A. area. Solem was in a band called Loose Change and Wilde was in The Quick and the pair of twentysomethings realized they had a lot in common musically. By 1989, they formed The Rembrandts and released their first album a year later and landed a top 20 single with “Just the Way It Is, Baby.” The band released five albums and by 2001, following the release of “Lost Together,” it was time for a break.
During their hiatus the guys never stopped working on music. They produced albums by other bands such as the Gin Blossoms, released solo efforts, a greatest hits collection and Wilde started a commercial music company to make music for television commercials. They’ve also prepped their first new album in 18 years, “Via Satellite,” which officially drops on Aug. 23. The record, however, has been in the works for nearly a decade, Wilde said.
“It did take us a little longer to assemble this record, but Phil and I have always kind of worked like that,” he said. “Phil was living in Minneapolis, he’s living in Nashville now, and I’m in Thousand Oaks, so we were sending files back and forth … it’s in the title of the album. I’d pull up a file with a chorus that I thought was great and Phil would send a verse. We did have a lot of fun with this record because there was no pressure.”
It reminded the duo of the old days. The very first Rembrandts album was recorded in Wilde’s garage as a demo and as they shopped it around to labels, it eventually got picked up by Atco and they wanted it as-is. For “Via Satellite,” they didn’t want to just self-release it, so they went with L.A.-based artist-forward label Blue Élan Records and just had fun with it.
“Here we are 30-something years later with no expectations again,” he said. “It was just a couple of guys hanging out, drinking some beers, just writing, jamming and putting our ideas together. Maybe we drank a few too many beers.”
The 10-track release is upbeat with The Rembrandts’ signature hooks and riffs and though some of the lyrical content, like in “Broken Toy,” is a bit heart-wrenching, musically it lets you down easy with a bit of a sugar coating that doesn’t wipe away the smile brought by songs like the poppy, Beatles-esque “Me And Fate,” or the sing-song, blues-rock “Come to California.”
Wilde said the band is currently plotting a tour for the spring in support of the album and, of course, the now legendary “Friends” theme song will be shuffled into the mix. With all of the buzz surrounding the 25th anniversary of the show, news came that a Central Perk “Friends” Lego set would be released on Sept. 1 and Wilde wants in on that action. Maybe Lego versions of The Rembrandts can join Phoebe Buffay in a sing-along of “Smelly Cat” inside the popular coffee house.
“I want to be a Lego,” he said after learning that it wasn’t just some social media joke. “How do we make that happen? I definitely want you to quote me as saying ‘I’ve always wanted to be a Lego.’”
