Wang Chung On ‘Everybody Have Fun Tonight’ Amid New Compilation Set

Nearly 40 years after it first peaked at number two on the Billboard chart in 1986, Wang Chung’s celebratory hit “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” continues to be a fixture of pop culture. In addition to being played on the radio and streaming services, the song has since made its way into television and movies, including That ‘70s Show, Sex and the City, Ghosts, The Goldbergs, Ricki and the Flash and This Is Us. Most recently, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” was featured in the trailer for next year’s Grand Theft Auto VI. For Wang Chung — the British duo of Nick Feldman and Jack Hues — that track and their other big smash from the 1980s, “Dance Hall Days,” are the gifts that keep on giving.

“It is shocking in a way,” Hues says. “The durability of “Dance Hall Days” and “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” is pretty remarkable — and given that we didn’t really do anything for about 20 years after we split in 1990. So the fact that various high-profile things adopted the songs during that time, it’s quite interesting.”

Meanwhile, a two-disc compilation, Clear Light/Dark Matter — which was recently released through the Seattle-based music technology company SING — seems poised to prompt further renewed interest in Wang Chung. Aside from “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” and “Dance Hall Days,” Clear Light/Dark Matter contains other popular favorites from the band’s catalog, such as “Wait,” “Hypnotize Me,” “Let’s Go” and “Praying to a New God.”

“It feels like it’s about time in a way,” Feldman says. “It seems like a really good time to make that kind of summary of where we’ve gotten so far. I think it covers a lot of ground in a good way that is very kind of digestible, obviously, to the hardcore Wang Chung fan, but also maybe people who are you know a little less familiar with all of our deeper work as well.”

“Wang Chang is “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” and “Dance Hall Days,” both of which are essentially big commercial hits,” adds Hues. “But Wang Chung is also “To Live and Die in L.A.” And it’s also the more ambitious songs on The Warmer Side of Cool and Tazer Up! So there’s a lot there. I think Nick and I always were interested in the freedom that came with making so-called pop records that you could bring a lot of material to the table.”

Also notable on the compilation are a recent remix of “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” and a live performance of “Fire in the Twilight” (which originally appeared on The Breakfast Club soundtrack from 1985) from Toronto’s El Mocambo. And especially for die-hard fans, the compilation delves into several album tracks going back to their 1982 debut record as well as demos for such songs as “Dance Hall Days” and “To Live and Die in L.A.”

“To go back to [the demos], you hear how fairly accurate we were in our sort of realization of what the recordings would be, even though these demos were recorded literally on a little four-track recorder in Nick’s flat in London,” says Hues. ““Dance All Days” has the low synths and the kind of drum rhythms that we wanted. But it’s also interesting to hear how much more focused and slightly faster the tempo of the final version of the track became.”

The new compilation is a sign that Wang Chung’s previous studio albums could seeing a reissue at some point.

“We’ve been looking at re-releasing studio albums in deluxe editions with outtakes and demos,” Hues says. “But finding a really good home for that project has been difficult. We finally found this company called SING, which was very enthusiastic. And we decided the best way to prelude a sort of sequential re-release of the albums would be by doing a career retrospective, which is what this is, essentially.”

The arrival of Clear Light/Dark Matter comes as the band is marking their 45th anniversary this year. Formed in London in 1980 under the moniker of Huang Chung, they released their self-titled debut album two years later. The group later moved on to a new label, Geffen Records, and changed their name to the slightly more pronouceable Wang Chung. Their 1983 album for the label, Points on the Curve, yielded the sublime hit “Dance Hall Days,” which peaked at number 16 on the Billboard chart.

“I guess we reach this sort of crossroads point where it’s a bit like the last chance saloon in a sense,” says Hues. “You’ve got a bit of profile, but you haven’t yet nailed it. There was this kind of pressure in a sense. But somehow I managed to squeeze out “Dance Hall Days” in that situation. I remember I was teaching guitar in those days at various secondary schools. The ideas came from a session where a kid didn’t show up for their lesson one time. I sort of remember sitting in that classroom amongst the desks strumming away—’Take your baby by the hand’ and starting to hear the song in my head.”

“We did record “Dance Hall Days” for Arista with the producer Tim Friese-Greene, who produced all the Talk Talk stuff,” adds Feldman. “We loved Talk Talk, but it didn’t quite capture the song well enough.”

“Around that time, we met a manager, David Massey,” Hues says, “who saw the potential for the band in America. He saw this slightly cinematic quality that the music’s got would not be appreciated or particularly well served in the U.K. at that time. So he took “Dance Hall Days” to the States. We got a couple of offers, and eventually it got us signed to Geffen. Very fortunately, Arista allowed us to take the song with us and re-record it.”

One famous fan of the Points on the Curve album was American director William Friedkin, best known for his hit movies The French Connection and The Exorcist. He who enlisted Wang Chung to do the soundtrack for his 1985 crime thriller To Live and Die in L.A. The music for the movie was a stylistic departure from the band’s commercial/pop music side.

“We actually embarked on a follow-up album to [Points on the Curve], but it wasn’t going particularly well,” Hues says. “I remember being with a friend of mine in central London at his apartment. His phone rang and this American lady said, ‘I want to speak to Jack Hues.’ So he gave me the phone. And she said, ‘Will you be at this number in half an hour? Mr. William Friedkin would like a conversation with you.’

“Then Billy, as I came to know him, was on the phone,” Hues continues. “We had this sort of hour-long conversation where he just talked about the fact that he loved “Wait” in particular, off of Points on the Curve, and that he was using that as a temp track. So when they had finished the day’s shooting, he would watch the rushes back and have that music playing in the background. He said, ‘That’s the atmosphere that I want.’”

“We were so excited to work with a legend like him,” Feldman remembers. “The record company was going, ‘Where’s our three-minute single?’ And [Friedkin] was saying, “I don’t want a song. I want long-form, gritty, dark, intense music with no vocals.’ It was so thrilling for us. The whole experience was amazing. But it also really helped to cleanse palette, I think, to move on to the next more commercial record.”

That commercial record became 1986’s Mosaic, co-produced by the band and Peter Wolf. It yielded the hits “Hypnotize Me,” “Let’s Go” and the now-iconic “Everybody Have Fun Tonight.” As Feldman recalls, the latter track went through various iterations.

“So the very first stage was that I had this sort of chorus idea,” he says. “It was quite slow, and it was ‘Everybody have fun tonight.’ I played it to Jack. I thought he’d go, ‘Well, you can’t have a song called “Everybody. Have Fun Tonight.” That’s just terrible.’ But he was like, ‘I like that.’ I thought, ‘Really? Well, you’re not going to ask to change the lyrics?’

“So we recorded it,” Feldman continues. “It was like a “Hey Jude” tempo,” quite slow. And at the end of it, Jack just threw in this ad lib of ‘Everybody Wang Chung tonight.’ It was just a throwaway thing. When we played the demo to Peter Wolf, he was like, ‘I love that. That’s got to be in every chorus. And you’ve got to speed the track up and restructure it.’ So we did that in the studio. I wasn’t sure it was a hit. I thought it was either the worst thing we’d ever done or brilliant.”

“I remember [David Massey] coming into the studio,” adds Hues, “and tears came to his eyes with the sense of, ‘This is it. This is brilliant!’ So that’s always a good sign.”

Following the success of “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” Wang Chung’s next The Warmer Side of Cool (1989), marked a change in approach. Featuring “Praying to a New God,” the album incorporated more guitar-oriented rock—an indication of the end of the synth-dominated New Wave ‘80s.

“It’s great to have that sort of success and the hits that we had on Mosaic,” Feldman says.” But I think it left people with the impression that we were now a sort of pop band, which I think were always a bit more than that. So I suppose [Warmer] was a slightly conscious way to try and reorientate the perception of Wang Chung.”

“This was at a time when really everything was changing and Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana were the new bands at Geffen,” says Hues. “I think the decision to call it a day was probably the right one.”

During Wang Chung’s hiatus in the 1990s, Feldman and Hues worked on their individual projects before regrouping by the 2000s. Since then, Wang Chung has recorded two records (2012’s Tazer Up! and 2019’s Orchesography) and consistently toured on their own and as part of ‘80s package bills. This summer, they will be on the road for a bill featuring Rick Springfield, John Waite and Paul Young.

“I suppose we’re like a couple of veterans coming back from the war,” Feldman explains about his and Hues’ partnership now going nearly 50 years. “You’ve been through so much together. There’s such a strong bond. And we respect each other.”

“It is a long marriage,” adds Hues. “It’s had its ups and downs for sure. But we get on well as people. Nick is a great guy. We give each other a bit of freedom to do things we want to do. We’ve had some really pretty sound success as Wang Chung, but it’s not been so heavy that it’s swept us off our feet. Just listening to each other, I think, that’s essentially what’s kept us together.”