Band Review: Intaferon

Back at the end of 2014, I read Lori Majewski's Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs that Defined the 1980s. The chapters were primarily done in interview form with band members who had done significant songs, ending with five related themes or types of bands. That could mean five songs about nuclear war or five bands with two men and one woman, with some connections being more tenuous than others.

The book was primarily a fun reminder of a good times and good music, but there were a few pauses. Some bands were much more active than I'd realized, or I remembered the names of bands but knew nothing about their catalogs. There were even a few bands that I'd never heard of, which seems wrong given the way I'd devoured Star Hits back in the day. Of these, the band with the lowest output was Intaferon.

You'd think with two men named Simon and high cheekbones that I would have heard someone exclaiming over them at some point. The only explanation I can come up with is that they were active in 1983 and 1984, and things really started kicking off in 1985.

Their music has had a life beyond that. "Get Out of London" (the song referenced in the book) may be from 1983, but it was used in The Wild Thornberrys Movie in 2002 and in a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie the year before that. "Steamhammer Sam" was used in Max Headroom. It seems unlikely that the former band members were doing that much promotion to get into media; was it just the power of their electronic drum beats?

It is possible that the men's hearts weren't in it so much. Simon Fellowes became a novelist, and Simon Gillham became a philosophy lecturer after doing his doctoral work on Nietzsche (they sure sound like New Wave artists). At the same time, they have both released more music on their own.

I don't know how 80s-ish their later music sounds, but it does seem possible that I will eventually find out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intaferon