'Bands Reunited' mixes harmony, discord

HOLLYWOOD — If you've ever wondered what happened to Flock of Seagulls or Frankie Goes to Hollywood or Kajagoogoo or Berlin, obviously you were around during the '80s.

But if you really want to know what happened to them, VH-1 will show you those groups and six others in "Bands Reunited," which premieres Monday at 11 p.m. and runs for 10 consecutive nights.

This isn't just a retrospective, however. Host Aamer Haleem and the show's staff contact former members of the various groups — by bursting in on them unannounced — and try to talk them into meeting their ex-bandmates for a one-night performance that is included in the show.

Haleem said "a lot" of the band members were openly hostile when first contacted. On more then one occasion, the show's producers "would all say to me afterward, 'We thought you were going to get punched. We're surprised you survived that.' "

And that was easy compared to tracking down some of these people. Some of them are still in music, but others are not. People from the four bands already mentioned, as well as Klymaxx, Dramarama, Romeo Void, The Alarm and Squeeze, include an investigator for the D.A.'s office, a computer technician, a security chief, a bulldozer operator, an insurance salesman, and even a llama farmer.

"The toughest was probably Paul Rutherford, with Frankie Goes to Hollywood. . . . We found him in New Zealand, finally, two days before we had to get them together," Haseem said. Jez Strode "denied knowing anything about Kajagoogoo. He denied being Jez Strode.

"Some of them just don't want anything to do with their past and would just sort of say no, flat out." Others were eventually convinced, despite lingering personal conflicts.

"Wait till you see that Flock of Seagulls episode," Haleem said. "It's going to be really special because there's a couple of things going on there. There's the Score brothers, Ally and Mike, who hadn't seen each other in four years until we got to them. And their guitarist, Paul Reynolds, who was a teenager when he went on tour with these guys and, unfortunately, fell apart — started drinking a lot, had a nervous breakdown."

More common are bandmates who had a serious falling out and have lingering bitterness. Monday's premiere reunites the members of Berlin, including Terri Nunn and John Crawford, whose battles over the direction of the group caused, not only its demise but the demise of their personal relationship. Which is why it took VH-1 to bring them back together.

"Being in a band, it's either going to be intense love or massive hatred," Nunn said. "There's no middle. And with him, it went that way when we were together for 13 years. I loved him, I hated him. It was never neutral. So this is what it took.