How The TV Show FRIENDS DESTROYED THE REMBRANDTS (I'll Be There For You)

how the Rembrandts career came to an end following the success of the Friends theme song.

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Formed in 1989 by Danny Wilde and Phil Solem, The Rembrandts would be best known for writing the song I’ll Be There For You, which would become one of the most iconic TV theme songs of all time. But it would get the Rembrandts branded as one-hit wonders by some (even though they weren’t), while others called them sellouts. The success of the song would result in the band breaking up, despite making them rich. Today let’s talk about the history of the song.

Formed as a rock duo, The members of the Rembrandts would meet in the LA Club Scene in the 70’s before playing in the early 80’s era power pop group Great Buildings. After releasing one album for CBS Records, they would dissolve by 1981. The pair would end up pursuing their own solo careers after the implosion of Great Buildings, but they still stayed in touch. After having no success with their solo careers, the pair got together forming the Rembrandts in 1989.

In 1990 the duo released their first record, which was self titled peaking at number 88 on the billboard 200 moving several hundred thousand copies. It also produced a hit in "Just the Way It Is, Baby" , which peaked at number 14 on the billboard hot 100 charts.
Their follow up album Untitled, would be put out in1992, having some success with the song Johnny, Have You Seen Her?" and "Chase the Clouds Away". The song "Rollin' Down the Hill" meanwhile , would appear in the 1995 Jim Carrey film Dumb and Dumber.

Then in 1993 NBC was working on the pilot for their new show FRIENDS which was set to premiere in the fall of 1994. The show tells th story of six single 20 somethings living in New York City The show’s executive producer Kevin S. Bright, was looking for a theme song that shared some similarity to the R.E.M. song Shiny Happy People. In fact, the original pilot featured the R.E.M song, but R.E.M. also wasn’t interested in licensing the song. The show’s producers wanting to get a legit band to record the theme worked with the studio Warner Brothers, to see who was available on their roster at the time, and so the Rembrandts entered the picture.

Wilde would tell Buzzfeed what happened next "I think they thought it felt, tempo-wise, that was where they wanted to go," "Kevin had it in his head that he didn't want to have a jingle writer write the theme song for the show. He was a fan of The Rembrandts from other records that we had made, so he called our manager. Our manager called us on Monday and we said, 'Sure, we'll try it out. We'll see what happens.'"

In September of 1994 the Rembrandts would assemble in a studio with Michael Skloff, the Friends theme song composer and producer Martha Kaufman's husband, and Allee Willis, who wrote the lyrics to the song. While the Rembrandts wrote their own songs, they had minimal involvement with the writing of the Friends theme song Wilde would recall to the Independent “I remember thinking it was awesome, a really cool little pop tune. It had great harmonies and this upbeat vibe. More than anything, it was fun. Plus, Phil and I were really jacked to hear it on the TV show. Skloff took inspiration from the Beatles track Paperback Writer, attempting to recreate a 60’s vibe to the song.

The theme for Friends was only recorded as being 45 seconds long to fit the opening credits for the show. As for the handclaps, that was a last minute addition the Rembrandts weren’t aware of until they heard the final mix. By Solem’s own admission upon hearing the final mix, he thought the handclaps were the best part of the song.

Soon after Friends premiered in the fall of 1994 the Rembrandts asked not to have their name in the credits fearing it could alienate their fans and bring accusations against the group of selling out. .
Little did they know Friends would become a massive hit and the theme song took on a life of its own when one radio station in Nashville took the 45 second song and looped it to make it a full track. Soon enough ti spread to other radio stations across America and became highly requested on radio. Soon enough the band’s label told the band they needed to cut a full version of the song, despite the band being reluctant to do it with Solem revealing There was no way to get out of it," l