Watch Ricky Gervais as a one-time 80s pop star before he found global fame

29 April 2025, 13:07

We've all surely had dreams of being a pop star.

Either singing into the hairbrush in front of the bedroom mirror or wailing away in the shower when you think nobody's listening, we've all fancied ourselves doing the same on Top Of The Pops.

No doubt the likes of George Michael, Robbie Williams, Duran Duran, Amy Winehouse, Boy George, Adele, Ed Sheeran and countless others did exactly that before they made it big.

It gets to a point, eventually, when most of us leave the singing to the professionals and focus our talents on where they truly lie.

That's precisely what international superstar and comedian extraordinaire Ricky Gervais did.

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He's renowned worldwide for writing and acting in comedy classics The Office, Extras, Afterlife, various stand-up tours and, of course, his fabled outbursts hosting the Golden Globes.

The list of accolades he's won is eye-watering in itself; winning seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards throughout his career.

But long before he found fame and fortune, Gervais gave pop stardom a bash with his short-lived new wave band Seona Dancing.

Growing up in a fairly modest family life in Reading, Gervais enrolled at the University College London, initially studying Biology before switching to Philosophy after his first term, the subject in which he achieved his degree.

During his uni days, Ricky met Bill Macrae who shared his ambitions of making music, so the pair formed a band together.

Gervais fancied himself as somewhat of a frontman, writing the lyrics and taking on the role of singer whilst Macrae wrote the music and played the keyboards.

Just listening to his crooning vocal style, it was clear Ricky was a fan of David Bowie.

In a twist of fate, Bowie would later appear in a hilarious cameo for an episode of Extras, after Bowie reached out to Gervais when The Office became a global hit series.

As Seona Dancing, the pair wrote a batch of demos that was deemed good enough by London Records to offer them a deal.

Seona Dancing - Bitter Heart HD Full Video

The new wave band were given all the glamorous makeover most bands of the era received, with the label coughing up money for a music video for the lead single 'Bitter Heart'.

A dramatic synth-pop song with plenty of shimmering melody should have perhaps fared better, but only reached number 79 in the UK charts.

The band's fortunes relied on follow-up single 'More To Lose' to make a greater impact, with Seona Dancing securing a spot on ITV kids' show Razzmatazz to promote it.

Sadly, it performed even worse, only reaching a meagre 117 in the UK charts – the nail in the coffin for the band.

Seona Dancing - More To Lose (Razzmatazz, 07/06/83)

Gervais reflected on the experience in a 2016 interview with Classic Rock magazine, admitting: "My first mistake back then was wanting to be a pop star.

"I should have wanted to be a musician. That taught me a lot because in later life I didn’t want to be a celebrity, I wanted to be a writer/director.

"People only know I was in a band because I’m famous for something else now, and the video pops up on Graham Norton and we laugh at how thin I was.

“It was all over very quick. I was signed from a demo, we released a single, didn’t make it, released a second single, didn’t make it, and we were dropped, and that was the end of it."

Things went from bad to worse for Gervais and his bandmate he goes on to say.

"The post-signed years were a bigger influence than the signed years because we played every gig we could get and I invited A&R men to every single one.

"I remember going to one gig with our equipment in a shopping trolley and the guitarist said, ‘This is my lowest point ever’. He had a point,” Gervais jokingly recalled.

Strangely enough, Seona Dancing did actually score a hit with their song 'More To Lose', albeit halfway around the world.

In the Philippines, radio station DWRT-FM picked up the single 'More To Lose' and started playing it under a different title to keep it exclusive.

Turns out, it became a massive hit and started a cultural teen movement in the country.

“It became a favourite of Filipino youth hooked on New Wave music – a staple at so-called ‘New Wave parties’ held in upscale villages in metro Manila,” Pocholo Concepcion, a music critic at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, told TIME magazine in 2017.

"Somehow the song gave kids a reason to feel happy amid the political and economic crises."

I'm sure that nowadays Ricky Gervais was happy with his decision to call it a day as a budding pop star and pivot to comedy where he made his name.

He still gets asked about his stint as a musician and what happened to Bill Macrae, however. In 2014, when US television host Jimmy Kimmel asked him about his former bandmate, Gervais answered: "I hope he got fat, too."