FRANCIS DUNNERY IS PROBABLY BEST REMEMBERED AS BEING THE SINGER AND GUITARIST IN 1980s PROGRESSIVE ROCK-POP BAND IT BITES.

Across three albums, and driven by Dunnery’s virtuoso guitar, the band gained a cult following and, to this day, are remembered with great affection amongst the prog-pop congnoscenti. During the last few years, and with a new frontman, the band have recorded two albums. The original incarnation of It Bites, however, split up in 1990. Always a restless and questing sort of character, Dunnery disappeared off to America to try and find a new life – and discover a new self. In the subsequent two decades he’s released a string of interesting records which have seen him pushing himself to the outer edges of public expectations. He’s also worked closely with Robert Plant, Steve Hackett and, perhaps surprisingly, Stone Roses’ frontman Ian Brown. In a hugely interesting move, his most recent album VAMPIRES (released this week) comprises fourteen rerecordings of songs from his It Bites days. In this new and specially extended edition of The Mouthcast Francis speaks to The Mouth Magazine from his home in Pennsylvania, offering a frank and philosophical account of his time in the band, and his reasons for rerecording old material…

Order VAMPIRES here