The Rembrandts (Phil Solem and Danny Wilde) in 2018
By Leena Tailor, Variety | No one told them the song was gonna blow up this way. The Rembrandts were putting finishing touches on their third album, “L.P.,” when a sidestep into television drastically altered their course in 1994. Now, 26 years since “I’ll Be There for You” debuted on “Friends,” band member Phil Solem is reflecting on the ups and downs caused by the track, how a few beers led to its iconic claps and witnessing Brad Pitt enjoy a performance of the hit more than the cast.
Solem and bandmate Danny Wilde, who previously had a hit with 1990’s “Just the Way It Is, Baby,” will forever be associated with “Friends,” yet they initially asked to remain anonymous while working on the tune after viewing the pilot. “In those days, it was uncool for a band like ours to be involved in television,” Solem explains.
Musical director Michael Skloff had composed a piano melody, while executive producers Marta Kauffman and David Crane and late songwriter Allee Willis had started lyrics. Willis continued faxing through lyrics, which Solem tweaked. “They wanted an upbeat tempo and used R.E.M. – I think it was ‘It’s the End of the World’ – to vibe off, then we replaced it with our own sound.”
Solem was stunned when “Friends” blew up, taking the song skyrocketing with it. Soon, a Nashville station started playing the 42-second track looped to meet listener demand.
Seeing dollar signs, the Rembrandts were urged to extend the track into a full song for “L.P.” “We were making a dark, heavier rock album — the antithesis of ‘Friends’ — so we weren’t happy about that,” Solem says. “They’d already made 100,000 copies. I don’t remember if they recalled them or they ended up in a dustbin, but everything was reconfigured to accommodate this song.”
The pair completed the song, but Warner Bros. felt it wasn’t chirpy enough and brought Crane and Kauffman back to help write the final version, which was tagged onto “L.P.” “like a hidden track.” The song topped the charts globally and “L.P.” went platinum. “It went further than we ever imagined,” Solem says.
Nor did Solem imagine the song’s iconic claps, noting he and Wilde initially had lyrics in mind. “But we’d hammered back a couple of beers, were getting loopy and decided to finish the next day. The following afternoon, they played us what we’d done, but had added claps. I went, ‘Okay. That’s the hook!’”
So, where did the claps come from?
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https://variety.com/2021/music/news/rembrandts-friends-theme-ill-be-there-for-you-1234983082/
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