Tony Fennell

Tony Fennell or Tony Fenelle (born 16 November 1963) a musician, writer and producer. He was the lead singer, lyricist and musician for the band Ultravox from 1992 until 1994. He is an established writer and producer of music for television.

He has signed publishing and recording contracts with Warner Brothers, Atlantic, EMI and BMG. His film and television credits include Disney, Nickelodeon, Viacom, HBO, PBS and Syfy as well as national commercials for Dodge, Mattel and General Mills.

Career

Fennell was born in Birmingham, and started playing music in the early 1980s, signing his first publishing contract with Warner/Chappell Music. His band, Mr. President, went on to sign with Atlantic Records. During this time, Fennell was also the bass player for Edwin Starr. In 1985, the band changed its name to "Big Noise". The band released the album Bang, produced by Elliot Wolfe (Paula Abdul). He toured extensively throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, including with James Brown.

After moving to the US permanently in the late 1980s, Fennell co-wrote with David Frank (The System) the track "If You Believe", for soul singer Kenny Thomas' 1991 Platinum album Voices.

In 1992 Fennell became the lead singer of UK band Ultravox and signed with EMI. He co-wrote and recorded the EP "Vienna 92" and the album Revelation, which was subsequently re-released as The Great Outdoors in 2002.

In 1995 Fennell signed a publishing deal with Japanese company Avex. While with Avex, Fennell co-wrote the underscore for the movie Within the Rock (Gary Tunnicliffe) for the Syfy Channel. Teaming up with Rod Gammons (Liberty X) and Bob Khozouri (Eternal), he co-wrote two songs for Jaki Graham's album Hold On and another for her album Real Life.

In 1996/7 Fennell formed the band Luxx with fellow Englishman Ian Hatton (Bonham, The Honeydrippers) and signed with Push/BMG. The band went on to record two albums: Luxx and Hyrdroponic and toured the US over a period of 4 years.

In the early 2000s, he wrote and recorded songs for Bear In The Big Blue House (Disney), Little Bill (CBS), Out Of The Box (Nickelodeon), Gullah Gullah Island (Nickelodeon), Cyberchase (PBS), Scrubs (ABC) and Nash Bridges (CBS).

In 2004, he signed with Zest Music as the in-house writer/ producer working in conjunction with CEO Steve Weltman (Chrysalis, Hit and Run Music). With Zest, Fennell wrote and produced with Richard Evans (Peter Gabriel) and co-wrote and produced the album Night Racing for Tara Chinn. Fennell and Chinn went on to tour Australia to promote the album Night Racing.

In 2009, Fennell wrote/ produced songs and underscore for the movie, King Of The Avenue (Ving Rhames).

In 2010, Fennell co-wrote "Crash and Burn" and "Black and White" with Alex Smith (James Morrison) and Karen Louise Barrowor Scarlette Fever. "Crash and Burn" achieved high rotation on BBC Radio 2's B-List and the Jason Nevins remix reached number 2 in the Music Week Commercial Pop Club Chart. It also made the top ten of the Billboard Breakout Club Charts in the USA.

In 2013/14 Fennell wrote and co-produced with Jason Silver (Mark Ronson) the album Bring It Back for singer Brenda Edwards (We Will Rock You/The X Factor). He is writing/producing with bass player Chip Z'nuff and the band Enuff Z'nuff and has produced two songs for the bands latest release "Covered in Gold"

Present

Fennell is currently the co-founder and co-owner of the company Musations. The company released the social media/music app, Musations in July 2014. The app consequently charted at #3 in the Apple AppStore's free music downloads.

Partial Discography

References

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