10cc | Biography

“There are no bands like 10cc. You can't compare them to anyone and therefore their music has never dated. It's as fresh as it ever was,

waiting to be discovered or reconnected with, whenever you hear it.”

Bob Lefsetz, The Lefsetz Letter, USA

It’s a remarkable story from the pantheon of popular music, how four young men – Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley, Eric Stewart and Lol Creme – who liked spending time in a studio, writing songs, experimenting with sounds and playing various instruments, stumbled into being a band that had global hits and influenced a host of artists.

It’s not the rather casual start that is remarkable, but the fact that acknowledgement of their musical prowess is growing stronger by the year.

Godley and Creme departed in 1976 and Gouldman and Stewart finally split in 1993, with Gouldman establishing the Mark 3 format of 10cc in the early 2000s, because he enjoyed playing the songs live. Since then, it has grown organically to the point where the band is selling-out some of the world’s most prestigious concert venues, not least of which is London’s 5,200-seat Royal Albert Hall.

After a break of more than three decades, 10cc returned to the United States last year and the tour was so successful that they’ll be turning for a three week tour this year. Increased awareness in the band has been helped by Marvel/Disney’s use of I’m Not In Love in in the soundtrack of its blockbuster film Guardians of the Galaxy.

Back to the beginning, and when a repetitive track Stewart, Godley and Creme had developed to test new sound equipment in their Strawberry Stions haven in Stockport, was heard by a record company scout, they were given the name Hotlegs for its release.

Neanderthal Man might be noted as the start for three of 10cc’s four founders, it began in earnest with Gouldman joining, a name change to 10cc and Donna climbing to No 2 in the charts in 1972.

Their success continued with Rubber Bullets (No 1 in 1973), I’m Not In Love (No 1,1975) to Dreadlock Holiday (No 1, 1978), along with seven other Top 10 hits along the way.

More recently classics such as I’m Not In Love have enriched the film soundtrack of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004); The Things We Do For Love in the soundtrack of Halloween II (2009) and Dreadlock Holiday in The Social Network (2010) - about the founding of Facebook.

“It’s all about the songs,” says Gouldman. “We’re lucky to have such a fantastic canon of work to draw on.”

Line-ups have changed, but Gouldman’s tenacious stewardship of the live band ensures that today’s audiences are enjoying those songs performed with all the energy and spirit they deserve. “In 10cc Mark 1, we were four guys all of whom could sing, play, write songs and produce,” he reflects. “So the music we made came out of mixing those talents together. In today’s Mark 3 band, the song is king.”

However, it’s not as though it’s a new outfit, guitarist Rick Fenn has been part of the 10cc family since the mid-‘70s. as had drummer Paul Burgess until September 2025. Keyboards player and multi-instrumentalist Keith Hayman joined the band in 2006.

A more recent addition has been Iain Hornal. “He fits in perfectly. Not only is he a great singer and musician, but he’s also a very good songwriter,” notes Gouldman.

Hornal recently toured with Jeff Lynne’s ELO and Gary Barlow, where the musical director for both is former longtime 10cc Mark 3 member Mike Stevens. When Hornal is away, multi-instrumentalist Andy Park steps in and performs all the same parts impeccably.

Gouldman enjoyed significant success as a songwriter before 10cc came into being. In 1965 For Your Love became a massive worldwide hit for the Yardbirds. “That was what kick-started my career,” he says.

“From then on, the mid-‘60s were fantastic for me. After the Yardbirds, other songs I wrote became hits for The Hollies, Herman’s Hermits and Wayne Fontana ... it was a great time.”

After an unsatisfactory spell in New York working for bubblegum record producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz, Gouldman returned home to Manchester where he settled into Strawberry Studios, working with Stewart, Godley and Creme.

Stewart had already tasted international success as lead guitarist and singer of The Mindbenders, whose A Groovy Kind of Love hit No 2 on both sides of the Atlantic. Drummer and singer Godley had played with Gouldman in mid-‘60s Mancunian band The Mockingbirds, while Creme was a school friend of Godley’s.

It was in this period, before they had officially become 10cc, that the foursome masterminded the comeback of American legend Neil Sedaka, whose career was in the doldrums. “That was a good matching of talents,” says Gouldman.

“Although there was no real connection between his style and ours, we were well aware of his songs.

“The way we worked was that Eric would engineer the tracks, Kevin was on drums, Lol and I would be on acoustic guitars, and Neil would play piano and sing the lead vocal simultaneously - which was very impressive. It was wonderful to have his lead vocal to play to. Then we’d overdub bass guitar, keyboards, percussion, backing vocals or whatever else the song needed.”

In this way, they delivered two albums, Solitaire (1972) and The Tra-La Days Are Over (1973) along with Sedaka’s comeback hit That’s Where The Music Takes Me, and several cuts that subsequently provided chart smashes for Andy Williams, The Carpenters and others.

Their success with Sedaka spurred the quartet to press forward under the new name, 10cc, and they soon tasted success of their own. “Eric and I had written a song called Waterfall which The Beatles’ company Apple Records had shown some interest in, so we thought we had better do a B-side. We suggested to Kevin and Lol that they could write it and they came up with Donna, kind of a pastiche of ‘50s doo-wop songs.

“Apple eventually passed on it, but we secured a release on Jonathan King’s UK Records, who flipped A and B sides. Gouldman recalls, “When Donna went into the charts, in September 1972, and eventually peaked at No 2, that was one of the greatest moments of my working life.”

After this flying start, a dizzying sequence of impeccably crafted pop hits followed - including Rubber Bullets, The Dean And I, The Wall Street Shuffle, Silly Love and Life is a Minestrone.

They seemed unstoppable but, along the way, frictions had begun to emerge. Not only were the musical directions of Gouldman and Stewart diverging from those of Godley and Creme, but this latter duo had devised a guitar effects device, the marketing of which began to consume all of their time.

Following an appearance in front of 120,000 people at the 1976 Knebworth Festival, headlined by the Rolling Stones, the crumbling 10cc line-up returned to Strawberry Studios where, “After listening to a track called People In Love that Eric and I had written, Kev and Lol just said, ‘That’s it. We’re out.’”

After weighing up the pros and cons, Gouldman and Stewart decided to carry on as 10cc and continued to deliver hits – including The Things We Do For Love in 1977 and Dreadlock Holiday in 1078 – until tragically, Eric sustained serious injuries in a 1979 car crash.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Gouldman spent the much of the early 1980s concentrating on recording film soundtracks and also found time to work as a producer with The Ramones and Gilbert O’Sullivan.

In the latter days of the Gouldman-Stewart incarnation of 10cc, American songsmith Andrew Gold had been brought in with the hope that his involvement might help them secure greater success in the USA. Stewart and Gouldman finally called it a day in 1983.

In the first half of the ‘90s, the pair re-united for two albums, Meanwhile (1992), with contributions from both Godley and Creme, followed by Mirror Mirror (1995), with input by Paul McCartney and Andrew Gold, but neither was destined to set the world alight.

Then, in the late-‘90s, Gouldman started playing low-key acoustic gigs which, in due course, would emerge as a re-incarnated 10cc.

“I enjoyed doing those acoustic shows, but I was missing hearing bass and drums, and it eventually morphed into what we called Graham Gouldman’s 10cc, until I reached a point where we were playing to 100,000 people a year in the UK and I thought, this really is Mark 3 of the band, so should simply be called 10cc again.

“Its success is because people want to hear the songs they grew up with, being performed live, performed well and as near as dammit to the original records. At the end of the day, it’s the power of the song.”

He also feels that his stint as a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band touring line-up across Europe and the USA in 2018, has done much for the profile of the band.

“I was singing three 10cc songs every night as part of the show and we were playing arena-sized venues – working with Ringo definitely improved things for us.”

Meanwhile, 10cc continues to enjoy sell-out concerts across Scandinavia, mainland Europe, Australia and New Zealand, with a return to the US later this year and a plethora of festival appearances and special events thrown in for good measure.

Recent high points in the UK occurred when Godley made a surprise guest appearance at the band’s Royal Albert Hall concert in March 2024, where he sung Old Wild Men and he and the band gave the first ever live performance of the Godley & Creme hit Cry.

That remarkable night led to BBC Radio 2 asking Gouldman and Godley to do a Piano Room session with the BBC Concert Orchestra, which they did this February. Godley sang I’m Not In Love for the first time, along with the pair doing an Everly Brothers’ cover (All I Have To Do Is Dream) and a new Godley-Gouldman composition, Don’t Want To Go To Heaven.

In September 2025, the band’s veteran drummer Paul Burgess, with them since the mid-‘70s, retired from touring with the band, after a grueling US tour. He said he’s had enough of waiting in airport lounges, sitting on a tour bus for hours and changing hotels every day. He continues to play with The Guilty Men and other artists.

His replacement, Ben Stone, has worked with 10cc in the past and is also the new percussionist with Graham’s solo touring project, Heart Full of Songs.

As for 10cc, Gouldman says, “We love what we’re doing and that’s what it’s all about – performing those songs to the best of our ability. And when audiences enjoy it as much as they seem to, we feel truly blessed.”

I’m Not In Love has notched-up more than 325 million Spotify streams and over 129 million YouTube viewings.
Dreadlock Holiday has had 160+ million Spotify streams and The Things We Do For Love, 115+ million.
The Things We Do for Love was the lead track for Ricky Gervais’s After Life Series 3 (2022) on Netflix.
I’m Not In Love is lead track on the blockbuster Marvel/Disney film Guardians of the Galaxy (2015), which spawned a No 1 soundtrack album in the US.
Dreadlock Holiday is in the movie soundtrack of the 2010 film The Social Network, about the founding of Facebook
The Things We Do For Love is in the movie soundtrack for Halloween II (2009),
I’m Not In Love is featured in the soundtrack of the 2004 film Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
I’m Not In Love featured in teen-comedy series That '70s Show (1999) and in The Office (2001),
Dreadlock Holiday is featured in the soundtrack of the Guy Ritchie film Snatch (2000).