Fast Food Rockers were a British pop group known briefly for their

novelty music A novelty song is a type of song built upon some form of novel concept, such as a gimmick, a piece of humor, or a sample of popular culture. Novelty songs partially overlap with comedy songs, which are more explicitly based on humor, and wi ...

. The band met at a fast-food convention in

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

in the summer of 2003.

Career

Their most successful hit was their 2003 release "

Fast Food Song "Fast Food Song" is a song made famous by British-based band Fast Food Rockers, although it existed long before they recorded it, as a popular children's playground song. The chorus is based on the Moroccan folk tune "A Ram Sam Sam" and mentions ...

", which parodies the traditional

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

melody "

A Ram Sam Sam "A Ram Sam Sam (A rum sum sum)" is a popular Moroccan children's song and game, that gained popularity around the world, other variants were used like "Aram" instead of "A Ram" and "Zam Zam" instead of "Sam Sam". Lyrics, movements and meaning ...

". The Dutch DJ Eric Dikeb claims to have made a Dutch song out of that traditional melody in 2001, called "Pizzahaha", explaining that at that moment, he was taking part in the Dutch television show ''Big Diet'', in which contestants had to lose as much weight as they could over a few months. Dikeb further claims to have come up with the idea to use the names of his favourite fast-food restaurants in the song. Pizzahaha did not make it to the Dutch charts, but in Belgium the band Dynamite made a big hit out of it, with a Belgian version called "De Pizzadans". It also topped the charts in Germany, called "Burgerdance", by

DJ Ötzi Gerhard "Gerry" Friedle (born 7 January 1971), better known by his stage name DJ Ötzi (), is an Austrian pop and Schlager singer. Successful mainly in German-speaking countries, he is best known in the English-speaking world for his 2000 single ...

. The Fast Food Rockers' version, adapted by Mike Stock,

Steve Crosby Steven Kent Crosby (born July 3, 1950) is an American former professional football coach and player. He spent 33 years in the National Football League (NFL)—3 as a player, 4 as a scout and 26 as a coach. Crosby was named the NFL Special Teams ...

and

Sandy Rass Sandy Rass is a British government statistician and a British songwriter/producer of Fast Food Rockers and others, and a singer, dancer and actor. He was born in London and trained at the Royal Ballet School for 3 years and then at Italia Conti Aca ...

, was the first release of independent record label Better The Devil Records. In June 2003 it reached #2 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

, despite the criticism of cultural analysts who lamented the "collapse of culture into product placement". The single would go on to sell 150,000 copies in the UK, and was in the year-end Top 40. Their second single, " Say Cheese (Smile Please)", reached #10. After their attempt at a Christmas single only reached #25, and an album that failed to make the

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabul ...

, the group disbanded in March 2004. After the disbandment, the band members found non-music-related jobs, and in 2006, former band member Martin Rycroft left his job as a bartender to take part in the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

/ E4 show ''Boys Will Be Girls'', where three former male popstars (including

Russ Spencer Russell Spencer (born 1st March 1980) he is an English singer and television presenter. Scooch Originally formed in 1998, Spencer first gained prominence as a member of pop group Scooch who signed to EMI and gained four top twenty hits incl ...

from

Scooch Scooch is a British pop group, comprising performers Natalie Powers, Caroline Barnes, David Ducasse and Russ Spencer. Scooch represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki with their song "Flying the Flag (For Y ...

) tried to convincingly create a new girl band by former

Brother Beyond Brother Beyond were a British pop band who had success in the pop rock genre in the late 1980s. Biography The group's first four singles, "I Should Have Lied", "How Many Times", "Chain-Gang Smile" (produced by Don Was), and an early version of ...

star Nathan Moore. In 2003, rumours surfaced that the band did not sing on their own records. However, in an interview with

CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...

Newsround ''Newsround'' (stylised as ''newsround'', and originally called ''John Craven's Newsround'' before his departure in 1989) is a BBC children's news programme, which has run continuously since 4 April 1972. It was one of the world's first televi ...

'', Meggitt stated she "trained for three years at a performing arts school, Ria's been in the business for a long time, Martin's been in the business for a long time and we're very proud to say we do sing on

his His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, in ...

song".

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links

Band

Fast Food Rockers
at Myspace
Fast Food Rockers biography, news, discography
at Bubblegum Dancer

Members

Martin Rycroft's official homepageRia Scott's official Myspace page

Songwriters and producers

Mike Stock Official Website
{{Authority control English pop music groups Musical groups established in 2003 Musical groups disestablished in 2004 Musical groups from Kent British Eurodance groups