Kevin "Al" Archer (born 21 December 1958) is an English guitarist and songwriter.

Career

Archer played with

Kevin Rowland Kevin Rowland (born 17 August 1953) is a British singer and musician best known as the frontman for the pop band Dexys Midnight Runners (currently called ''Dexys''). The band had several hits in the early 1980s, the most notable being "Geno" an ...

in the punk rock group the Killjoys. In 1978, Rowland and Archer formed

Dexys Midnight Runners Dexys Midnight Runners (currently officially Dexys, their former nickname, styled without an apostrophe) are an English pop rock band from Birmingham, with soul influences, who achieved major commercial success in the early to mid-1980s. They a ...

. Archer co-wrote some of the songs on the group's debut album ''

Searching for the Young Soul Rebels ''Searching for the Young Soul Rebels'' is the debut studio album by English pop group Dexys Midnight Runners, released on 11 July 1980, through Parlophone and EMI Records. Led by Kevin Rowland, the group formed in 1978 in Birmingham, England, and ...

''. He used the name "Al" because Kevin Rowland decided that the group was not big enough to accommodate two Kevins. After the first album, Archer, exhausted by Dexys' touring schedule, left the group in early 1981. In a 2009 interview, with

Joanne Malin Joanne Malin (born 22 March 1967) is a British radio and television presenter. She is a presenter on ''Midlands Today''. Biography Joanne Malin was born in 1967 to parents Kenneth and Dorothy and has two siblings. Malin is married but has no c ...

on her

BBC Radio WM BBC Radio WM is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving the West Midlands conurbation, West Midlands. It broadcasts on frequency modulation, FM, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at The M ...

morning show, Archer said he enjoyed the musical side of the group, but did not enjoy the culture of the band under Rowland's direction. The band's second album, '' Too-Rye-Ay'' (1982), featured his significant influence on the hit single "

Come On Eileen "Come On Eileen" is a song by the English group Dexys Midnight Runners (credited to Dexys Midnight Runners and the Emerald Express), released in the United Kingdom in June 1982 as a single from their second studio album '' Too-Rye-Ay''. It reach ...

", though Rowland did not acknowledge this until years later. He then formed

the Blue Ox Babes The Blue Ox Babes were an English pop group, formed in early 1981 by the former Dexys Midnight Runners guitarist Kevin 'Al' Archer, together with his girlfriend Yasmin Saleh, guitarist Nick Bache and former Dexys keyboard player Andy Leek. Arch ...

. The band finally signed to

Go! Discs Records Go! Discs was a London-based record label, launched in 1983 from offices in Wendell Road, Shepherd's Bush, by Andy Macdonald and Lesley Symons. The pair founded the label after Macdonald left his job as press officer at Stiff Records, and Symo ...

for three singles and an aborted album, ''Apples & Oranges'', which belatedly saw release in 200920 years after it was recorded.

References

1958 births Living people musicians from Birmingham, West Midlands English new wave musicians English rock guitarists English male songwriters Dexys Midnight Runners members {{UK-guitarist-stub