Haysi Fantayzee were a British new wave band of the early 1980s.

For… Read Full Bio ↴Haysi Fantayzee were a British new wave band of the early 1980s.

Formed and fronted by white dreadlocked singers Jeremy Healy (also known as Jeremiah) and Kate Garner, and with Kate's boyfriend songwriter/producer/manager Paul Caplin in the background, the band had several UK hits in 1983 such as the singles John Wayne Is Big Leggy, Shiny Shiny, and Sister Friction. The band never broke through to the same kind of success in the US, although they did have some popularity there.

Originally Caplin and Garner had intended to make music with just Garner performing, but then they met Healy (who at 19 was much younger than Garner) and decided to pair them up. The band used their artsy look as a selling point, making a crude video performance and using that instead of a demo tape to sell the band to record companies. Their attention-getting outfits were often designed by Garner herself. The two singers looked like distorted mirror images of each other, with similar hair and makeup. Their glamorous ragamuffin style was frequently compared to Boy George.

The band's catchy music often had darkly humorous, subversive lyrics. Shiny Shiny is an upbeat dance tune about the apocalypse, while John Wayne is Big Leggy is about John Wayne refusing to remove his holster when he has sex with a squaw.

The band often garnered musical comparisons to such other new wave pop acts as Bow Wow Wow, Bananarama, and Adam and the Ants. Garner appeared alongside Bananarama in the 1983 music video Who's That Girl by the Eurythmics.

The band's history was brief and the duo released only one studio album: 1983's Battle Hymns for Children Singing on RCA Records. On his website, Healy claims to have made up the album's title on the spot when some journalists asked him what the record would be called.

Kate Garner had a brief solo career after the break-up of Haysi Fantayzee and then focused on a career in photography. One of her many noteworthy achievements is a photograph she took of Sinéad O'Connor that eventually became the cover art for O'Connor's 1987 debut album The Lion and the Cobra. Garner has also photographed many musicians and celebrities. Among them are: Björk, Boy George, Milla Jovovich, David Bowie, PJ Harvey, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Tyson Beckford, Carmen Kass, Kate Moss and numerous others. Jeremy Healy became a DJ and mixer for other artists, including his former school chum Boy George. Paul Caplin now runs Caplin Systems, an internet software company.

Haysi Fantayzee Lyrics