"I'll Be There For You" has been the song that's told all of America "it's time to laugh" for the past 10 years, and it's had composer Michael Sloff and the Rembrandts laughing all the way to the bank. Today they dropped by our studios for an acoustic concert and to talk about their participation in the show.
Phil Solem and Danny Wilde make up the Rembrandts duo, and with the royalties from the song, the pair shouldn't have to work another day in their life -- but that hasn't stopped them from creating several hit albums, including 1995's "LP" (which featured the "Friends" theme), "Spin This," in 1998, 2001's "Lost Together," and the brand new greatest hits collection, "Choice Picks."
Sloff is married to "Friends" executive producer Marta Kauffman and said he had an immediate instinct when she asked him to create the theme for the show. "I thought it needed to be a cross between a Beatles' song and a Monkeys' song," Sloff revealed. "I heard ‘Paperback Writer' and I thought, ‘Wow that's the energy.'"
Sloff brought in the Rembrandts and the next thing Solem and Wilde knew, they were on the "Saturday Night Live" set shooting a video with the Friends cast.
So what did the band think of working around Jennifer Aniston
and Courtney Cox Arquette? "I remember that very well,"
Solem laughed, remembering how the girls put their arms around
them. "(I was) thinking ‘we need to re-shoot that one more
time.'"
Now the Rembrandts are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle
once again with the release of "Choice Picks." And
thanks to "Friends," they've made themselves one tough
act to follow.
