June-1974: Bad Company releases debut album
Super groups don't always work, but Bad Company found their way right from the start
Singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke (Free) teamed up with Mott The Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell to form Bad Company in 1973. The supergroup landed with Swan Song, Led Zeppelin’s new label, and it clearly worked.
When we first formed, people were expecting to hear another Free or another Mott the Hoople. But the material is original enough to completely wipe out all the past," Rodgers complained. "When we first got together we were thinking of going under the name Free. But we felt we needed a totally different identity because Free had gone through a lot of different traumas and things. To me I was getting the feeling that a lot of people didn't really think it was very together ... because it wasn't. We toyed with the idea but we decided against it and decided to have a totally different name."
In June of 1974, the group’s self-titled debut album was released. Songs that would become some staples of the band (“Ready For Love”, “Can’t Get Enough”, “Bad Company”) came from that record. But I like a deeper track, “Seagull.” Check it out: