In the ‘90s La Bouche scored a run of hits with their tunes ‘Be My Lover’, ‘Sweet Dreams’ and ‘Fallin’ in Love’.  

The dance act formed when rapper Lane McCray teamed up with singer Melanie Thornton. At first the duo formed a cover band, but soon they were working with some of the top dance music producers in Germany. The early days of the bands success though faced one minor challenge though, McCray was still on active duty in the US air force.

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“It was pretty trying for me,” McCray told OUTinPerth, “I started recording in the spring of 1994 and I was still on active duty, so it required me going to work all day, I’d get off at 4:30pm and then I would jump in the car and drive three and half hours to Frankfurt, be in the studio all night and then go directly back to work.”

McCray said the effort of computing to the studio two or three times a week was certainly worth it, but admits he may have been breaking a few rules.

“We were meant to be within a certain mile radius of the base, I think it was 300 miles, anything more than that you had to be on leave or vacation.” Once the band started climbing up the charts McCray was definitely traveling outside the approved area. “I was in Italy, I was in Albania, and I was in England. I was in a lot of places that shouldn’t have been”.

McCray said he’d managed to break the rules by bringing his supervisor back a bottle of the local spirit from wherever the band had travelled to.

Tragically Melanie Thornton was killed in a plane crash in 2001. After a succession of singers appearing in the band on a ‘work for hire’ basis but now McCray has teamed up with Hungarian singer Sophie Cairo who is a fully fledged band member.

McCray said the duo have been working on new material including some songs he’d created with Thornton that had never been released.

La Bouche will be taking to the stage at ‘90s Dance Mania at Metro City, Friday 9th September. Tickets available from Oztix.