As far as band signature songs which are also insatiable earworms from the Decade of Decadence go, right up there in the upper echelon is new wavers Wang Chung’s “Everybody Have Fun Tonight.” It went all the way up to No. 2 on the charts in 1986, and the visually groundbreaking video was in constant rotation on MTV.

Written by the band’s Jack Hues and Nick Feldman—along with Mosaic album producer/J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf—Hues memorably uses the band’s name as a sort-of synonym for “party” in the chorus. And while it was big then, the amount of “Wang Chunging” over the decades has only increased.

“It’s sort of grown into that place through the sheer number of times its been used in movies and commercials and TV shows. It’s definitely shorthand if you want to reference the ‘80s,” Hues says from his home in the UK.

“I think the appeal is in the quirkiness of the title and the ‘everybody Wang Chung tonight’ lyric. It kind of caught the imagination in the States in the way it didn’t in the UK!”

Hues believe that part of that reason is Wang Chung was signed directly to American label Geffen Records rather than a British one with U.S. distribution. And on the band’s official YouTube page, they’ve even hilarously run together clips of all its pop culture references in Part I and Part II.
Everyone will indeed get their Wang Chung on when the band headlines the “Abducted by the ‘80s” tour with support acts the Motels (“Only the Lonely,” “Suddenly Last Summer,” “Take the L”) and Naked Eyes (“Promises Promises,” “Always Something There to Remind Me”) in their current incarnations at the Wildcatter Saloon in Katy on May 18.

“We’re done a lot of ‘80s package tour work over the past couple of years doing 15-20 minute sets. We wanted to do something like this where we could play longer. It’s hard to pull an audience for just Wang Chung and a local support act,” Hues says of the tour.

“So, we got a number of acts involved to draw mutual fanbases and play larger venues. But it’s not too many acts so the audience gets fatigued or is spending more time watching the set changes than the bands.” Wang Chung will also include other familiar hits like “Dance Hall Days,” “Let’s Go,” "Hypnotize Me" and “To Live and Die in L.A.” on their set list.
The core of Wang Chung is singer/guitarist Hues and bassist Nick Feldman. The pair began playing together back in 1977 in a number of different groups. They formed Huang Chung in 1980 with drummer Darrin Costin. Their name translating into “yellow bell” in the Mandarin language, or the first scale and foundation tone in Chinese music.

Once they signed to Geffen in 1983, though, honcho David Geffen asked them to change it to Wang Chung to avoid potential pronunciation problems among U.S. record buyers and DJs.

Director William Friedkin (The Exorcist) approached the band about writing all the music for his 1985 neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. He was apparently taken with their song “Wait” of their album from the year before, Points on the Curve. The new-wavy, synth-dominant soundtrack became their third studio and second U.S. album.
Hues says he was initially shocked and surprised by the offer. “It certainly came out of the blue. We weren’t looking to start scoring films or do soundtrack work. We were trying to write pop albums!” he laughs.

“We grew up in the ‘70s with Led Zeppelin and Genesis and Frank Zappa, so writing longform pieces was something we really wanted to do. But that world had been sort of torpedoed by punk and pop songs. The desire was still there.” Hues adds that he and Feldman did not see any actual film footage while they were composing. And that was as Friedkin’s request.

“He told us that he cut the movie to the music, which is the dream situation for composer. I could talk to you for an hour about that and why some soundtracks don’t work because it undercuts what’s on screen. In my opinion, there’s too much music in movies!” he says.
“[Our music] is used sparingly but when it [appears], it’s with force. And it matches the visuals. I think it was the model for a lot of movies that came after like Michael Mann movies and Pulp Fiction. And the movie was a dark trajectory—it wasn’t a feel good ‘80s movie. No leg warmers!”

Wang Chung were an MTV staple for much of the ‘80s before disbanding as the new decade dawned. The pair came back together in 1997 and have been performing and recording ever since, save for a brief hiatus from Hues.

One way they didn’t have to distribute music in the ‘80s was by streaming. And indeed today, you can listen to the entire Wang Chung discography at the touch on the screen of your phone. Hues says is has both advantages and disadvantages, sometimes depending on where a band is in their career trajectory.
“I think it works for our music, and bands like us—‘legacy acts’ they call them—have a reputation so people know what they’re looking for. People probably listen to more Wang Chung now than ever. The music is incredibly accessible,” he says.

“But if I was in a younger band now, I’d see streaming as a double-edged sword. You’ve got to be heard above the incredible noise since everybody can do it. In the ‘80s, you had to be of a certain standard to get a record deal. You had to be able to play and not just mess around.”

Wang Chung’s last studio effort was 2019’s Orchesology in which they reimagined songs from their back catalog written for a symphony, and they recorded it with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. They had been approached the record company August Day, who had done similar projects (albeit just a few tracks) with ‘80s compatriots A Flock of Seagulls and ABC. But Hues was able to talk them into doing an entire album.
“The [challenge] was in writing the arrangements. I’d studied music in college, so I knew a bit about orchestration. Nick and I got heavily involved in adding textures and things,” he says, “It’s not just ‘Wang Chung with Strings.’ It’s more Stravinsky and less John Williams.”

In addition to Hues and Feldman, the current Wang Chung lineup has been together for five years and includes Dave Schulz (keyboards) and Josh Thompson (drums). Hues says it definitely feels like a “proper band” and not just “Nick and I with some sessions guys.”

“Nick and I, we’re brothers, though. We’ve been through so much together,” he says. “There’s a sort of symbiosis the way we blend, and I think people see it.”

After the “Abducted by the ‘80s” tour, Hues says that Wang Chung will look at possibly scheduling some live dates with a symphony and have a new anthology, Clear Light Dark Matter, scheduled for release later this year.

Finally, when asked if he had any particular memories of Houston, Hues remembers playing here “in a particularly large stadium” when they opened for the Cars on the latter’s “Heartbeat City” tour. [Note: That would be Summit, where the groups had a two-night stand on Sept. 11 and 12]. And they have friends at NASA.
But it’s a spaceship launched by NASA and Space X in February from Cape Canaveral, Florida that took Wang Chung to the moon….literally.

That unmanned mission’s landing module—built by Houston’s own Intuitive Machines and named “Odysseus”—did a little Wang Chunging of its own through space and onto the lunar surface.

“That module has a data storage unit on it. And it contains all of the Wang Chung album covers because a guy involved with Intuitive is a massive fan. We’ve landed Wang Chung on the moon!” Hues laughs.

“I live in Canterbury, which is an old Medieval city, and I was walking down the street where the old Medieval gateway is and looked up and there was a full moon. I thought ‘Shit! What an achievement!’ It’s mind boggling!”

The Abducted by the ‘80s tour with Wang Chung, the Motels, and Naked Eyes is at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 18, at the Wildcatter Saloon, 26913 Katy Freeway. For information, call 281-392-2337 or visit WildcatterSaloon.com. $49 and up. To purchase tickets, visit HERE only.

For more on Wang Chung, visit WangChung.com

For more on the tour, visit Abductedbythe80s.com