On this day in 1994, The KLF drive home the news of their retirement by deciding to burn £1 million.
Between 1987 and 1992, The KLF were effectively the thorn in the side of the music industry. In addition to being exceptionally talented at the art of creating a hit single, the group were well known for their publicity stunts and outlandish behaviour.
While the music they released under their different guises – ranging from The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, to The Timelords, to Space, and just The KLF – managed to top the charts around the world, the group backed up this success by becoming enemies of the music industry.
From getting in trouble over uncleared samples in their work, to putting up strange messages on billboards around the country, The KLF weren’t exactly just a ‘normal’ band. However, after five years of success, the group decided to call it quits by performing with grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror at the 1992 BRIT Awards. This performance also saw the group fire blanks into the audience, and then dump a dead sheep at the aftershow party.
Needless to say, some people were glad the band were gone, but their most outrageous stunt was still to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXEOESuiYcA
Following the dissolution of the group, their royalties continued to flow in. So after deciding to form the K Foundation (an ‘organisation’ that effectively mocked the idea of music-based organisations with outlandish public stunts), the group decided to do something shocking.
Shacking up in a boathouse on the Scottish island of Jura on August 23rd, The KLF’s Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty decided to burn their remaining £1 million.
“We were just sitting in a cafe talking about what we were going to spend the money on and then we decided it would be better if we burned it,” explained Jimmy Cauty of the group’s decision to burn the cash. “That was about six weeks before we did it. It was too long, it was a bit of a nightmare.”
Following the burning of the cash (which was filmed and screened around the country one year later), Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty remained rather unrepentant of their decision to burn the money.
However, in an interview with the BBC in 2004, Drummond expressed his regret over the incident.
“Of course I regret it – who wouldn’t!” Drummond stated. “My children especially regret it, but I don’t regret it all the time.”
“I remember once, one of my children came home from school and said ‘somebody told me in the playground that you once burned a hundred quid – is it true?’,” he recalled. “I said, ‘I wish that was true!'”
Check out The KLF burning £1 million:
