It's hard to imagine '80s pop without Eurythmics, the era-defining group launched by enigmatic guitarist Dave Stewart and his former girlfriend, powerhouse vocalist Annie Lennox.
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The duo became global stars after disbanding their original group, The Tourists, in 1980 and embracing Britain's new wave phenomenon, releasing debut album In The Garden the following year.
And Stewart, 73, says the story would have ended there were it not for a savvy bank manager who loaned them £5,000 to record a second album after their first failed to chart, receiving almost no promotion from record label RCA.
He told The Times: 'Annie and I lived in a squat on £8 a week between us. We wanted to make music together but we had nothing.
'We had a record company and made an album called, but it didn’t sell and the record company thought we were nuts and wanted to drop us.'
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Holed up in leafy Crouch End - an otherwise affluent north London enclave - Stewart decided to gamble on a potential bank loan, much to his band-mate's dismay.
Dave Stewart says Eurythmics owe their success to a north London bank manager after he and Annie Lennox borrowed £5,000 to record their second album (pictured in 1983)
The enigmatic guitarist went on to become a global star with Eurythmics (pictured in 2024)
'I said, "Why don’t I go and see the bank manager at Barclays and explain that I want this equipment and we can make a record on that, and then make the next record too."
'Annie said, "The bank manager will think we’re nuts", and we did look quirky.'
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It was 1982, and having already failed to convince RCA of their worth with the muted reception afforded In The Garden, the penniless Stewart was determined to get a second bite of the cherry.
'We went to see the bank manager, he was a youngish manager,' he recalled. 'He listened and said "Ok, we’ll lend you £5,000". We made the album Sweet Dreams.'
Modestly recorded on an 8-track tape at an old warehouse in Chalk Farm and Church Studios in Crouch End, Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) sold over a million copies and charted highly in the United Kingdom and United States following its release in 1983.
The album's title track would become one of the decade's most enduringly popular singles, climbing to number two in the UK and number one on America's Billboard Hot 100.
And Stewart says he never forgot the life-changing decision made by his bank manager, Geoff Edwards.
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'On his 65th birthday I sent him a message,' he said. 'Without him nobody would know who we were.'
The duo became global stars after disbanding their original group, The Tourists, in 1980 and embracing Britain's new wave phenomenon as Eurythmics (pictured, in 1983)
Stewart's decision to seek a bank loan would ultimately change the band's fortunes after their debut album, In The Garden, failed to chart (pictured, in 1984)
The musician is now hoping to pay it forward with the launch of Rare Entity, a creative start-up with the aim of helping artists, writers and performers 'bring their ideas to life.'
Bandmate Lennox, 71, recently told how she deliberately created her androgynous look to show she was ‘equal’ to her Eurythmics partner Dave Stewart.
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She said that she wore suits to take ‘male power’ for herself.
Lennox added that the way she dressed had ‘nothing to do with [her] sexuality’.
She told the BBC Woman’s Hour podcast: ‘It’s an evolution, you know, because when I first started, when I first came down to London, as this provincial girl wearing secondhand clothes and I was, you know, I had sort of longish hair and I wore a T-bar, little T-bar shoes.
'I had a little edge, but it definitely grew stronger and the punk movement came in. And that had a huge effect on all of us.
‘And so things started to evolve. And I think that the way you wear your clothes says a great deal about you, particularly when you’re a performer.
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The duo released seven studio albums between 1981 and 1989, reuniting in 1999 to record a final album entitled ‘Peace’.