He emerged from the punk rock music scene and achieved mainstream pop success in the late 1980s, most notably with the 1986 single "Wonderful Life", which was an international hit the next year.

[1][5] William Ruhlmann of AllMusic described Vearncombe as a "smoky-voiced singer/songwriter, whose sophisticated jazz-pop songs and dramatic vocal delivery place him somewhere between Bryan Ferry and Morrissey".

[9] At this time the band also included Dane Goulding (formerly of Blazetroopers) on bass and Greg Leyland (another school friend) on drums, with Vearncombe calling himself Black as he did not think his own surname would be remembered.

It was then that Vearncombe formed a friendship with Dave "Dix" Dickie of the Last Chant, and the two became musical collaborators and signed for WEA Records.

[9] Vearncombe said: By the end of 1985 I had been in a couple of car crashes, my mother had a serious illness, I had been dropped by a record company, my first marriage went belly-up and I was homeless.

Its widespread popularity came from its use on several advertising commercials for brands that included Standard Life, Cadbury's chocolate and Fleury Michon.

Disillusioned with having to deal with a big record company, Vearncombe founded the independent label Nero Schwarz (which is the word "black" in Italian and in German, respectively), and released one album Are We Having Fun Yet?

The project significantly exceeded its funding goals, and he regularly expressed his surprise and gratefulness through video updates on the PledgeMusic site.

On 10 January 2016,[4] Vearncombe was involved in a car crash, near Cork Airport in Ireland,[17] and placed in a medically induced coma after sustaining serious head injuries.

He never regained consciousness and died from his injuries at the intensive care unit of Cork University Hospital on 26 January 2016, at the age of 53.