By the mid-1970s, David Balfe, Alan Gill and Keith Hartley, three residents of Thingwall on the Wirral Peninsula, were playing in a 'pub covers' band called Mr. McKenzie.
Later in 1978, Balfe left the group (to start Zoo Records in Liverpool and manage The Teardrop Explodes & Echo And The Bunnymen, having met his business partner Bill Drummond when he played in Big in Japan at the same time as being in Dalek I Love you.
On 16 July 1979, Dalek I released their first single, "Freedom Fighters", on Phonogram's Vertigo Records subsidiary, containing the eponymous song and B-side "Two Chameleons".
It was followed by "The World" (2 October 1979) on Vertigo, and "Dalek I Love You (Destiny)" (1 May 1980), on the Back Door subsidiary, founded by the Blitz Brothers.
[3][4] By the time of the album's release, Gill was the only remaining member, maintaining the Dalek I Love You name (Dave Hughes having left to join OMD,[5] and then forming the duo Godot with Hartley).
Gill contributed two important things to the band: their most successful single, "Reward", which he co-wrote, and LSD, which he introduced to frontman Julian Cope.
[1] The band's first two albums were reissued in the UK on compact disc, Compass Kumpas in 1989 by Fontana Records (with four bonus tracks), and Dalek I Love You in 2007 by Korova (in a remastered and expanded edition).
[8] The band also inspired the title of Dalek I Loved You, an autobiography by the journalist Nick Griffiths about his life as a Doctor Who fan, published in 2007.