Pete Byrne, whose voice carried Naked Eyes’ 1980s hits “Always Something There to Remind Me” and “Promises, Promises,” has died at 74. The singer and songwriter died in Los Angeles on September 14th after a brief illness, according to an announcement from the band. Byrne formed Naked Eyes with keyboardist Rob Fisher, turning their partnership into four American Top 40 singles. He continued performing under the band’s name for years after Fisher’s death.
Naked Eyes announced Byrne’s death on September 23rd, nine days after he died. The announcement said he died peacefully but didn’t identify the illness. Byrne and Fisher had known each other since their years in Bath, England, and played together before forming Naked Eyes in 1982. Their first album arrived the following year, just as their version of a familiar Burt Bacharach and Hal David song began climbing the American charts.
“Always Something There to Remind Me” reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Bacharach and David wrote the song years earlier, but Naked Eyes gave it a new synth-pop arrangement built around Byrne’s vocal and Fisher’s keyboards. Their follow-up, “Promises, Promises,” was a Byrne–Fisher original and reached No. 11. Both appeared on the duo’s debut album, which was called “Burning Bridges” in Britain and “Naked Eyes” in the United States.
As Rolling Stone reported, the debut album reached No. 32 on the Billboard 200. A third single from it, “When the Lights Go Out,” made the Hot 100’s Top 40. The duo returned in 1984 with “Fuel for the Fire,” which produced another Top 40 single, “(What) In the Name of Love.” Naked Eyes broke up after that second album, ending its original run after just two years.
Byrne and Fisher’s work together had started before the hits. Both played in Neon, a band whose lineup also included future Tears for Fears members Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal. After Neon, Byrne and Fisher signed with EMI Records as Naked Eyes in 1982. They recorded their debut at Abbey Road Studios with producer Tony Mansfield, pairing their own songs with the Bacharach and David cover that became their best-known recording.
The band’s announcement also traced Byrne’s work outside Naked Eyes. He sang backing vocals on Stevie Wonder’s 1985 hit “Part-Time Lover” and wrote music for film and television, as well as for the Olsen twins. He released a solo album, “The Real Illusion”, in 2001. By then, Fisher had died in 1999, and Byrne was carrying the Naked Eyes catalog forward without his longtime partner.
Byrne kept recording and touring in the years that followed. Naked Eyes released “Fumbling with the Covers” in 2007 and “Disguise the Limit” in 2021, while a remaster of the duo’s original U.S. album arrived in 2025. He also performed the songs live for audiences who knew them from their first radio run. His later work kept the band active decades after its two-album breakthrough in the early 1980s.
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The four charting singles remain a concise record of that breakthrough. “Always Something There to Remind Me” and “Promises, Promises” came close to the top of the Hot 100, while “When the Lights Go Out” and “(What) In the Name of Love” completed the band’s run of American Top 40 hits. Byrne sang on all four. The first two, in particular, made his voice familiar to listeners who might never have known his name.
Byrne is survived by his siblings Eileen, Sandy, Carol and Steve; his children Merlin, Dylan and Chloe; and his former wife, Elena. The band said a private service would be held for his family. Its announcement invited people wishing to pay their respects to support his music and leave condolences on the band’s website.
Featured image credit: Scott Roeben, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons