Bad Company

Bad Company UK or )EI3(, is the stage name of the British drum and bass producers, Jason Maldini, Darren White (dBridge), Dan Stein (Fresh) and Michael Wojcicki (Vegas). They formed in 1998,[1] as Bad Company from the ashes of Renegade Hardware acts Future Forces (White & Maldini) and Absolute Zero (Stein), although they had also worked together in various configurations: Stein, White and Maldini released The Code as Absolute Zero & Subphonics on Renegade Hardware;[2] Stein and Wojcicki released Otto's Way as Fresh & Vegas on Metro Recordings,[3] having met in Japan.[citation needed]

The group is known in the drum and bass industry for their 12" single, "The Nine" / "The Bridge" (BCR001). Bad Company went on to produce three albums and various singles which were acclaimed with similar success, most notably "Book Of The Bad" (2000), a compilation album of their three Book Of The Bad vinyl EPs, featuring "Miami Flashback", "Planet Dust" (originally released on Prototype Recordings),[4] and "Mind Games". Today, however, the group is all but disbanded. Stein had left Bad Company to pursue several solo projects under different record labels such as, Ram Recordings, Breakbeat Kaos, V Recordings and Valve. Darren White continues to produce under the name D-Bridge, Jason Maldini and Michael Wojicky under Maldini and Vegas, respectively.

The group also changed name to "Bad Company UK", due to a legal battle with the band formed in the 1970s with the same name, and ultimately consisting of Maldini and Wojicky. The group had a fan forum on their website, which led on to become Dogs On Acid.

As of 2010, Vegas had joined with the Swiss producer Uman, to form the group Blokhe4d. The cryptic abbreviation of the name results from an album cover: the letters BC are mirrored on a vertical line (written as the letter I or as the pipe symbol |), whereas the B looks like the number 3 or letter E and the C like brackets: )E|3(