'Friends' theme makers the Rembrandts finding new fans for first album in 18 years

In an era when guitar rock and Beatlesesque harmonies are passe to a lot of young people, most bands as old and jangly as the Rembrandts can't expect music fans under 40 to seek out their first album in 18 years.

But most bands aren't on TV every day, singing the theme to a long-gone show that's somehow hip again.

"A certain bloc of our original audience snubbed us because of that song," mused Rembrandts co-leader and ex-Minneapolitan Phil Solem, "but now there's a new era of listeners that have been receptive to us because of it."

The tune in question is "I'll Be There for You," which Solem and partner Danny Wilde recorded in 1994 to play over the opening credits of the NBC sitcom "Friends."

The duo had landed a few modest radio hits, including 1990's "Just the Way It Is, Baby." Once "Friends" took off, though, the theme was remade into a hit single and insipid MTV video that became as ubiquitous as Jennifer Aniston's Rachel haircut.

After 25 years of trying to live down that unforeseeable megahit, Solem and Wilde are happy to have it as a calling card as they prepare "Via Satellite," their first Rembrandts album since 2001. They're previewing the record in Minneapolis at the Parkway Theater on Friday ahead of its Aug. 23 release. "It certainly doesn't hurt us," Solem said. "Not anymore anyway."

"Friends" is part of a swath of Generation X culture that has proved surprisingly popular with Generation Z. After it debuted on Netflix last year, the show became one of the year's most binge-watched shows for viewers under 21, and it's gained new fame overseas, too.

That notoriety was a good reason for the bandmates to go on unofficial hiatus in the early 2000s, but their long lull actually had more to do with the tidal wave of changes in the music business and ripples in their personal lives.

"We started working on this album way back in 2002, but there were a lot of missteps and misgivings along the way," Solem said.

"We had several potential record deals that fell through. Then the internet took over the industry, and we contemplated just releasing it ourselves. And then I decided I just couldn't do L.A. anymore, and that's when I escaped back to Minneapolis."

A Duluth native, Solem lived in Minneapolis off and on in the '80s and even started an early version of the Rembrandts here before he and Wilde paired up in Los Angeles and repurposed the band name.

He settled back in Minnesota after the "I'll Be There for You" fame to become a dad and mostly stayed put until 2017, when he followed his daughter Holly to Nashville. Lately, though, he has been back in L.A. a lot readying this new record via the L.A.-based label Blu Élan.

"Even when I was living in L.A., we wouldn't see each other a lot on our off days and did a lot of our writing separately," Solem said. But they still have chemistry when they do get together — which includes more and more live gigs in recent years.

"We just make a good pair," he said. "Not just the way our voices harmonize together nicely, but we know and respect each other well enough that we make each other better songwriters. He can tell me if he thinks something I wrote isn't cutting it, and I can do the same with him. And when we both feel like we're onto something, we really jump on it."

One upshot of the process taking so long: "We amassed a pile of pretty great songs, I think."

The new tracks range from the Paisley Underground-flavored opener "How Far Would You Go" and devil-may-care ditty "Me and Fate" to the crescendoing carry-on anthems "Count on You" and "On My Own," all of which spotlight the duo's Lennon/McCartney-like vocal harmonies (which weren't exactly in vogue in the early '90s, either).

Another standout is the bittersweet rocker "Broken Toy," a song Solem conceded "pretty well documents the end of my marriage."

For better or worse, Solem is clearly a songwriter who knows how a song can stick once it goes out into the world.