Formed in Surrey, England, in the summer of 1977, the Members played at the Roxy and all the other Punk clubs on the london circuit. The band -- composed of Nicky Tesco (vocals), Jean-Marie Caroll (guitar), Nigel Bennett (guitar), Adrian Lillywhite (drums), and Chris Payne (bass) -- was among the first to successfully blend reggae rhythms with punk's attitude and aggression.

Their first Record "Solitary confinement" was releases on Stiff records in 1978 and is now a collectors item they then signed to Virgin Records.

Their first Virgin single, "Sound of the Suburbs," made it into the British Top 10 selling 250,000 copies in 3 months (it has since sold 1,000,000 copies), Their first LP, Live at the Chelsea Nightclub, Was listed as one of the top 20 punk Lp's by record collector After one more album for Virgin in 1980, 1980 the Choice Is Yours, they moved to Martin Rushents Electro/80's Label Genetic to record to the classic Uprhythm, Downbeat (released in 1983 in the U.K. as Going West), broadening their sound with horns and a more serious attitude. "Working Girl" from the album was a huge hit in the usa.

During the 80's the Members toured endlessly across north America experiencing the elation of huge shows in New York and Los Angeles. They hung out with with The Ramones and Blondie around the Kidney Shaped pool at the Hollywood motel where Sam Cooke was Shot,They Partied with Iggy Pop in New York, Tom Petty in the Mid West, talked cars and girls with Bruce Springsteen in Asbury Park, were entertained by Mobsters in New York, Played on A Riverboat in New Orleans. They travelled 35,000 miles across 50 states of the usa in a Ford econoline living on jack Daniels $20 a day, microwave burrittos and show salads.

They have been locked in a Dutch prison cells, fined by highway patrols, refused entry to canada, threatened by gangsters, intimidated by armed guards, cussed by rednecks, refused service at truck stops, They've been spat at, showered with coins and bottles.

In the Nineties the Band Was not active but Jean-marie Carroll the Bands main composer and guitarist worked with Sex Pistol Glen Matlock and New York Dolls Johnny thunders he was also briefly in a Band with Dee Dee Ramone and The Dammned's Rat Scabies. During this time Carroll also began to work on Film music. Making Film Music for Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp amongst others.

The Members reformed in 2008 and played some shows in London in 2009 they recorded a New Version of their 80's Uk Hit Offshore banking business called International Financial crisis. In 2009 the Band the unit of Jean-marie Carroll Chris Payne and New Drummer Nick Cash began touring the UK and Europe. They are recording a new Album with original Guitarist Nigel Bennett and continue to tour and play for new Audiences around the world.

The Story of The Members by Adrian Thrills, February 2006

The Members were one of the wittiest and most imaginative guitar bands to emerge in the aftermath of the 1977 punk explosion. Having got together in the sleepy suburbs of Bagshot and Camberley, they were too far removed from the new wave's fashionable London cliques to take their place alongside such pioneers as The Clash and the Sex Pistols.

When they did break through, with Sound Of The Suburbs in 1979, they did so not by singing about high-rise living, dole queues and anarchy, but with a song that wryly reflected their somewhat more mundane suburban roots.

This May the band release a definitive best of album that traces the group's history from early, punk-inspired releases on the independent Beggars Banquet and Stiff labels through to their chart heyday with Virgin and beyond. It spans six years and six different labels, and features the original (and best) version of Sound Of The Suburbs - a punk classic now available for the first time in 25 years.

With their style built around guitarist Jean-Marie 'JC' Carroll's nimble, twangy riffs and frontman Nicky Tesco's cutting reflections on suburbia, The Members were the new wave's great satirists. They sang not about the 'big issues', but about a series of pathetic characters and trivial, everyday frustrations that anyone could relate to. In doing so, they became a part of a great British pop tradition which dated back to Ray Davies, of The Kinks, and now stretches forward to encompass Mike Skinner, of The Streets. As Nicky Tesco once told me, 'we stand for the social underdog'.

The Members were also noteworthy as one of the first British guitar bands to fully incorporate reggae into their music. Just as blues had been a key influence on white rock in the Sixties, reggae was the alternative genre of choice for the punk generation. And while the late Seventies contained plenty of shining examples of the punky-reggae party - The Clash covering Junior Murvin's Police And Thieves, The Special AKA launching 2-Tone - The Members were one of the prime movers in the era's cross-cultural interplay. As Neil Spencer, writing in NME, said of them in 1978: 'Of the many rock bands co-opting reggae into their act, few do so with as much love and style as the The Members.'

'My rhythm guitar playing is definitely reggae-based,' JC told me when I interviewed The Members for NME in 1978. 'It's not the same as blasting an audience with full-on rock riffs. It gets them moving in a different way. But, having said that, we're trying to play reggae in our own style. We're not singing about Jah Love. We're singing about living in Britain.'

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