1938 Jet Black, English drummer, one of the founding members of The Stranglers
Before forming the band, "
Jet Black" (real name Brian Duffy) was in his mid-30s. A successful businessman, Black at one point owned a fleet of ice cream vans,
[4] and later ran "The Jackpot",
[5] a Guildford
off-licence that would serve as the base for the early Stranglers.
[6][7] Black had also been a semi-professional drummer in the late 1950s and early 1960s; after attaining a degree of financial stability due to his business successes, by 1974 he decided to return to drumming, and to assemble a band. The Stranglers came to be an influential band in the British punk and new wave scene of the mid-70s.
The group that eventually formed between 1974–75 was originally named the Guildford Stranglers, but they soon dropped the geographical prefix and the name,
The Stranglers, was registered as a business on 11 September 1974 by Black
[note 1][8]. The other original personnel were bass player/vocalist
Jean-Jacques Burnel, guitarist/vocalist
Hugh Cornwell and keyboardist/guitarist
Hans Wärmling, who was replaced by keyboardist
Dave Greenfield within a year.
[note 2] None of the band came from Guildford (apart from Burnel who was from Godalming) : Black is from
Ilford, Burnel from
Notting Hill, Cornwell from
Kentish Town and Greenfield from
Brighton, while Wärmling came from
Gothenburg and returned there after leaving the band.