Jon Moss

Jonathan Aubrey Moss (born 11 September 1957) is an English drummer, best known as a member of the 1980s pop group Culture Club. He has also played with other bands, including London, the Nips, the Damned and Adam and the Ants.

At Highgate School, Moss developed a fascination for sports, especially boxing, but he did not want a professional sporting career. It was also at Highgate that he formed his first band, Pig Williams, along with his friend Nick Feldman (who would later co-found Wang Chung). Together they performed at several school events. After finishing high school, Jon held various jobs, including working at his father's clothing store, as a cake salesman and as a sound engineer at Marquee Studios. In spite of regarding a college education as a waste of time, he briefly considered the idea of studying Greek at the University of Cambridge.

Alongside his friend Riff Regan, Moss joined the punk band London in 1976, after being tried out as a drummer with the Clash; later, he said "The mix of personalities didn't work. Their attitudes were too different to mine." London released a single entitled "Everyone's a Winner", and were managed by Simon Napier-Bell. Eventually they recorded two singles, a four-track EP and an album for MCA Records in 1977. Following this, Moss went on tour with established punk group the Stranglers, and the band got a record deal.

Soon afterward, Moss began drumming with the Damned, replacing Rat Scabies. He made the decision to join them after he was injured in a car crash on New Year's Eve 1977, suffering injuries that led to a week's hospital stay. Along with the Damned's guitarist, Lu Edmonds, he left the Damned to form new wave band the Edge. After just over a year, the Edge broke up.

Moss played with Adam and the Ants on their third single "Cartrouble" and its B-side "Kick!". At the time, Moss was under contract with a group called Jane Aire & the Belvederes; therefore, he was credited on the original single under the pseudonym "Terry 1 & 2". On the 1983 CBS/Epic version of the Ants' 1979 album Dirk Wears White Sox and subsequent editions also including the two recordings, he is credited under his real name. In 1980, he played with the last incarnation of the Nips (formerly The Nipple Erectors).

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.