Pete Shelley (17 April 1955 – 6 December 2018) was an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as lead singer of the 70s punk band Buzzcocks whose subtle, witty songs still sound fresh and inventive.
He was born Peter McNeish in Leigh, Lancashire. His father, John, was a fitter at Astley Green colliery, and his mother, Margaret, a former mill worker. Peter began writing songs while still at Leigh grammar school, and while studying for an HND in electronics at Bolton Institute of Technology he bought a Tandberg four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder and began making recordings of his own songs. He formed a group called Jets of Air, the name inspired by a college lecture on Newtonian physics, and while “we played only about six gigs in three years”, Shelley built up a stockpile of songs.
He then dabbled in a project called Sky, where he experimented with electronic music and in 1974 recorded the album Sky Yen, released later, in 1980, on his own label, Groovy Records. He subsequently tried making “heavier, more rhythmic” music with Smash, which he described as “a non-existent group”, but which supplied more raw material for Buzzcocks.
The band came about when Shelley spotted an advertisement on a college noticeboard from Howard Devoto (real name Howard Trafford), wanting to form a band in the vein of the Stooges and the Velvet Underground. “That was much in line with the Smash idea, so I phoned him up straight away,” said Shelley. Buzzcocks originally planned to make their debut at the first Sex Pistols concert at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976, but the bass player and drummer pulled out.
For their eventual appearance the following month, Shelley and Devoto were joined by the drummer John Maher and the bassist Steve Diggle. In 1977 Buzzcocks released their first EP, Spiral Scratch, on their independent label, New Hormones. When Devoto left the band in February 1977, Shelley took over as the lead vocalist and chief songwriter. Working with the producer Martin Rushent, the band created the punk/new wave singles "Orgasm Addict", "What Do I Get?" and "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)", along with three LPs: Another Music in a Different Kitchen (1978), Love Bites (1978) and A Different Kind of Tension (1979). Difficulties with their record company and a dispute with Virgin Publishing over the UK release of their greatest hits record, Singles Going Steady, brought the band to a halt in 1981.
It was in 1981 that Shelley launched his solo career with the single Homosapien, from the album of the same name, produced by the Buzzcocks producer Martin Rushent (who was about to help make Human League’s electropop epic Dare). Shelley had returned to his earlier fondness for electronica, and found himself in controversial waters when the BBC banned Homosapien for its “explicit reference to gay sex. It peaked at number fourteen in the US dance chart. Shelley talked openly about his bisexuality at this time, which had been implicit in many of the songs he had written, but now came to wider attention due to "Homosapien" and the BBC ban. The single was followed by an LP of the same title.
In 1983 his second solo album, XL1, brought him a minor hit single with Telephone Operator. In mid-1984, Shelley released the single "Never Again", followed by the album Heaven and the Sea in 1986. In 1987, he followed the album with a new song, "Do Anything", for the film Some Kind of Wonderful. He composed the theme music for the intro of the Tour de France on Channel 4, which was used from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Shelley recorded a new version of "Homosapien", called "Homosapien II", in 1989. The single featured four mixes of the new recording. That same year Buzzcocks reformed and toured the US, and released Trade Test Transmissions (1993), the first of a series of albums, the most recent of which was The Way (2014).
In 2002, Shelley reunited with Devoto to record the album Buzzkunst. “Devoto is not the life and soul of the party or a born raconteur, but he sees things as funny and I think that’s how we hit it off with each other,” Shelley observed drily. “I always had this idea that me and Devoto were like Gilbert and George. As long as you approach it from that angle you can do anything you want, and you just call it art.” In 2005, following the death of the DJ John Peel, Shelley recorded a tribute version of Ever Fallen In Love with a multi-platinum lineup of stars including Elton John, Robert Plant, David Gilmour and Roger Daltrey. Shelley also appeared on the 2005 debut EP by the Los Angeles band the Adored, who toured with Buzzcocks the following year.
He moved to Tallinn, Estonia, in 2012 after marrying his second wife Greta, preferring the less-hectic pace there to London where he had lived for nearly thirty years. He died there of a suspected heart attack on the morning of 6 December 2018.
(Edited
from Guardian obit by Adam Sweeting & Wikipedia)