He is a guitarist who began his professional career in
the 1970s playing for bands such as World War III and The Elegant End and
is occasionally nicknamed "The Freak.In 1977 he was asked to become a member of the New Wave
group Blondie and featured on all their albums and singles from then until they
disbanded in 1982.Originally
being singed up as the bass guitarist, he moved to being the guitarist
after another bass guitarist, Nigel Harrison, joined the group also in
1977.He saw major success
with them as a musician and also with his compositions that included "I
Know But I Don't Know", "Underground Girl" and "Victor".When Blondie decided to reform in
the mid-'90s it was decided to leave him and Nigel Harrison out of the line-up
and together they took out an unsuccessful lawsuit against the group.From that time he continued to find
other work and has been featured on recordings with Iggy Pop, Stiv Bators,
Joan Jett, Sylvain Sylvain, the DiVinyls and saw further chart success with
4 Non-Blondes on their "What's Going On?"As an actor he has made appearances in the movies Return
to Babylon and Citizens of Perpetual Indulgence and also in the
TV programmes Tales of the Crypt and Saturday Night Live. He was inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as a member of Blondie.
