In summer of 1985, Phil Harris, Sue Hare and David Miles put a band together to play for a birthday party. Big mistake. For 20 years after that, Phil, Sue and Dave have worked with countless drummers, guitarists, sax players, trumpeters and even flute-players, and as a consequence the band has had to operate under various dubious names to avoid retaliation from creditors and indeed, audiences. In late summer 2007, rising (not for the first time) like a phoenix from the ashes of the previous band incarnation, REDBACK was born.

Tony Mercer (Lead Vocalist) used to sing for the almost legendary "Benghazi Blues Band", a band so dysfunctional that it made the Commitments look like Take That! Phil found him, in the winter of '94, playing Russian Roulette in a bar in Saigon . The rest is an alcohol induced delusion – Tony claims that singing for REDBACK is cheaper than rehab!

Sue Hare (vocals) is the reason the band exists!

Mary Sockett (vocals) joined the band several years ago to reduce the average age, removing the temptation to apply for a collective bus pass for travel to gigs! A child of the 60's, that is born in the 60's, she considers herself to have an eclectic taste in music. She sings alongside Sue, in between chatting and the consumption of copious quantities of special vocal lubricant, generally from France or Chile .

Dave "David" Miles (bass) is one of the longest serving members of the band, due only to the poor drafting of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which meant that slavery was still legal in West Yorkshire where he was found one wet and miserable Wednesday night playing bass to one man and a small dog in a working men's club.

Having taken a course in Advanced Standing-At-The-Back-Of-The-Stage, the most important part of all bass players' repertoire, Dave's musical career was assured when other and more unscrupulous musician- types (mainly Phil) discovered that he could lift and carry heavy things, thereby allowing the band to keep more of their meagre income from gigs through not having to pay a roadie.

Dave is a founder member of Bass Players Anonymous (But We could Be Famous If We Really Wanted To) and his workshops on "Boiling Those Bass Strings" and "Frequency and Tuning - Is Once a Year Too Much?" are regular highlights of the annual Yorkshire Bass Players bash.

Phil Harris (keyboards, guitar, vocals) is a founder member of the band, but is not someone you'd want to get to know well. A disciple of the Frank Zappa School of Democracy in Musical Direction, his philosophy of encouraging band members to play anything they like as long as he agrees with it may well be one of the reasons for the coming and in particular the going of the remarkable number of musicians who have been band members over the years. But he's kind of a fixture, and there's not a lot we can do about him.

Andy Selman (guitar) claims to have a guitar built entirely from discarded matches used to light Elvis Presley's cigars. Andy was the drummer in Sheffield bands Eclipse, Lenny Lunch and the Sandwich Rappers and Bay of Pigs . He changed over to guitar three years ago but the legacy means his playing is based very much on the rhythm of songs. His favourite guitar is his beloved American Fender Telecaster. He edited the Sheffield Wednesday fanzine War of the Monster Trucks for five years with his dog Sir Stanley Headifire.

Mike Smith (alto and tenor saxophone). Mike is the most recent band member having experienced a varied music odysse. Originally an acoustic guitarist and singer, he started playing in clubs in Bristol, Aberdeen and Edinburgh as he moved round the country. Underwhelming audience response and universal indifference, coupled with a conversion to jazz, resulted in a move from guitar to saxophone when he was living in Leeds. He played with the Silver Donkey Band, a 21 piece Big Band, for a few years before playing with a number of smaller jazz ensembles, most noteable, and the term is used loosely, the DoubleDee Band , Dennis and his Dominoes and finally Jazz@Last . The wilderness years followed, broken only by a short stint with the Rotter's Club Soul Band. Finally he was plucked into complete obscurity by REDBACK

John Beazer (drums – or percussion, as we indulgently allow him to call it) joined the band in 2007, shortly after it played at his wedding. He gained a bride and rock band in the same day, which ain't bad going by anybody's standards. Previously, John played jazz, though the band don't hold this against him (at least to his face) with a variety of Sheffield musicians. And as well as pounding the skins for REDBACK, he also plays for a mineworkers' brass band. He says that the limp that he has was the result of a car accident following his triumphant performance on drums with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, after Charlie Watts lost his way to the gig (he blagged his way into the band on the back of this story, so if anyone out there knows that it's not in fact true, come and see the band and tell us what you know).