Billy Duffy
British guitarist
William Henry Duffy (born 12 May 1961) is an English rock musician, best known as the guitarist in the band The Cult.
Early life
Duffy was born and grew up in Manchester, England. He has Irish and Jewish heritage and ancestry. He began playing the guitar at the age of fourteen, being influenced by the music of Queen, Thin Lizzy, the Who, Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, and the early work of Led Zeppelin. In the late 1970s he became involved in the punk movement, influenced by the New York Dolls, the Stooges, Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols, and AC/DC. He started playing lead guitar with a number of different punk rock acts whilst still in school in the late 1970s, including the Studio Sweethearts, a band composed of ex members of Slaughter & The Dogs and early UK punk rock group Eater (band),working with sound engineer Vic Maile and promoted by ex- David Bowie manager, Kenneth Pitt.
Career
Playing for Theatre of Hate and Subsequent Formation of The Cult
After leaving school, Duffy left Manchester when the Studio Sweethearts moved to London, working as an assistant at the exclusive Johnsons clothing, at 406 King's Road, in the Chelsea neighbourhood World's End. Johnson's clothes were popular with music fans and fashion followers, particularly after being championed in British style magazines such as The Face. Duffy was also playing live around London with punk rock band, Lonesome no More (though he does not appear on their "Turned Insane" 45, released in 1981 on Rage Records). The Studio Sweethearts subsequently broke up and Duffy began playing lead guitar with the band Theatre of Hate.
In August 1981, Mick Jones of The Clash produced Westworld, Theatre of Hate's only studio album to be released on Burning Rome Records prior to the band's dissolution the following year.
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This entry incorporates text from “Billy Duffy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.