Pete Shelley was born Peter McNeish on 17th April 1955. His first band was The Jets of Air, featuring Steve Christie on drums and future Buzzcocks member Garth Smith on bass. He met Howard Devoto at Manchester’s Bolton Institute of Technology, forming the Buzzcocks with him in 1976. The initial line up included Steve Diggle on bass and John Maher on drums. There were various line ups, but Pete Shelley remained vocalist and main songwriter. Setting up their own label (New Hormones), they self released the Spiral Scratch EP in 1977. After signing with United Artists, Buzzcocks released 3 proper albums and had 11 British hit singles, as well as releasing various live recordings, compilations etc.
While producer Martin Rushent began work on what would have been the Buzzcocks fourth studio album, he helped Pete Shelley demo three solo songs (including Homosapien). The songs got Shelley a deal with Island Records and he left the band in March 1981, releasing his first solo album (also called Homosapien) in 1982. He played all the instruments, the album had a strong synth sound. The single “Homosapien” was rejected by radio due to its homosexual overtones, but became popular in clubs. The followup album XL1 contained a downloadable program for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer at the end of side two which produced graphics as well as the lyrics to the songs.
Pete Shelley’s solo efforts were never quite as popular as his work with the Buzzcocks and they first reformed in 1989, touring to nostalgic crowds.
Shelley moved to Tallinn, Estonia, in 2012 with his second wife Greta, an Estonian-born Canadian. He died there of a suspected heart attack on the morning of 6 December 2018.