They were formed in Birmingham in 1972 by Tony Clarkin (guitar, songwriter) and Bob Catley (vocals) in order to appear as the resident band at the Rum Runner nightclub in the city.

[2] The band's 1986 album Vigilante represented a further move towards the mainstream before the band achieved their commercial peak in 1988 when they entered the UK Top Ten for the first time with the album Wings of Heaven, which reached number five and featured three Top 40 singles, "Days of No Trust", "Start Talking Love" and "It Must Have Been Love".

[5][6] Bob Doyle left Magnum in 1972 and joined Roy Wood's Wizzard, and was replaced by former Uglys and Balls bassist Dave Morgan (later a member of ELO).

[8] The band began to develop its own style by playing Clarkin's songs at a residency at The Railway Inn, in Birmingham's Curzon Street, in 1976.

[12] Magnum's debut album Kingdom of Madness was released on Jet Records at the end of 1978 and reached number 58 in the UK Chart;[1] it received a five star review from Geoff Barton of Sounds magazine.

Leo Lyons, formerly bassist with Ten Years After, produced the follow-up album Magnum II – which was released in 1979, but failed to chart.

[1] Bailey departed soon after and was replaced temporarily by Grenville Harding during Magnum's support of Def Leppard's On Through the Night UK tour in March.

Local businessman Keith Baker (Time Music) engaged the band, an independent tour was organised for February 1984 without the backing of a record label.

[16] From the success of On a Storyteller's Night, Keith Baker negotiated a major label deal with Polydor Records, and they embarked on the most commercially successful period of their career; opening the famous Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in August 1985, on a bill that also included Bon Jovi, Metallica, Marillion and headliners ZZ Top.

The album was a move towards the mainstream due to production by Queen drummer Roger Taylor and David Richards, who had recently worked together on A Kind of Magic.

The switch to Polydor saw an increase in the marketing budget, and promotional videos were made for the singles "Lonely Night" and "Midnight".

The album received positive reviews, and Catley and Clarkin started recruiting more musicians to turn Hard Rain into an actual band.

Hard Rain eventually recruited the brothers Rob and Al Barrow as drummer and bassist, respectively, Sue McCloskey for backup vocals, and Paul Hodson on keyboards.

The new name was actually detrimental to the sales, as many buyers expected to find the albums in the M-shelf rather than the H-shelf in music stores.

[29] When asked to explain the difference between Magnum and Hard Rain, Clarkin replied that the latter was "a relief, a stop gap, something I wanted to do".

Catley disagreed with Hard Rain's musical drift away from the classical Magnum sound, and soon became more focused on his solo career.

In September 1999 he decided to quit Hard Rain, marking the end of a working relationship with Clarkin that dated back to 1972.

[31] In March 2001, Catley revealed that Clarkin had suggested a reunion, apparently after his manager Derek Kemp had convinced him that giving Magnum a new shot was worth it.

Since the end of the Seventies, in fact since we embarked on the preparations for our debut recording Kingdom of Madness, not a single month had gone by in which I didn't work for Magnum, composed for the group, or at least thought of them permanently.

Magnum completed work on a new studio album, Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow, which was released on 26 March 2007; this also marked the return to the cover artwork by Rodney Matthews, absent since 1992.

Stylistically, the album was considered a logical follow-up to Princess Alice,[39] and it became the first Magnum release to chart in Switzerland since Rock Art.

[40] A few months later, the band released The Gathering, on Universal/Sanctuary; their first ever cross-career collection spread over five discs featuring a 1988 live recording from Hammersmith Odeon.

[42] On 30 August, Magnum announced a new compilation remix album Evolution celebrating the last 10 years on SPV GmbH since their reformation in 2001.

[3] Soon after releasing and touring On the 13th Day Magnum revealed that Clarkin was back in the studio writing and recording new songs via Facebook on 4 April 2013.

In February 2016, Magum released the album Sacred Blood "Divine" Lies, 10 brand new tracks forging forward the Magnum sound.

On 25 June 2019, bassist Al Barrow announced his departure from the band due to his difficulties in spending much time away from his home in America.

[47] When asked about the future, Clarkin stated that Magnum had another two studio albums signed for with the record label, and that the band has no plan to retire.

The band returned to the studio, and a remastered compilation album titled Dance of the Black Tattoo was released in January 2021.

[51] The previous month the band revealed that he was diagnosed with a rare spinal condition, which brought about the cancellation of their Spring 2024 tour.

[52][53] Here Comes the Rain, Magnum's 23rd studio album, was released five days after Clarkin's death and achieved chart positions unprecedented in the band's history.