List of the Fall band members

Formed in late 1976, the group originally featured vocalist Mark E. Smith, guitarist Martin Bramah, bassist Tony Friel and keyboardist Una Baines, with their first permanent drummer Karl Burns joining the following year.

[1][2] Mark E. Smith, Martin Bramah, Tony Friel and Una Baines formed the Fall shortly after attending a Sex Pistols show at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in July 1976.

[8] After brief spells with Jonnie Brown and Eric McGann early in the year,[6] 16-year-old roadie Marc Riley took over Friel's position on bass in June 1978.

[6] The lineup of Smith, Bramah, Riley, Pawlett and Burns recorded the group's debut album Live at the Witch Trials, which was issued the following year.

[11] Burns left before the end of the year and Bramah followed in April 1979, claiming that "What initially started out as a collective became a dictatorship" dominated by frontman Smith.

[17] After replacing Paul Hanley for an American tour in the summer of 1981, due to the former being under the age of 21, Karl Burns rejoined the Fall in October 1981 to mark the start of the band's first two-drummer lineup.

[18] This incarnation issued two studio albums in 1982, Hex Enduction Hour and Room to Live, before Riley was sacked after a physical altercation with Smith, playing his final Fall show in December.

[27] With new keyboardist Marcia Schofield, the band released The Frenz Experiment and I Am Kurious Oranj in 1988, as well as a string of commercially successful singles including "There's a Ghost in My House", "Hit the North" and "Victoria".

[6] In later interviews, Mark E. Smith claimed that Scanlon's sacking after 16 years in the band was due to his "slovenly appearance" and "failure to maintain [his] amps", although he later changed his explanation by suggesting that the guitarist had been "trying to play jazz or Sonic Youth-style stuff over good simple songs that he'd written himself".

[43] After several months off, the Fall returned in August 1998 with new bassist Karen Leatham and drummer Tom Head,[6] the latter of whom took over from Themen who was originally hired on a full-time basis after her first three shows.

[44] By the following January, Neville Wilding was the band's new guitarist and Leatham had been replaced by Adam Helal, with both new members joining officially after performing on The Marshall Suite as session musicians.

[45] Head was briefly sacked ahead of the 1999 Reading Festival, with Nick Dewey taking his place for the show, before he was reinstated the following day in time for the Leeds date.

[6] By February the next year, Neville Wilding and Adam Helal had also been replaced, by Birtwistle's Trigger Happy bandmates Ben Pritchard and Jim Watts, respectively.

[56] Later in the year, guitarist Peter Greenway, bassist Dave Spurr and drummer Keiron Melling all debuted with the Fall, due to the new members' differing schedules.

[57] After the release of Reformation Post TLC (featuring Greenway and Spurr), the three new additions became full-time members upon the departure of Presley, Barbato and McCord in June 2007.