Michael David Rudd[1] (born 15 June 1945)[2] is a New Zealand-born musician and composer who has been based in Australia since the mid 1960s, and who was the leader of Australian progressive rock bands Spectrum and Ariel in the 1970s.

[3] Along with keyboard player John Mills they joined forces with two leading Sydney musicians, guitarist Tim Gaze and drummer Nigel Macara from the progressive band, Tamam Shud.

Lee then brought in a friend, lead guitarist Harvey James, and this arrangement eventually coalesced into the second line-up of Ariel.

However, by this time the band had gained some critical praise in the United Kingdom, thanks in part to leading disc jockey John Peel, and this led EMI's parent office in London to invite the group to record their next album at Abbey Road Studios.

However, the rejection of the Mutant album left the band with no new material, and when they arrived in London they discovered that EMI were expecting the line-up that had recorded the first LP.

The resulting album, Rock'n'Roll Scars, was mixed by the EMI recording engineer Geoff Emerick, who had worked with The Beatles.

Spectrum now continued as Mike Rudd with Broc O'Connor (bass), Peter 'Robbo' Robertson (percussion) and Daryl Roberts (keyboards).