Shaw had previously been the singer/guitarist in The Last Gang, while De Monde and Jones, who met at the University of Kent,[5] had been members of the Playthings.
All three were living on the same road in Birmingham when they formed the band, and initially rehearsed in an old casino, experimenting with different instruments.
[6] The band's name was a play on Swann's Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
[10] They performed live on two major television music programmes in 1984 - The Tube in February and Whistle Test in March.
De Monde and Jones went on to work together as Scarlet Fantastic, while Shaw released two albums in the early 2000s under the name Mighty Math and another in 2022 as Sparkleray.