The band consisted of singer Malcolm Owen (vocals), Paul Fox (guitar), John "Segs" Jennings (bass) and Dave Ruffy (drums).

Ruffy moved from bass to drums after original drummer Paul Mattocks left, and the band was active in anti-racist causes as part of the Misty in Roots People Unite collective based in Southall, West London, playing several benefits for Rock Against Racism.

In the early 1970s they lived together in a commune on the Isle of Anglesey off the coast of North Wales, where they formed a rock band called Aslan[2] with Paul Mattock, who played flute, guitar and keyboards and later became the Ruts' first drummer.

Post Office telephone engineer Jennings met record shop manager Ruffy in 1976 and became interested in punk after discussing the latter's Ramones' T-shirt.

Early Ruts songs recorded at The Former Orange studios in London's Covent Garden on 1 October 1977 were "Stepping Bondage", "Rich Bitch", "Out of Order", "I Ain't Sofisticated" and "Lobotomy".

The new Ruts line-up debuted supporting Wayne County and the Electric Chairs at High Wycombe town hall on 25 January 1978.

DJ John Peel expressed his admiration for the group on air (as can be heard on a retrospective 1978 radio show clip on the In a Can album) and a session for the BBC swiftly followed the same month.

[1] A bootleg of their 3 November slot at Strathclyde University includes a rendition of the Damned's "Love Song" as well as a cover version of the rock and roll standard "Blue Suede Shoes".

[5][1] The B-side was a reggae track "Give Youth a Chance" (also known as "Blackman's Pinch") originally recorded for the band's John Peel session in May.

Edited from the album, the band's third single for Virgin at the end of October 1979 was the roots reggae track "Jah War", about the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group's violence in Southall disturbances in April 1979.

On 11 February 1980, the band returned to a BBC studio for their third Peel session, two tracks of which – "Demolition Dancing" and "Secret Soldiers" – later appeared on Virgin's posthumous Grin & Bear It album.

[citation needed] On 27 March 1980, the Ruts released their fifth single, "Staring at the Rude Boys", a comment on the rapidly rising Two Tone scene.

Having been forced to cancel a number of UK tour dates, the other three band members fired their frontman over his drug addiction, shortly after completing work on their next single, "West One (Shine on Me)".

A year later, the Damned wrote a song, "The Limit Club", about their deceased friend which mentions the "velvet claws" that Fox talked about with reference to Owen's heroin addiction.

Co-produced by the band themselves as they were "starting to get pissed off with the music business" (according to Jennings in an audio interview on "Bustin' Out"), the song featured brass and segued into a dub remix.

[1] They released two albums, Animal Now (May 1981 on Virgin) and Rhythm Collision (July 1982 on Bohemian Records), the latter in collaboration with Mad Professor, a renowned dub producer.

The compilation included a snippet of John Peel praising "In a Rut", and offering to help listeners obtain a copy if it is not available in their local record shop.

Babylon's Burning Reconstructed (2005) was an album-long tribute to the band's most famous song, remixed sixteen different times by Die Toten Hosen, Don Letts, Dreadzone and the Groove Corporation.

They were supported by Tom Robinson, the Damned, Misty in Roots, UK Subs, Splodge (Splodgenessabounds), John Otway; and the Peafish House Band.

In December 2008 John "Segs" Jennings and Dave Ruffy returned to Ariwa Studios as Ruts D.C to record some new tracks with Neil "Mad Professor" Fraser.

The band enlisted Leigh Heggarty on guitar, Seamus Beaghan on Hammond organ, and Molara on additional vocals and percussion, and completed some British dates supporting Alabama 3 in November and December 2011.

The band also played the Rebellion Festival in August 2012, at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, Lancashire, alongside Rancid, Buzzcocks, Goldblade, Social Distortion, Public Image Ltd and a reformed Anti-Pasti amongst others.