The group emerged in the wake of the pub rock and punk scenes that had been very prominent on the UK capital's live music circuit during the late '70s/ early '80s.

They toured extensively throughout Europe, North America and Australasia, garnering wide critical acclaim for their aggressive blend of rhythm and blues, punk and rockabilly.

According to Carter, the final name was chosen upon the suggestion of Ace/Big Beat's Ted Caroll, who was concerned that the band's initial proposal of 'The Blues Messiahs' sounded too pub rock.

[5] Featuring a sound described as "rockabilly from hell" and a strong passion for Americana, cars, guns, aeroplanes and broadcast evangelism, the group released the mini-album Good and Gone on Big Beat Records.

[7] On 24 July 1984, they performed the songs "Good And Gone", "Someone To Talk To", "Tracking The Dog" and "Let's Go Down to the Woods And Pray" during their first recorded session for the John Peel show on BBC Radio 1.

[6] In December of the same year, The Screaming Blue Messiahs appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC, playing two songs: "Let's Go Down to the Woods And Pray" and "Good And Gone", and then undertook a short tour of the Netherlands.

[8] The label re-released the mini-album Good and Gone, and the band began work on Gun Shy, their first studio album, produced by Vic Maile.

On 14 June, the Messiahs played their second BBC session, performing live versions of "Good and Gone", "Tracking the Dog" and "Talking Doll" for Andy Kershaw's show.

The track "Twin Cadillac Valentine", having been influenced from the Spencer Davis Group song "Strong Love", was released as the first single from Gun Shy in the autumn of 1985.

To promote the album, the band embarked on another extensive tour of Germany, Finland, UK, US—including a series of concerts supporting The Cramps—Australia and New Zealand.

The band returned to the BBC in November 1987 and recorded versions of "Sweet Water Pools", "I Wanna Be a Flintstone" and "Big Brother Muscle" from the Bikini Red LP for the Janice Long programme.

To avoid completely razoring the top of his fingers off, and I suppose also because he likes the sound, William uses unusually heavy bottom strings; Rotosound (and nothing else will do) 56, 48, 28, 16, 13 and 12.

'"[9] Carter's vocal delivery also attracted attention in the music press with, for example, John Dougan commenting: "Carter wielded his instrument like a cross between Wilko Johnson and Pete Townshend; he was a deft soloist, but it was his tricky, complex rhythm playing that gave the band sheet-after-sheet of supercharged sound for a foundation.

[10] On the edition of 20 March 1987 of the Channel 4 TV show The Tube, David Bowie announced that his favourite band of the moment was The Screaming Blue Messiahs.

"[citation needed] The admiration extended to an invitation for the Messiahs to join Bowie on a couple of his Glass Spider Tour dates in the UK.

To cope with the intensity of the band's live performances, Carter explained that "I used to have to prepare myself all day ahead of the gig for the sheer emotional and physical onslaught.

The group's relationship with its record label deteriorated, resulting in the removal of Totally Religious from distribution a month after its release.

The band was dropped from its contract, and split up shortly afterwards,[6] playing their last gig at The Subterrania Club in Notting Hill, London, on 5 June 1990.

They then reunited with Tony Moon and bass player Ricky McGuire from The Men They Couldn't Hang to form Dynamo Hum and released a 10" EP entitled "Four Cute Creatures".

Kenny Harris went on to play with The Men They Couldn't Hang, followed by spells as a house husband, a baker and a published author.

In April 2009, Chris Thompson gave an interview with Chicago-based music website Consequence of Sound during which, when asked about the possibility of The Screaming Blue Messiahs reforming, he commented: "Every couple of years I get a call from one of the others saying, "Shall we re-form and do something".

"[14] In July 2010, Thompson's band The Killer B's released an album titled Love is a Cadillac, Death is a Ford on Track Records.