[1] The The operated as a solo project from 1982 to 1987, though their albums featured contributions from musicians such as Jools Holland, JG Thirlwell and Neneh Cherry.

[3] The The made their debut at London's Africa Centre on 11 May 1979,[4] third on the bill to Scritti Politti and PragVEC, using backing tape tracks that Johnson created at his day job at De Wolfe studios for the drums and bass.

[citation needed] Peter Ashworth, then known as 'Triash' and later to become a noted photographer, became the The's drummer in 1980, and Tom Johnston (also managing the The at this point and later to become a cartoonist for the Evening Standard, Daily Mirror and The Sun newspapers) was added on bass.

As a duo (Johnson and Laws), the The began performing concerts with Wire, Cabaret Voltaire, DAF, This Heat, the Birthday Party and Scritti Politti.

Towards the end of 1981, Colin Lloyd-Tucker and Simon Fisher Turner joined the band for a series of stripped down the The acoustic concerts in London.

"Three Orange Kisses from Kazan" and "Waitin' for the Upturn" (featuring Steve James Sherlock playing flute and saxophone) also date from this era, and appeared as B-sides.

Around 1982 the The played a series of four concerts at the Marquee Club in Wardour Street, Soho, entitled 'An evening of Rock n Roll with the The'.

Produced by Johnson and Paul Hardiman, it featured guest appearances from Orange Juice's drummer Zeke Manyika, Jools Holland, Thomas Leer and JG Thirlwell (a.k.a.

The artwork has a distinctive style, and sometimes courted controversy, most notably the initial release of the 1986 single "Infected", which featured a masturbating devil and was withdrawn from sale and re-issued with an edited version of the same drawing.

For their second studio album Infected (1986), the The still consisted only of Johnson, but was augmented by session musicians and featured friends such as Manyika and Rip Rig + Panic singer Neneh Cherry and Anna Domino.

Throughout 1986–1987 Johnson toured the world extensively with Infected: The Movie, showing the film in cinemas in place of performing live concerts.

Johnson agreed and enrolled longtime friend and collaborator Manyika to join him in performing shows in London featuring stripped-down versions of political the The songs such as "Heartland".

By 1988, the The was an actual band again, Johnson having recruited ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, ex-Nick Lowe bassist James Eller and ex-ABC drummer David Palmer as fully-fledged members.

4 in the UK Albums Chart and featured the band's highest-charting single to that time, "The Beat(en) Generation", which peaked at No.

[7] Keyboardist D.C. Collard was added to the official line-up in 1989 after the band's former session player Steve Hogarth, who had played on Infected, opted to become the new lead vocalist of Marillion instead.

In 1993, with Johnson, Marr, Collard, Eller and Palmer, Some Bizzare Records/Epic issued their fourth studio album Dusk, which debuted at No.

This same line-up also recorded two new tracks, "Deep Down Truth", featuring Angela McCluskey on vocals and "Pillar Box Red".

[4] Since 2003, the reclusive Johnson has generally kept away from the public eye and has concentrated primarily on soundtrack work, scoring numerous documentaries, films, and art installations.

The The's music has featured in a diverse range of cinema over many years, from cult classics such as Jürgen Muschalek's (Muscha) Decoder ("Three Orange Kisses from Kazan") and Gregg Araki's Nowhere ("Love Is Stronger Than Death") to big-budget epics such as Sylvester Stallone's Judge Dredd ("Darkness Falls"), prompting Johnson's move into film score composition.

The latest collaboration between Johnson and St Michaels, Penthouse North, premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in May 2014.

In May 2014, the The completed an original soundtrack for Gerard Johnson's subsequent film, Hyena, starring Peter Ferdinando, Stephen Graham, and Neil Maskell.

Entitled "Mrs. Mac," the track is an autobiographical song about Johnson's first day at school as a child in Stratford, East London.

[10] A press release was issued along with this track, announcing a forthcoming the The album called The End of the Day with various songs from the The's catalogue being performed by some of Johnson's favourite artists including Elysian Fields, JG Thirlwell, Thomas Leer, Elbow, Rob Ellis, John Parish, Anna Domino, Meja, Angela McCluskey, Ergo Phizmiz, and Rustin Man (a.k.a.

The day after the London Olympics finished in August 2012 Johnson made a rare public appearance on the BBC's Newsnight current affairs programme, in order to debate with Robin Wales, the Mayor of Newham, about the impact and legacy of the Olympic Games upon Stratford, the part of London Johnson grew up in.

[citation needed] In the spring of 2014, Sony Music Entertainment announced plans to release a Soul Mining 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Boxset in the summer of 2014.

The End of the Day contains interpretations of a selection of The songs from singers across the globe and includes the The's recent single "We Can't Stop What's Coming".

[11] On 29 October 2021, the The released The Comeback Special on Cinéola and earMUSIC, a live album recorded at the Royal Albert Hall gig in 2018.

Official band members have been: The following artists were not official members of the The but made notable contributions to various projects by the band: Exclusive the The tracks appear on the following compilation albums of tracks by various artists: The recording career of The The and Matt Johnson features numerous full-length albums that have never seen commercial release.