[3] In late 1976, James joined the new band Chelsea as its bassist, the group included William Broad (a member of the Bromley Contingent) on guitar, John Towe on drums and Gene October as its frontman/lead singer.

[6] The band went on to release two long-players, the self-titled Generation X (1978) and Valley of the Dolls (1979), and several singles, all but one of which charted, and through a hectic touring schedule increasingly gained media recognition as one of the acts with a potentially bright commercial future that had emerged from the punk-rock scene.

[6] However, in early 1979 the band's internal cohesion began to come apart after the relative commercial failure of the Valley of the Dolls L.P., which had gone no higher than #51 in the U.K. Albums Chart, and disagreements arose within it about its future musical direction in London's post-punk landscape, the writing process and credits for its work, augmented by the appearance of personality clashes.

Generation X broke up in acrimony at the year's end with Andrews the lead guitarist quitting the act, and Idol and James asking its drummer Mark Laff to leave the band shortly afterwards over another disagreement.

[6] Re-recording some of the material from the abortive Olympic sessions, along with several new songs, at the beginning of 1981 it released a long-player entitled Kiss Me Deadly, featuring session-playing from several different lead guitarists in the absence of a permanent one in the band's line-up.