Midge Ure officially took over as lead singer, guitarist and frontman on 1 November 1979 (despite writing and rehearsing with the band from April of that year) after he and keyboardist Billy Currie worked on the studio project Visage.

The band was formed in April 1974 on the initiative of vocalist and songwriter Dennis Leigh, a then Royal College of Art student, and was originally known as Tiger Lily.

[2] The group released one single in 1975, "Ain't Misbehavin'", a cover of the Fats Waller song, which featured in a soft porn film.

Relations within the band were on an occasionally tenuous footing during this time as Foxx declared that he intended to live without emotions, a sentiment he wrote into the début album track "I Want to Be a Machine".

was dominated by guitars and electric violin, the final track, "Hiroshima Mon Amour", was a prototypical synthpop song.

One of the first tracks by a British band to feature a drum machine (a Roland Rhythm 77 (TR-77) with preset patterns) and a tenor saxophone solo played by "c.c."

In early March 1978, Stevie Shears, whose style of guitar playing was considered a limiting factor, was sacked from the band after they toured England[5] and joined Cowboys International in 1980.

The new line-up performed live at the Reading Festival along with Radio Stars, Penetration, Sham 69, the Pirates and the Jam, playing early versions of "Slow Motion" and "Quiet Men" on 27 August 1978.

Musically, the album was markedly different from Ultravox's earlier work, bringing synthesisers to the forefront of the group's sound.

Ultravox embarked on a self-financed US tour in early 1979 and, to their amazement, received an enthusiastic response by the American audience at several sold out venues.

[8] But after their final gig near San Francisco in March 1979, Foxx declared his intention to leave the band and pursue a solo career.

By this time, Billy Currie had been recruited by the rising star Gary Numan in 1979 to do a performance at The Old Grey Whistle Test show with his band Tubeway Army.

Warren Cann went to work for Zaine Griff, while Chris Cross did some shows with James Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) and Barrie Masters (from Eddie and the Hot Rods).

He had already achieved minor success with semi-glam outfit Slik and Glen Matlock's The Rich Kids, and in 1979, he was temporarily playing with hard rock band Thin Lizzy on their American tour, replacing Gary Moore.

Ure and Billy Currie had met while collaborating on Visage, a studio-based band fronted by New Romantic icon and nightclub impresario Steve Strange.

Encouraged by Visage drummer and mutual friend Rusty Egan, Currie asked Ure to join Ultravox.

Vienna, heralded a major change of direction and would become their most successful to date, far surpassing any of the previous Ultravox (or Foxx) albums.

Accompanied by a highly distinctive video (inspired by Carol Reed's 1949 film The Third Man), the single became Ultravox's biggest ever hit, released in January 1981 and peaking at Number 2 (kept off the top spot by John Lennon's "Woman" and then Joe Dolce's "Shaddap You Face").

Whereas the Vienna material had been performed live a great deal prior to a three-week recording process, Rage in Eden took over three months.

After the "Set Movements Tour" in 1984, a "greatest hits" compilation spanning the band's 1980s output was released entitled The Collection.

It was preceded by a new single, "Love's Great Adventure", which enjoyed massive radio airplay that autumn and eventually peaked at No.

The four Ultravox-members took a long break from each other, but appeared at Live Aid the following year and played four of their hit singles ("Reap the Wild Wind", "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes", "One Small Day" and "Vienna").

"[17] Ultravox recorded the U-Vox album with Big Country's Mark Brzezicki on drums in Plank's studio in Germany.

Although it continued their string of top ten albums in the UK, its singles showed declining chart results: "Same Old Story" peaking at No.

Currie and Robin Simon reunited in 1989 as the short-lived Humania, performing live shows, but never making a release until 2006, the album Sinews of the Soul.

"[21] In September 2008, both Vienna and Rage in Eden were released in digitally remastered two-disc format with the second disc containing previously unreleased material.

On 2 October 2008 Midge Ure and Billy Currie met again and played an acoustic "Vienna" together, on Geoff Lloyd Show on Absolute Radio in Abbey Road Studios.

On 6 November 2008 the official announcement came: Warren Cann, Chris Cross, Billy Currie and Midge Ure reformed Ultravox again, for a 15-date UK tour in April 2009, entitled "Return to Eden".

On Jonathan Ross's show on BBC's Radio 2 on 21 February 2009, Ure discussed the tour, with all four members of the most successful incarnation of the band on board.

[citation needed] On 4 January 2017, Billy Currie announced on his official website that he had decided that his time as a member of Ultravox had come to an end after 43 years.