[1] William, along with his brother Jim, the lead singer, formed the (at times unstable) core of the band.

The early sound of The Jesus and Mary Chain was defined by Reid's extremely distorted and feedback laden hollowbody guitar work, often using the Shin-ei Companion WF-8 fuzz-wah box to get his unique sound, which verged on white noise.

Reid effectively ended the band in late 1998, when he walked off stage fifteen minutes into a show at the House of Blues.

The Jesus and Mary Chain reformed in early 2007 to play concert dates in Europe and the US.

After The Jesus and Mary Chain split up in 1999, Reid began performing solo under the name Lazycame.