Jet Harris and Tony Meehan began playing together as members of the Shadows backing Cliff Richard. Despite the success of the group in its own right, both of them decided to quit. Meehan had left the group at the end of 1961 with plans to take up a job in A&R with the Decca record company. Harris stayed with the group until 1962 deciding that he could probably do better for himself on his own. He was already a well known and popular artist, particularly with the female members of the Shadows audiences and Duane Eddy had shown the potential rewards for a ‘solo’ guitarist. This was a very risky decision as Jet found playing his own ‘lead’ quite different to playing bass guitar with the group.