Michael David Rudd (born 15 June 1945) is a New Zealand-born musician and composer who has been based in Australia since the mid 1960s, and who was the leader of Australian progressive rock bands Spectrum and Ariel in the 1970s. Biography Michael David Rudd was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. His first major group was the Chants R&B. The group came to Australia and settled in Melbourne in 1966, but broke up soon afterwards. Rudd then joined The Party Machine led by Ross Wilson and Ross Hannaford, who later formed Daddy Cool. After Party Machine split up in late 1969, Rudd formed his own group, Spectrum, one of Australia's first progressive rock groups. This also marked the beginning of his long association with bassist Bill Putt. Spectrum released four LPs and several 7" singles, including their national No. 1 hit single I'll Be Gone, which has remained one of the best-known songs of the period, and the first Australian rock double album, Milesago. The group also worked under the pseudonym Indelible Murtceps and recorded one LP under that name. After Spectrum split in April 1973, Rudd and Putt formed a new group, Ariel. Along with keyboard player John Mills they joined forces with two leading Sydney musicians, guitarist Tim Gaze and drummer Nigel Macara from the progressive band, Tamam Shud. They released one successful LP, A Strange Fantastic Dream, in December 1973, but Gaze and Macara left the band soon after it was recorded. In early 1974, Rudd and Putt began work on an extended concept piece, The Jellabad Mutant, and began rehearsing the music with drummer John Lee, ex-The Dingoes. Lee then brought in a friend, lead guitarist Harvey James, and this arrangement eventually coalesced into the second line-up of Ariel. They recorded a full-length demo tape of the planned LP, called The Jellabad Mutant, and presented it to their record label EMI, but to their surprise it was rejected. However, by this time the band had gained some critical praise in the United Kingdom, thanks in part to leading disc jockey John Peel, and this led EMI's parent office in London to invite the group to record their next album at Abbey Road Studios. However, the rejection of the Mutant album left the band with no new material, and when they arrived in London they discovered that EMI were expecting the line-up that had recorded the first LP.