Born Steve Thompson in Australia in the early nineteen sixties. The son of an Aussie Doctor, who came to London to make his fortune as a male fashion model.  Poly's pet name for Steve was Rudi, after the famous reggae song A MESSAGE TO YOU, RUDI. Rudi was often in the audience at SPEX gigs and had heard through the grapevine that the band were looking for a new saxophone player, due to Lora's school commitment. Somehow he managed to get backstage and say "Hi!" to Poly and tell her that he played the Sax and that he had grown tired of modelling, as people assumed he was just a pretty face. Poly invited him to a rehearsal and he joined the gang fast. He worked very hard, but still managed to make the sax sound like fun and bubble gum. Rudi played on all SPEX dates and tours, and was signed to EMI along with the other band members. During the recording of X-RAY SPEX's first album GERMFREE ADOLESCENTS, their manager Falcon Stuart brought in another saxophonist, TED BUNTING, one of his public school boy chums from GT MOORE AND THE REGGAE GUITARS. Falcon asked him to overdub a sax riff on IDENTITY and DAY THE WORLD TURNED DAY-GLO and it is in fact TED BUNTING's saxophone that feature's on these two tracks. TED BUNTING was obviously a very slick player, with years of experience, but this move on the part of their manager, made Rudi feel very insecure. Unfortunately this was the beginning of the break up of X-RAY SPEX. Rudi penned and recorded his own song ORIGINS ARE SUSPECT and then disappeared along with BP HURDING, who had also been writing and had co-written BETTY DAVIES EYES.