Gruff Rhys, Bill Ryder-Jones

Growing up in Northern Wales, Gruff Rhys always had a keen interest in music. Although left-handed, he learned how to play his brother's right-handed guitar--playing in a typical left-handed position, but with the bass strings on the bottom--a practice Rhys still employs today. After a band he was in broke up in 1993, Rhys and a few other musicians decided to form another group and dub it Super Furry Animals. The band played a characteristic blend of Britpop mixed with modern electronic production and elements of psychedelia to create a style of music that managed to rise the Super Furry Animals to mainstream success in the 1990s. In 2005, Rhys released his first solo LP, an album of folky songs sung in the Welsh language, and although the release didn't attain much commercial popularity, it established Rhys as a singer/songwriter who's willing to venture outside the norm of what would typically be expected from a popular songsmith. Rhys formed the electropop collaborative group Neon Neon and released a concept album in 2007 that looked at the rocky life of car manufacturer John De Lorean. Rhys has released subsequent solo albums, and though LPs are not sung in Welsh, they have nevertheless helped contribute to further Rhys reputation as a songwriter who's willing to take risks with his sound.