What was the name of Joe Strummer's band before he formed The Clash?

Before he formed The Clash, Joe Strummer was in the band The 101ers.

The 101ers were a London pub-rock group formed in May 1974. Strummer, then still closely associated with his birth name John Graham Mellor and the earlier nickname “Woody,” sang and played rhythm guitar. The band took its name from 101 Walterton Road in Maida Vale, the squat where several members lived together.

Musically, The 101ers drew on rock and roll, reggae, and rockabilly, and they became established on London’s pub circuit. Their first single, “Keys to Your Heart,” was released in 1976. Around the same period, the emerging punk scene was changing Strummer’s musical direction. Seeing the Sex Pistols perform convinced him that the 101ers’ approach belonged to an earlier moment.

Strummer joined The Clash in 1976, and The 101ers effectively ended soon afterward. The band is therefore best remembered as the crucial pre-Clash chapter in his career—not as another name for The Clash, The Mescaleros, or London SS. The Clash later transformed some of Strummer’s pub-rock experience into a sharper, more political punk sound.