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Thom Yorke

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Thom Yorke

Thomas Edward Yorke, born October 7, 1968 in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England, is an English musician, best known as the lead singer of the English rock band Radiohead. He has also recorded as a solo artist; he released his debut album, The Eraser, in July 2006.

Yorke mainly plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar (notably during the Kid A and Amnesiac Radiohead sessions). Yorke is also an electronic musician; The Eraser was heavily influenced by electronic music. [1]

In 2005, Yorke became a spokesman for Friends of the Earth and their campaign to reduce carbon emissions. He has one brother, Andy, ex-vocalist of the band the Unbelievable Truth. Yorke currently lives in central Oxford with his girlfriend, Rachel Owen, a printmaker who holds a doctorate in art history, and their two children, Noah, born in 2001 (to whom the Radiohead album Amnesiac was dedicated) and Agnes, born 2004 (to whom Yorke dedicated The Eraser).

Biography

Early years

As a young child Yorke underwent five surgical operations to correct a paralysed left eye he had had since birth.[2] He has claimed that the last surgery was "botched", leaving his eye mostly blind and giving him his trademark drooping eyelid.[3]

The Yorke family finally settled in Oxfordshire, as Yorke's father was a traveling chemical equipment salesman, and had to travel around the country frequently.[3] Yorke received his first guitar when he was seven, inspired by a televised performance of Queen guitarist Brian May.[3] His first song, "Mushroom Cloud" described a nuclear explosion, and by age ten he had joined his first band at the public Abingdon School for boys. It was at this school that he was to meet his future bandmates Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway, Colin Greenwood and Colin's younger brother, Jonny.

The band was named On A Friday, as Friday was the only day on which the members were allowed to rehearse.[3] Yorke, in this early line up, played guitar and provided vocals, and was already developing his songwriting and lyrical skills. Yorke, speaking about music's influence on him as a schoolboy, said, "School was bearable for me because the music department was separate from the rest of the school. It had pianos in tiny booths, and I used to spend a lot of time hanging around there after school."[4] The band's mentor at the school was the music teacher, Terence Gilmore-James, who, according to band members, was the only one who encouraged them.[4] Said Colin Greenwood, "When we started, it was very important that we got support from him, because we weren't getting any from the headmaster. You know, the man once sent us a bill, charging us for the use of school property, because we practiced in one of the music rooms on a Sunday." [4]

While attending the University of Exeter, where he studied Fine Art and English, he worked as a DJ at Guild nights in the Lemon Grove and played briefly with the bands Headless Chickens and Flickernoise, the latter of which was a techno group. He also held a part time position as an orderly at a psychiatric hospital. In his second year, he was introduced to computers, the universities' newly acquired Macintoshes, and he was fascinated with them. It was also around this time that he met Stanley Donwood, an artist who from 1994 on would become an important collaborator on single and album artwork for Radiohead. Yorke has often used an alias ('The White Chocolate Farm', 'Tchock') while working on projects with Donwood. Together, the duo would later win the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.

In 1987, when Yorke was nineteen, he and his girlfriend were involved in a car crash. He was unharmed, but his girlfriend suffered from whiplash. This brought on Yorke's phobia of cars that can be heard in later Radiohead songs, "Airbag", "Killer Cars", and "Stupid Car". On A Friday reformed in 1991 as the members were finishing their degree courses. Meanwhile, Thom briefly had a job selling men's suits. Now relocated to Oxford, they signed to Parlophone and changed their name to Radiohead, the name taken from the Talking Heads album True Stories.

Radiohead

Main article: Radiohead

Radiohead first gained notice with the hit single "Creep" (allegedly written in the men's toilets of Exeter University's student club "The Lemon Grove").[5] although some speculated the band would only achieve status of one-hit wonders. The song appeared on the band's first album Pablo Honey, which received mixed reviews. The band, coming to resent Creep, described their feeling toward it on their second album, The Bends, particularly on "My Iron Lung". Yorke, chief songwriter, lyricist and vocalist at the time, was attributed many of the same personal qualities as exist in Radiohead's music from this period to the present day — themes of isolation, hope, resignation, and urban existentialism to name several.[citation needed]

How Yorke, as the driving influence of Radiohead, has dealt with his growing status and reverence has been arguably one of the more interesting aspects of the band's evolution. 1997's OK Computer, whilst heralded as a landmark album by virtually every publication that reviewed it, forced Yorke into a period of depression brought about by fear that the personalities behind Radiohead — chiefly, his own — were more prominent than the actual music. 2000's Kid A was again a musical departure for the band, Yorke in particular having struggled with the idea of a follow-up to the mammoth success of OK Computer.

File:Yorkesnl.jpg
Thom Yorke on Saturday Night Live in 2000

Yorke has explained in various interviews that he dislikes the "mythology" he feels is endemic within the rock genre, and hates the media's obsession with celebrity [6]. In interviews, he does not seem to be particularly taken with the idea of being famous, or even show that he feels it is necessary that he is asked questions about his music. Despite his efforts to downplay his status, he is still looked upon as one of the most important musicians of his time.

In terms of talent and ability, Yorke is known for his distinctive falsetto ("Fake Plastic Trees", "Paranoid Android") and ability to reach, and sustain, high notes ("Creep", "Exit Music (For a Film)", "Let Down"). During the recording sessions for The Bends in 1994, the band watched Jeff Buckley in concert; Yorke later said the concert had a direct effect on his vocal delivery on "Fake Plastic Trees."[7]

Aside from vocal duties, Yorke's musical contributions to Radiohead include piano (including Rhodes piano, especially on Kid A) and especially guitar, both acoustic and electric. He also plays bass guitar (The bass line for "The National Anthem" was recorded by him) as well as drums on occasion; in concerts performed in 2006 he performed on drums on stage in tandem with drummer Phil Selway. Since Kid A, however, Radiohead, and in particular Yorke, have moved away from using solely these "rock" instruments for creating music, and have often seen fit to incorporate elements of electronic music in Radiohead's work.

While appearing on Jo Whiley's Radio 1 show in 2003 to publicise the release of Hail to the Thief, Yorke remarked that he would rather make an album just with a computer rather than with only an acoustic guitar. Additionally, Yorke has stated that he thinks that computer programs such as Pro Tools give the musician more power over the direction of one's music than traditional instruments [citation needed]. The Eraser, his first solo album, indeed stayed true to this notion.

Yorke has claimed to have never listened to Radiohead records after they are released, and it appears this will be the case for the forthcoming album. "I will dread listening to it all after we have left in the real world. I always dread that. I'd much rather start something new and forget," Yorke recently wrote in Radiohead's blog Dead Air Space.

Solo work

Main article: The Eraser

Yorke released The Eraser, an album of solo material, on July 10, 2006 in the UK and July 11, 2006 in the U.S. [8] Produced by Nigel Godrich, featuring cover art by Stanley Donwood, it was released on the independent label XL Recordings. Yorke has said that this album is "more beats & electronics" and has denied that it means he is leaving Radiohead, stating, "I want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah... this was all done with their blessing, and I don't wanna hear that word solo. It doesn't sound right" [9]. It reached number 9 on the Irish charts in its first week, number 2 in the US, Canada and Australia, as well as number 3 in the UK. The album was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize, losing to the Arctic Monkeys, and was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

Activism

File:MTFyorke4.jpg
Thom Yorke, drenched in chocolate for an Oxfam Make Trade Fair campaign, 2004

Yorke's enigmatic persona has made him a cult figure, but he has also been outspoken on various contemporary political and social issues. Radiohead had read No Logo by Naomi Klein during the Kid A sessions ("No Logo" was also briefly considered as the album title) and all the members were reportedly heavily influenced by it. Yorke's activism in support of fair trade practices, with an anti-WTO and anti-globalisation stance, garnered significant attention.[10] Yorke is also a professed fan of Noam Chomsky's political views,[11] and is a longtime vegan. [12]

Yorke is friends with the environmentalist writer, academic and journalist George Monbiot; he lent a quote to feature on Monbiot's book Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain. He is also notable as a political activist on behalf of other causes, including human rights and anti-war movements such as CND, Amnesty International, Jubilee 2000 and the Friends of the Earth campaign "The Big Ask". [13] He played at the Free Tibet concert in both 1998 and 1999.

Discography

See also: Radiohead discography.

Studio albums

Compilations

Collaborations

Drugstore
Yorke shared vocals with Isabel Monteiro from the English band Drugstore on the band's single, "El President", off their album White Magic For Lovers. Yorke also appeared in the music video. Monteiro was born in Chile, and the song was inspired by the events of the 1973 military coup by Augusto Pinochet against President Salvador Allende of Chile.
Sparklehorse
Yorke sings part of this cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" with Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous. Yorke sang his part on the telephone from his hotel room and you can hear his TV in the background. Sparklehorse were Radiohead's opening act on the European leg of the OK Computer tour in 1997.
UNKLE
Yorke and DJ Shadow got together during the OK Computer tour in San Francisco and recorded "Rabbit in Your Headlights" for the James Lavelle project going under the name UNKLE. The song is the closing track on UNKLE's first album Psyence Fiction (1998), which also features contributions by many other artists.
The Venus in Furs
Yorke and Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood got together with Bernard Butler, David Gray, Andy Mackay, and Paul Kimble to form the band, The Venus in Furs (named after the Velvet Underground song). They recorded five songs for the Todd Haynes film Velvet Goldmine (1998), which was produced by Yorke's friend Michael Stipe. All the tracks sung by Yorke are Roxy Music covers, originally sung by Bryan Ferry. The tracks are:
  • "2HB"
  • "Ladytron"
  • "Baby's on Fire" (Vocal: Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
  • "Bitter-Sweet"
  • "Tumbling Down" (Vocal: Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
Björk
Yorke and Björk sang a duet called "I've Seen It All" on Selmasongs (2000), the soundtrack album to Lars Von Trier's award winning film Dancer in the Dark. In the movie, a different recording is heard, as the song isn't sung by Yorke, but actor Peter Stormare. The song was nominated for an Academy Award, and the two were to have performed it together at the 2001 Oscars, but it was cut to a Björk solo performance due to time requirements.
PJ Harvey
Yorke had a strong presence on PJ Harvey's 2000 release, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. He did a duet with Harvey on the song "This Mess We're In" and sang back-up on two other songs: "One Line" and "Beautiful Feeling". Harvey's album won the Mercury Music Prize in 2001 (over Radiohead's Amnesiac, among other nominees).
Band Aid 20
In December 2004, Yorke and Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood contributed to the Do They Know It's Christmas charity single.
Live collaborations
In 1998, Yorke performed with R.E.M. at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in Washington, D.C., singing "Be Mine" with the group and singing Patti Smith's part of "E-Bow the Letter", a duet with lead singer Michael Stipe (Stipe also joined Radiohead for a song, singing Yorke's part on "Lucky"). In spring 2002, Yorke and Beck made a surprise appearance at an L.A. benefit concert for fairer record label contracts, duetting on an acoustic cover of the Velvet Underground song "I'm Set Free". In 2006, Yorke performed several songs from his solo album The Eraser live on TV and radio programmes with producer Nigel Godrich and members of Radiohead.

References

  1. ^ ""LA Times interview: Thom Yorke, free agent"". ateaseweb.com. 28 June 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ "Radiohead Biography", Green Plastic. URL accessed on 15 June 2006.
  3. ^ a b c d McLean, Craig (2006-06-18). "All messed up". The Observer. Retrieved 2007-03-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ a b c Ross, Alex (2001-08-21). "The Searchers: Radiohead's unquiet revolution". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2007-03-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ The Association of Student Radio Alumni University of Exeter
  6. ^ "Yorke derides mainstream music", NME, 5 April 2006. Retrieved 19 May 2006.
  7. ^ [1], www.greenplastic.com, retrieved 7 November 2006.
  8. ^ "Thom's album The Eraser was released in July", ateaseweb.com, 13 May 2006. Retrieved 16 May 2006.
  9. ^ "All Messed Up: Blackpool, 12 May 2006", Observer. Guardian.co.uk, 12 May 2006.
  10. ^ Yorke, Thom (2003-09-08). "Losing the faith". The Guardian. TheGuardian.com. Retrieved 2007-04-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Brian Draper's interview with Thom Yorke for Third Way", The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, 1 July 2005. Retrieved 16 May 2006.
  12. ^ Wiederhorn, Jon (2003-06-19). "Radiohead: A New Life". MTV. MTV.com. Retrieved 2007-03-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ "Thom Yorke and 'The Big Ask'", Friends of the Earth. Retrieved 16 May 2006.
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