1. Thomas Edward Yorke was born on 7 October 1968 and is an English musician who is the main vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Radiohead.
132 Facts About Thom Yorke
1. 2.
Thom Yorke plays guitar, bass, keyboards and other instruments, and is noted for his falsetto.
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Thom Yorke formed Radiohead with schoolmates at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire.
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In 2021, Thom Yorke debuted a new band, the Smile, with the Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and the drummer Tom Skinner; they have released three albums.
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Thom Yorke has collaborated with artists including PJ Harvey, Bjork, Flying Lotus, Modeselektor and Mark Pritchard, and has composed for film and theatre, including the films Suspiria and Confidenza.
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Thom Yorke is an activist on behalf of environmental, trade justice and anti-war causes, and his lyrics incorporate political themes.
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Thom Yorke has been critical of the music industry, particularly of major labels and streaming services such as Spotify.
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Thom Yorke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead in 2019.
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Thom Yorke was born on 7 October 1968 in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.
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Thom Yorke was born with a paralysed left eye, and underwent five eye operations by the age of six.
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The family lived in Lundin Links in Fife until Thom Yorke was seven, and he moved from school to school.
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The family settled in Oxfordshire in 1978, where Thom Yorke attended primary school in Standlake.
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Thom Yorke initially wanted to be a guitarist rather than a singer, but began singing as he had no one else to sing the songs he was writing.
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Thom Yorke felt out of place, and got into physical fights with other students.
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Thom Yorke found sanctuary in the music and art departments, and wrote music for a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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Thom Yorke said Yorke was "not a great musician", unlike his future bandmate Jonny Greenwood, but a "thinker and experimenter".
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Thom Yorke later credited the support of Gilmore-James and the head of the art department for his success.
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Thom Yorke had classical guitar lessons with his future bandmate Colin Greenwood.
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In sixth form at Abingdon, Thom Yorke played with a punk band, TNT, but left when he was dissatisfied with their progress.
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Thom Yorke began playing with Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway, joined later by Colin's younger brother, Jonny.
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Thom Yorke held several jobs, including a period selling suits and working in an architect's office, and made a demo tape.
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Thom Yorke was involved in a serious car accident that influenced the lyrics of later songs, including the Bends B-side "Killer Cars" and "Airbag" from OK Computer.
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In late 1988, Thom Yorke left Oxford to study English and fine arts at the University of Exeter.
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At Exeter, Thom Yorke performed experimental music with a classical ensemble, played in a techno group called Flickernoise, and played with the band Headless Chickens, performing songs including future Radiohead material.
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Thom Yorke met Stanley Donwood, who would become Radiohead's cover artist, and his future wife, Rachel Owen.
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Thom Yorke credited his art school education for preparing him creatively for his later work.
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In 1991, when Thom Yorke was 22, On a Friday signed to EMI and changed their name to Radiohead.
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Thom Yorke tried to project himself as a rock star and drank heavily, often becoming too drunk to perform.
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Paul Q Kolderie, the co-producer of Pablo Honey, observed that Thom Yorke's songwriting improved dramatically after Pablo Honey.
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Thom Yorke befriended the singer, Michael Stipe, who gave him advice about how to deal with fame.
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Thom Yorke struggled with the attention the success brought him, and the stress of the OK Computer tour.
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In 1997, Thom Yorke provided backing vocals for a cover of the 1975 Pink Floyd song "Wish You Were Here" with Sparklehorse.
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Pitchfork cited "Rabbit in Your Headlights" as a "turning point" for Thom Yorke, foreshadowing his work in experimental electronic music.
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In 2016, Pitchfork wrote that Thom Yorke "weirdly comes off as the weak link", with understated vocals that did not resemble the Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry.
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Thom Yorke experienced imposter syndrome, and became self-critical and over-analytical.
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Thom Yorke was approached to score the 1999 film Fight Club, but declined as he was recovering from stress.
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Thom Yorke saw Yorke's resentment as "a byproduct of being so focused on what he wanted to do that he figures he's the only person that's ever had that idea".
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Thom Yorke restricted his songwriting to piano; the first song he wrote was "Everything in Its Right Place".
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In 2000, Thom Yorke contributed vocals to three tracks on the PJ Harvey album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, and duetted with Bjork on her song "I've Seen It All" from her soundtrack album Selmasongs.
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In 2002, Thom Yorke performed at the Bridge School Benefit, a charity concert organised by the Canadian songwriter Neil Young, one of Thom Yorke's influences.
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Thom Yorke's set included a cover of Young's 1970 song "After the Gold Rush", performed on the piano Young wrote it on.
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Thom Yorke wrote many of its lyrics in response to the war on terror and the resurgence of right-wing politics in the west after the turn of the millennium, and his shifting worldview after becoming a father.
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Thom Yorke recorded his debut solo album, The Eraser, during Radiohead's 2004 hiatus.
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Thom Yorke, who formed Radiohead while the members were in school, said he was curious to try working alone.
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Thom Yorke stressed that Radiohead were not splitting up and that the album was made "with their blessing".
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Thom Yorke described it as a statement of Radiohead's belief in the value of music and a "contract of faith" between musicians and audiences.
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Thom Yorke sang backing vocals on Bjork's 2008 charity single "Nattura".
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In 2009, Thom Yorke released a cover of the Miracle Legion song "All for the Best" with his brother, Andy, for the compilation Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy.
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Thom Yorke contributed the track "Hearing Damage" to the Twilight Saga: New Moon film soundtrack.
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That year, Thom Yorke formed a new band, Atoms for Peace, to perform songs from The Eraser.
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Thom Yorke created two remixes of the 2010 single "Gazzillion Ear" by the rapper MF Doom.
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Thom Yorke joined Modeselektor to perform "Shipwreck" at Coachella in April 2012.
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In 2011, Radiohead released their eighth album, The King of Limbs, which Thom Yorke described as "an expression of physical movements and wildness".
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Thom Yorke remixed the single "Hold On" by the electronic musician Sbtrkt, under the name Sisi BakBak.
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Thom Yorke released his second solo album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, via BitTorrent on 26 September 2014.
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In December 2014, Thom Yorke released the album on the online music platform Bandcamp along with a new track, "Youwouldn'tlikemewhenI'mangry".
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In 2015, Thom Yorke contributed a soundtrack, Subterranea, to an installation of Radiohead artwork, The Panic Office, in Sydney, Australia.
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In July 2015, Thom Yorke joined the band Portishead at the Latitude Festival to perform their song "The Rip".
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Thom Yorke composed music for a 2015 production of Harold Pinter's 1971 play Old Times by the Roundabout Theater Company in New York City.
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Thom Yorke contributed vocals and appeared in the video for "Beautiful People" from Mark Pritchard's 2016 album Under the Sun.
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Thom Yorke cited inspiration from the 1982 Blade Runner soundtrack and music from Suspiria's 1977 Berlin setting, such as krautrock.
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Thom Yorke performed two shows in 2017, and toured Europe and the US in 2018.
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On 29 March 2019, Thom Yorke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead.
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Thom Yorke did not attend the induction ceremony, citing cultural differences between the UK and the US and his negative experience of the Brit Awards, "which is like this sort of drunken car crash that you don't want to get involved with".
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Thom Yorke said his remix mirrored the COVID-19 lockdowns, "entering a new type of silence".
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In March 2021, Thom Yorke contributed music to shows by the Japanese fashion designer Jun Takahashi, including a remixed version of "Creep".
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In October 2021, Thom Yorke performed a Smile song, "Free in the Knowledge", at the Letters Live event at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
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On 9 April 2022, Thom Yorke performed a solo concert at the Zeltbuhne festival in Zermatt, Switzerland, playing songs from across his career.
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Thom Yorke wrote two songs, "5.17" and "That's How Horses Are", for the sixth series of the television drama Peaky Blinders, broadcast in 2022.
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Thom Yorke executive-produced Sus Dog, the tenth album by Clark, contributing vocals and bass and acting as a mentor for Clark's vocals.
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Thom Yorke composed the score for the 2024 film Confidenza by the Italian filmmaker Daniele Luchetti.
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Thom Yorke produced "Stepdaughter", a song written and performed by his wife, Dajana Roncione, and released in November 2024.
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Thom Yorke is due to rework the Radiohead album Hail to the Thief for a stage production of Hamlet announced in September 2024.
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Thom Yorke said Hail to the Thief "chimes with the underlying grief and paranoia" of Hamlet.
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Thom Yorke writes the first versions of most Radiohead songs, after which they are developed harmonically by Jonny Greenwood before the other band members develop their parts.
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Thom Yorke has worked with the producer Nigel Godrich on most of his projects, including Radiohead, Atoms for Peace, the first Smile record and most of his solo work.
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Thom Yorke said they sometimes had arguments that last for days, but that they always resolve their differences, and likened him to a brother.
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Thom Yorke is a multi-instrumentalist, and plays instruments including guitar, piano, bass and drums.
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Thom Yorke played drums for performances of the 2007 Radiohead song "Bangers and Mash".
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Thom Yorke uses electronic instruments such as synthesisers, drum machines and sequencers, and electronic techniques including programming, sampling and looping.
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Thom Yorke has one of the widest vocal ranges in popular music.
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Thom Yorke often manipulates his voice with software and effects, transforming it into a "disembodied instrument".
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In 2023, Thom Yorke said that his vocal range had dropped with age and that he now found "Creep" difficult to sing.
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Thom Yorke said his lyrics were not "some deep heartfelt thing"; instead, he likened them to a collage assembled from images and external sources such as television.
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Thom Yorke deliberately uses cliches, idioms and other common expressions, inspired by the American artist Barbara Kruger.
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Thom Yorke said he hoped to capture the everyday experience of trying to make emotional sense of words and images, and that "lyrics should be a series of windows opening rather than shutting, which is incredibly hard to do".
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The New Republic writer Ryan Kearney speculated that Thom Yorke's use of common expressions, which he described as "Radioheadisms", was an attempt "to sap our common tongue of meaning and expose the vapidity of everyday discourse".
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Kearney felt the approach had become a crutch for Thom Yorke, creating a "senseless mush".
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Thom Yorke wrote in 2016 that he was "the most overrated lyricist in music today", and that fans, critics and academics had "taken the bait and delivered one overwrought interpretation after another".
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Thom Yorke said his lyrics were motivated by anger, expressing his political and environmental concerns and written as "a constant response to doublethink".
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The lyrics of the 2003 Radiohead album Hail to the Thief dealt with what Yorke called the "ignorance and intolerance and panic and stupidity" following the 2000 election of US President George W Bush and the unfolding war on terror.
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Thom Yorke wrote his 2006 single "Harrowdown Hill" about David Kelly, the British weapons expert and whistleblower.
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The Guardian critic Alexis Petridis described "what you might call the Thom Yorke worldview: that life is a waking nightmare and everything is completely and perhaps irreparably screwed".
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Thom Yorke denied writing biographically, saying he instead writes "spasmodic" lyrics based on imagery.
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Thom Yorke began dancing on stage after Radiohead released Kid A in 2000, as many songs did not require him to play guitar.
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The New York Times contrasted Thom Yorke's "tortured" 1990s appearance with his later "looser", more comfortable performances.
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Thom Yorke initially attempted to emulate singers including Michael Stipe, Morrissey and David Sylvian.
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When he was 16, Thom Yorke sent a demo to a music magazine, who wrote that he sounded like Neil Young.
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Unfamiliar with Young, Thom Yorke purchased his 1970 album After the Gold Rush, which gave him the confidence to reveal "softness and naivete" in vocals.
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Thom Yorke admired how the Beastie Boys worked independently despite being signed to a major record label, and was influenced by their activism, such as their Tibetan Freedom Concerts.
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Since the EP My Iron Lung, Thom Yorke has created artwork for Radiohead and his other projects with Stanley Donwood.
102.
In November 1995, NME covered an incident in which Yorke became sick and collapsed on stage at a show in Munich, and titled the story "Thommy's temper tantrum".
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Thom Yorke said it was the most hurtful thing anyone had written about him, and refused to give interviews to NME for five years.
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Thom Yorke said the "most exciting" part of the release was the removal of the barrier between artist and audience.
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Brian Message, a partner at Radiohead's management company, disagreed with Thom Yorke, noting that Spotify pays 70 percent of its revenue back to the music industry.
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In 2000, during the recording of Kid A, Thom Yorke became "obsessed" with the Worldwatch Institute website, "which was full of scary statistics about icecaps melting and weather patterns changing".
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Thom Yorke said he became involved in the movement to halt climate change after having children and "waking up every night just terrified".
108.
In 2003, Thom Yorke became a spokesperson for the environmental organisation Friends of the Earth and their Big Ask Campaign.
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Thom Yorke said this was a difficult decision, as it would expose him to personal attacks, and that journalists had harassed his friends and family for personal details.
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Thom Yorke accepted that he would be criticised for his support.
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That year, Thom Yorke refused an invitation from Friends of the Earth to meet the prime minister, Tony Blair.
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Thom Yorke said that Blair had "no environmental credentials" and that his spin doctors would manipulate the meeting.
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Thom Yorke told the Guardian that Blair's advisers had wanted to vet him and that Friends of the Earth would lose access if he said "the wrong thing", which he equated to blackmail.
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Thom Yorke found it unacceptable to be photographed with Blair because of his involvement in the Iraq War.
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In 2009, Thom Yorke performed via Skype at the premier of the environmentalist documentary The Age of Stupid, and gained access to the COP 15 climate change talks in Copenhagen by posing as a journalist.
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Thom Yorke endorsed the Green Party candidate Caroline Lucas at the 2015 UK general election.
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Thom Yorke's performance was included on the live album Pathway to Paris, released in July 2016.
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Thom Yorke contributed an electronic track, "Hands Off the Antarctic", to a 2018 Greenpeace campaign.
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In 1999, Thom Yorke travelled to the G8 summit to support the Jubilee 2000 movement calling for cancellation of third-world debt.
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Thom Yorke said he saw slavery as a "political stability issue", and that it was important for people in the west to "understand the consequences of our economic activity".
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In 2011, alongside Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack and Tim Goldsworthy of Unkle, Thom Yorke played a secret DJ set for a group of Occupy activists in the abandoned offices of the investment bank UBS.
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In 2015, Thom Yorke released a statement accusing the British government of "siphoning money through our tax havens for the global super rich, while now preaching that we the people must pay our taxes and suffer austerity".
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Thom Yorke has made no statement on the ongoing Gaza war.
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Thom Yorke challenged him to make a statement onstage and left the stage when he continued to heckle.
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Thom Yorke returned to perform the final song, "Karma Police".
126.
In September 2004, Thom Yorke was a key speaker at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally outside the RAF Fylingdales air base in Yorkshire, protesting Blair's support of the Bush administration's plans for the "Star Wars" missile defence system.
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In June 2016, following the Orlando nightclub shooting in Florida, Thom Yorke was one of nearly 200 music industry figures to sign an open letter published in Billboard urging the United States Congress to impose stricter gun control.
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Thom Yorke opposed Brexit, and in March 2019 joined the People's Vote march calling for a second referendum.
129.
In 2024, Thom Yorke was one of 10,500 creative professionals who signed a statement warning against the unlicensed use of copyrighted work in AI training.
130.
For 23 years, Thom Yorke was in a relationship with the artist and lecturer Rachel Owen, whom he met while studying at the University of Exeter.
131.
In September 2020, Thom Yorke married the Italian actress Dajana Roncione in Bagheria, Sicily.
132.
Thom Yorke has suffered from anxiety and depression, which he treats with exercise, yoga and reading.