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.
100 Facts About Thom Yorke
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Thom Yorke has been described by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest and most influential singers of his generation.
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In 2021, Thom Yorke debuted a new band, the Smile, with the Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and the jazz drummer Tom Skinner.
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Thom Yorke has collaborated with artists including PJ Harvey, Bjork, Flying Lotus and Modeselektor, and has composed for film and theatre.
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Thom Yorke is an activist on behalf of human rights, animal rights, environmental 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 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 Standlake Primary School.
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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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At Abingdon, Thom Yorke met Ed O'Brien, Philip Selway and brothers Colin and Jonny Greenwood.
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Thom Yorke held several jobs, including a period selling suits, 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, which put On a Friday on hiatus aside from rehearsals during breaks.
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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 the artist Stanley Donwood, who went on to produce artwork for Radiohead and Yorke's solo releases, and the printmaker Rachel Owen, Yorke's future wife.
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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.
25.
Paul Q Kolderie, the co-producer of Pablo Honey, observed that Thom Yorke's songwriting improved dramatically after Pablo Honey.
26.
OK Computer achieved critical acclaim and strong sales, establishing Radiohead as one of the leading rock acts of the 1990s, but Thom Yorke was ambivalent about success.
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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 Radiohead's later 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 was approached to score the 1999 film Fight Club, but declined as he was recovering from stress.
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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 Oscar-nominated song "I've Seen It All".
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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 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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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 2012 single "Hold On" by the electronic musician Sbtrkt under the name Sisi BakBak.
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Thom Yorke provided vocals for "Electric Candyman" on the Flying Lotus album Until the Quiet Comes.
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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" on 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 Surpiria'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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Thom Yorke did not attend the induction ceremony, citing cultural differences between the UK and America 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".
51.
Thom Yorke said his remix mirrored the COVID-19 lockdowns, "entering a new type of silence".
52.
In March 2021, Thom Yorke contributed music to shows by the Japanese fashion designer Jun Takahashi, including a remixed version of "Creep".
53.
On 9 April 2022, Thom Yorke performed a solo concert at the Zeltbuhne festival in Zermatt, Switzerland, playing songs from his work with Radiohead, the Smile and Unkle, and his solo records.
54.
Thom Yorke contributed two songs, "5.17" and "That's How Horses Are", to the sixth series of the television drama Peaky Blinders.
55.
Thom Yorke executive-produced Sus Dog, the tenth album by Clark.
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Thom Yorke acted as a mentor for Clark's vocals and contributed vocals and bass.
57.
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, the Smile and most of his solo work.
59.
Thom Yorke said they sometimes have arguments that last for days, but that they always resolve their differences, likening their relationship to brothers.
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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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Thom Yorke deliberately uses cliches, idioms and other common expressions, suggesting "a mind consumed by meaningless data".
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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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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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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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However, 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 "I suddenly didn't have a guitar around my neck".
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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 and "immediately fell in love with his music".
74.
In 1997, Thom Yorke said that Jeff Buckley had given him the confidence to sing in falsetto.
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Since My Iron Lung, Thom Yorke has created artwork for Radiohead and his other projects with Stanley Donwood.
76.
Thom Yorke has been critical of the music industry and has pioneered alternative release platforms with Radiohead and his solo work.
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Radiohead independently released their 2007 album In Rainbows as a download for which listeners could choose their price; 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".
80.
Thom Yorke said he became involved in the movement to halt climate change after having children and "waking up every night just terrified".
81.
Thom Yorke has been a supporter of Friends of the Earth and their Big Ask Campaign since 2003.
82.
In 2006, Thom Yorke refused an invitation from Friends of the Earth to meet the British prime minister, Tony Blair, to discuss climate change.
83.
Thom Yorke said that Blair had "no environmental credentials" and that his spin doctors would manipulate the meeting.
84.
Thom Yorke told the Guardian that Blair's advisers had wanted to vet Yorke beforehand, and that Friends of the Earth would lose access if Yorke said "the wrong thing" afterwards, which he equated to blackmail.
85.
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 was one of several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green 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.
89.
Thom Yorke stopped eating meat partially out of the desire to attract a girl he liked.
90.
In 1999, Thom Yorke travelled to the G8 summit to support the Jubilee 2000 movement calling for cancellation of third-world debt.
91.
In 2002, Thom Yorke performed at the Bridge School Benefit, a charity concert organised by the American 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.
93.
In September 2004, Thom Yorke was a key speaker at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally outside the Fylingdales air base in Yorkshire, protesting Tony Blair's support of the Bush administration's plans for the "Star Wars" missile defence system.
94.
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 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.
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Thom Yorke has suffered from anxiety and depression, which he treats with exercise, yoga and reading.
98.
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.
99.
In 2012, Rolling Stone reported that Owen and Thom Yorke were not married.
100.
In September 2020, Thom Yorke married the Italian actress Dajana Roncione in Bagheria, Sicily.