Tom Fletcher

Tom Fletcher
Tom performing on stage
Background information
Birth name	Thomas Michael Fletcher
Born	(1985-07-17) 17 July 1985 Harrow, London, England
Genres	Pop rock, pop
Occupations	Musician, Singer-songwriter, Actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, drums, bass guitar, ukulele
Years active	2003–present
Labels	Island, Super
Associated acts	McFly, James Bourne, Busted, McBusted
Website	www.mcfly.com
Notable instruments
Gibson Les Paul Gibson Flying V Gibson ES-335 Fender Stratocaster Gibson SG Gibson Les Paul Junior Epiphone Les Paul Ukulele

Thomas Michael "Tom" Fletcher (born 17 July 1985) is an English singer, songwriter, guitarist and children's author. Among his accomplishments he is one of the lead vocalists and guitarists of English pop rock band McFly,^[1] in addition to being the group's founder and principal songwriter. In his ten-year career as a professional songwriter, Fletcher has penned ten UK number one singles and twenty-one top ten singles. In 2012, Fletcher released his first children's book. Co-written with band-mate Dougie Poynter, The Dinosaur that Pooped Christmas sold over 72,000 copies and became the most popular debut children's novel of 2012.^[2]

Early life

Fletcher was born in Harrow, London, to a working-class family.^[3] His father Bob Fletcher, who worked at Kodak and played in local bands, and mother Debbie Fletcher, a special needs teacher, encouraged and supported his love of music from a young age.^[3] He has a younger sister, Carrie Hope Fletcher, who produces vlogs for the video sharing site YouTube and who is currently playing Eponine in Les Misérables at the Queens Theatre in London.^[4] When he was 10, Fletcher starred as the main role in Oliver! at the London Palladium alongside Jim Dale as Fagin. He then went on to do a documentary about HIV for schools.

Education

Fletcher attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School, a co-educational independent school in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster in west London, on a scholarship.^[3][5]

Musical career

At a very young age, Fletcher began writing music commercially.^[3] He originally auditioned for Busted,^[6] but lost out on the place to Charlie Simpson after the record label Island decided the band should be a trio rather than a four-piece; Fletcher states that he was in the band "for approximately 24-hours." ^{[citation needed]} This led to a job with the band's songwriting team however, where Fletcher got to know Busted band member James Bourne. He has since stated that it was Bourne who taught him how to "properly" structure songs, and how to "come up with good, poppy melodies." ^[7]

McFly

During the writing project for Busted's second album A Present for Everyone, Fletcher was asked by the record label if he was available to film auditions for a new band, V. It was at this time that he and Danny Jones met for the first time; Jones went to the audition mistaking the band to be a Busted-esque band, rather than the conventional, all-singing, all-dancing, boy band for which they were intended.^[8] Fletcher was impressed with Jones's style, and so invited him to write with him and Bourne. When writing projects for Busted had come to an end, the two began collaborating for their own (as yet unnamed) band, and, eventually, moved into the InterContinental Hotel in London for 2 months^[9] to concentrate on writing together. Bassist Dougie Poynter and drummer Harry Judd were subsequently recruited via a classified advertisement. McFly then rose to fame after Busted helped launch them by inviting them on their tour in March 2004.^[10]

In 2004, McFly made it into the Guinness Book of World Records, beating The Beatles's record for "the youngest band to have a début album go straight to number one".^[11] Fletcher has written the majority of McFly's songs with Jones and Poynter, with occasional contributions by Judd; Bourne has also assisted with songwriting on occasions. As of 15 November 2010, McFly have released five studio albums and two compilation albums. A new greatest hits album entitled Memory Lane: The Best of McFly which includes a number of B-sides from earlier albums, original demos of well known tracks as well as three new singles, was released in November 2012. As well as being the founding member of McFly, Fletcher plays rhythm guitar, shares lead vocals with Danny Jones and sometimes undertakes the role of ukelele player and pianist. He named the band after Marty McFly, the main character from his favourite film Back to the Future.

Songwriting

Fletcher has written or co-written ten UK number-one singles: "Crashed the Wedding", "Who's David?", and "Thunderbirds" for Busted; and "Five Colours in Her Hair", "Obviously", "All About You," "I'll Be OK", "Please, Please", "Star Girl", and "Transylvania" for McFly. He co-wrote eight of the songs on A Present for Everyone, as well as all but one ("Not Alone", written by Jones) of the tracks on McFly's debut album, Room on the 3rd Floor. He is the primary writer on the majority of tracks on all five of the band's albums. Of McFly's four members, he has "the most songwriting credits and therefore the most money.".^[12]

Fletcher wrote "On a Rainbow," the official song of the 2012 Summer Olympics' mascots Wenlock and Mandeville.^[13] The song features vocals from him and his sister Carrie Hope Fletcher. He also wrote the song "I Want" for One Direction's debut album Up All Night, and co-wrote (with Dougie Poynter and Danny Jones) "I Would" for their second album Take Me Home and "Don't Forget Where You Belong" for their third album Midnight Memories.^[14] He has co written a lot of songs with James Bourne including "Chills in the Evening" recorded by V. Fletcher has penned ten UK number one singles and 21 top ten singles. Despite the decision to exclude Fletcher from the line-up of band Busted, he was included as a member of their songwriting team, mainly because of the label's intrigue at his writing talents.

Other work

In 2008, Fletcher contributed to the short story anthology, Wow! 366.^[15] Fletcher, along with the rest of McFly, have made a deal with Transworld Publishers and released their memoir 'Unsaid Things... Our Story' in the autumn of 2012.^[16] He released a children's story with Dougie Poynter entitled "The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas", about a boy who gets a pet dinosaur for Christmas. The book was released on 25 October 2012.^[17] A follow up titled "The Dinosaur That Pooped A Planet" was released on 29 August 2013.

In June 2011, he appeared on the ITV gameshow The Cube and became the 3rd person to win £100,000 and gave the money to Comic Relief and BIRT.

Personal life

On 18 April 2011, Fletcher became engaged to his longtime girlfriend Giovanna Falcone. He proposed to her at the Sylvia Young Theatre School where they first met at age 13.^[18] They were married on 12 May 2012.^[19] They sold the rights to OK! Magazine and the article was published on 22 May 2012. In January 2013, Fletcher uploaded a video to YouTube of his wedding speech, sung to the tunes of several of McFly's most successful songs, which has received over 12 million views.^[20] He currently lives in North London with Giovanna and their two cats Leia and Aurora. Their third cat, Marvin, passed away in 2013.^[21] The Only Way Is Essex star Mario Falcone is Giovanna's younger brother and therefore Fletcher's brother-in-law.^[19] It was announced on Fletcher's YouTube channel on 29 October 2013 that the couple are expecting their first child in 2014.^[22]

Tom's sister is singer, actress and YouTube vlogger Carrie Hope Fletcher. Carrie joined him to produce the 2012 Olympic Mascot song, 'On A Rainbow'^[23]

In McFly's recent autobiography 'Unsaid Things' Fletcher has admitted to suffering from bipolar affective disorder, which he has stated was a great influence over McFly's second album, Wonderland. He has also described his struggles with his eating disorder, weight and obsessive dieting.^{[24][25][26][27][28]}

References

External links

• Tom Fletcher on Twitter
• Official website
• Tom website
• Tom Fletcher at the Internet Movie Database