Thom Yorke

Thomas Edward Yorke is an English musician, singer, songwriter and composer born on 7 October 1968 in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. He co‑founded the band Radiohead while attending Abingdon School, and their early breakthrough came with the 1992 single “Creep”, which propelled the group to global fame and generated over 30 million album sales. Yorke’s distinctive falsetto and introspective lyrics quickly established him as one of the most influential vocalists of his generation, earning praise from Rolling Stone as a seminal singer of the 1990s. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s he steered Radiohead through experimental phases, integrating electronic textures inspired by Aphex Twin and Autechre on landmark albums such as Kid A, Amnesiac and In Rainbows, while maintaining a lyrical focus on political anxiety, climate change and personal alienation. His solo career began with The Eraser in 2006, a wholly electronic record that showcased his interest in glitch‑based production and earned a Mercury Prize nomination; subsequent solo releases Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes and Anima continued his exploration of ambient and dance‑floor soundscapes, often accompanied by striking visual art collaborations with Stanley Donwood. Yorke is also a noted activist, campaigning for environmental justice, trade equity and anti‑war causes, and he has publicly criticized major streaming platforms for their compensation models. In addition to music, he has composed film scores for Suspiria (2018) and Confidenza (2024), and he formed side projects such as Atoms for Peace and The Smile, further expanding his artistic palette. His personal life includes a long partnership with the late artist Rachel Owen, with whom he had two children, and his 2020 marriage to Italian actress Dajana Roncione.