Thomas Michael "Tom" Fletcher is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, children's author
and YouTube vlogger.
Among his accomplishments he is one of the lead vocalists and guitarists of English pop
rock band McFly, in addition to being the group's founder and principal songwriter.
He originally auditioned and was accepted into the band Busted before being kicked out
the next day.
He carried on writing with the band.
In his ten-year career as a professional songwriter, Fletcher has penned ten UK number one singles
and twenty-one top ten singles.
He is credited as having written songs for bands including One Direction, Busted, The
Vamps and 5 Seconds of Summer.
Fletcher released his first children's book in 2012.
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.
Early life Fletcher was born in Harrow, London, to a
working-class family.
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.
He attended a prestigious music school, where, at age 13, he met Giovanna Falcone, who is
now his wife.
He has a younger sister, Carrie Hope Fletcher, who produces vlogs for the video sharing site
YouTube and is currently playing Eponine in Les Misérables at the Queens Theatre in London.
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 and even a role in a commercial.
In 1995, Fletcher made a small appearance in the video to the Mike + The Mechanics song
Over My Shoulder.
Education Fletcher attended the Sylvia Young Theatre
School in London, where he was schoolmates with Busted guitarist/drummer Matt Willis.
Musical career At a very young age, Fletcher began writing
music commercially.
He originally auditioned for Busted, 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."
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."
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.
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 band, and, eventually, moved into the InterContinental Hotel in London for 2
months 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.
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".
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 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.".
Fletcher wrote "On a Rainbow," the official song of the 2012 Summer Olympics' mascots
Wenlock and Mandeville.
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 "I
Would" for their second album Take Me Home and "Don't Forget Where You Belong" for their
third album Midnight Memories.
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.
He also co-wrote "High Hopes" along with all four members of The Vamps for their debut
album, Meet the Vamps.
Fletcher is also credited as having co-written the 5 Seconds of Summer track "Try Hard".
The song was originally released onto YouTube on 1 June 2013, and in 2014 featured as a
B-Side on their hit single Don't Stop.
Other work In 2008, Fletcher contributed to the short
story anthology, Wow!
366.
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.
He released a children's story with bandmate 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.
A follow up titled "The Dinosaur That Pooped A Planet" was released on 29 August 2013.
In June 2011, he appeared on the ITV game show The Cube and became the third person
to win £100,000.
He gave the money to Comic Relief and BIRT.
In 2013, he took part in All Star Family Fortunes with his family and All Star Mr and Mrs with
Giovanna.
All four members of McFly played Celebrity Deal or No Deal for charity in 2012 as well.
Personal life On 18 April 2011, Fletcher became engaged
to his schoolmate and longtime girlfriend Giovanna "Gi" Falcone.
He proposed to her at the Sylvia Young Theatre School where they first met at age 13.
They were married on 12 May 2012 with his McFly bandmates serving as his groomsmen.
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 14 million
views.
He currently lives in Northwood, London with Giovanna and their two cats Leia and Aurora.
Their third cat, Marvin, passed away in 2013.
His brother-in-law is The Only Way Is Essex star Mario Falcone, Giovanna's younger brother.
It was announced on Fletcher's YouTube channel on 29 October 2013 that the couple were expecting
their first child.
At 7pm on 13 March 2014, their son Buzz Michelangelo Fletcher was born.
The couple made a time lapse video of her pregnancy and used it in the viral music video
for "Something New".
Fletcher's sister is Carrie Hope Fletcher, a singer, actress and YouTube blogger.
Carrie joined him to produce the 2012 Olympic Mascot song, "On a Rainbow"
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.
References
External links Tom Fletcher on Twitter
Official website Tom website
Tom YouTube Tom Fletcher at the Internet Movie Database