Thomas Alexander Bailey is an English singer, songwriter, composer, musician, and record producer. Bailey came to prominence in the early 1980s as the lead vocalist for the new wave band Thompson Twins, which released five singles that entered the top ten charts in the United Kingdom during the 1980s: "Love On Your Side", "We Are Detective", "Hold Me Now", "Doctor! Doctor!", and "You Take Me Up". He was the only classic member of the band to have formal musical training. From 1994, Bailey was also a member of its later incarnation, Babble, releasing two commercially unsuccessful studio albums. He currently works in various musical fields including scoring for film. He records and performs dub music under the name International Observer and Indo-fusion music with the Holiwater Project. His latest collaboration is the Bailey-Salgado Project, an audiovisual ensemble formed with José Francisco Salgado.
Bailey formed the Thompson Twins in 1977 with Pete Dodd, John Roog, and Jon Podgorski. Podgorski did not want to move to London, so Andrew Edge played drums with them for one year before Chris Bell joined. The group eventually ended up as a trio with Bailey on vocals, guitar, bass, and keyboards, his then girlfriend Alannah Currie, and Joe Leeway. The Thompson Twins became fixtures on MTV during the 1980s as the videos for "Hold Me Now", "Lay Your Hands on Me" and "King for a Day" were played frequently. Subsequent to the marriage of Bailey and Currie, Thompson Twins released their final album, Queer, in 1991.
1993–1996: Babble
In 1994, Bailey and Currie formed the electronica-orientated duo, Babble.
2000s: International Observer
Between 2001 and 2015, Tom Bailey released several dub/electronica albums under the name International Observer.
Tom Bailey performed Thompson Twins songs live for the first time in 27 years on 17 August 2014 at Temple Island Meadows, Henley-On-Thames, Oxfordshire for the Rewind Festival. Also in 2014, Tom Bailey took part in the Retro Futura Tour in the USA. He was billed under the moniker "Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey." The 2014 Retro Futura Tour also featured Howard Jones, Midge Ure, China Crisis, and Katrina Leskanich of Katrina and the Waves. During an interview with the Stuck in the '80s podcast prior to the tour, Tom Bailey said that while preparing for his return to the stage he went to a store and bought a Thompson Twins greatest-hits CD to help him learn the songs again. In 2016, Tom Bailey released a new solo single entitled "Come So Far", which included a music video. On 25 April 2017 the official Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey website announced that Bailey was recording his debut solo album and that he hoped to release the album in early 2018. The album, entitled Science Fiction, was released in July 2018. To promote the album, Bailey toured the United States and United Kingdom with The B-52s, Culture Club, and Belinda Carlisle as part of The Life Tour.
Musical collaborations
In 1988 Bailey collaborated with Phil Thornalley, who worked frequently with the Thompson Twins, on Thornalley's only solo album, Swamp. Aside from playing instruments, Bailey also produced three tracks, remixed three tracks along with Thornalley and co-wrote the track "When I Get to Heaven". In 1999 Bailey produced the New Zealand band Stellar, and in 1999 he won Record Producer of the Year in New Zealand for their debut album, Mix. In 2002 Bailey became the figurehead for the dub project International Observer. Recent performances with 'Holiwater', a cinematic fusion of Indian classical music, electronica and video, blur boundaries between art installation and performance. The band was formed to highlight issues of water pollution on the Ganges. In 2010 Bailey and astronomer and visual artist José Francisco Salgado formed an audiovisual ensemble called Bailey-Salgado Project. BSP combines music with photography, video, and motion graphics to create multimedia works that have as subject the physical world. Their first work together, a short film entitled Sidereal Motion, was previewed in Bath, England in October 2010.
Personal life
Tom was married to fellow band member Alannah Currie from 1991 to 2003. They have two children, Jackson and Indie. As of 2014, Bailey lived in France with his second wife, artist Lauren Drescher. He has homes in New Zealand, France, and London. Bailey has been vocal about his choice to be a vegan, and he does not drink or use recreational drugs.
