Thomas Scott (born 18 February 1964) is an English musician and the lead singer, principal songwriter and guitarist of the Liverpool indie band Space. He started out as the band's bassist, but switched to guitar after David "Yorkie" Palmer joined in 1997, partly so that he could concentrate on vocals.
Before Space, he played in various Liverpool bands, such as the Substitutes (with Jamie Murphy), Hello Sunset and the Australians (with Franny Griffiths, who later became Space's keyboardist).
Biography
Scott was born in Liverpool and grew up on the Cantril Farm Estate, now Stockbridge Village.[1] Scott's father, a former Ford factory worker, died of cancer in 1995, an event which would later inspire "Avenging Angels". Scott grew up with a love of films, rock and roll and punk, all of which has informed his writing.
Around the early 1980s, Scott enrolled on a course for unemployed musicians in Northern England, alongside Mike Badger, John Power and Lee Mavers, all of whom would later become members of The La's. In 1984, Scott formed his first group, Hello Sunset, whose lineup included keyboard player Franny Griffiths. By 1987, Hello Sunset had morphed into The Australians, and their songs "Sadie" and "The Girl Who Loved Her Man Enough Too Kill Him" were included on the Vinyl Virgins and Hit the North compilations, respectively.
In 1993, Scott formed Space with Jamie Murphy and Andy Parle in 1993, with Griffiths joining a year later.[2]
When the band toured the United States for the first time in 1997, Scott lost his voice for two months due to stress, and the band subsequently had to cancel their tour. Scott stated that after trying numerous kinds of therapies and cures, he saw a psychic, Billy Roberts, who was able to predict the exact date his voice would come back.[3]
Space split in 2005, and Scott formed the Drellas,[4] the original line-up of which included Space's then drummer Leon Caffrey, and Phil Hartley — who had previously worked with Space as a producer and technician — on bass. The Drellas then morphed into Tommy Scott & the Red Scare, featuring Scott, Hartley and two new members, Allan Jones (drums) and Ryan Clarke (keyboards), as well as a saxophone player. Hartley, Jones and Clarke would all later join the new line-up of Space, when the band reformed in 2011, following the death of Andy Parle two years earlier. Both Scott[5] and Murphy[6] admitted to having fallen out with each other, but were on amicable terms by the time the band reunited.
^Tommy Scott: "I'm into films and telly. What song I write depends what film I'm into at the time. Some days I'm Noël Coward, some days I think I'm Quentin Tarantino, some days it's Speedy Gonzales." Stuart Maconie, '99 With A Bullet!', Q Magazine, November 1996.
