bio
over the past twenty years tom has been an artist / songwriter / performer and producer.
his artist career spans across four critically acclaimed albums and he is known for his spellbinding performance and soulful approach to the art of songwriting
a formidable guitarist in his own right, his talent has attracted many big names to work with over the years and he has toured extensively through the uk and ireland and parts of europe.
most recently tom composed the film score for 'costa rica: a forest reborn' (2021).
the four part nature documentary won awards and plaudits for its powerful portrayal of Costa Rica’s progress against the climate crisis.
tom has been very quiet for the last few years but loves to hear from those of you who listen to his music so please send a message as he often responds personally.
he now resides in north london with his wife and young daughter where he paints, plays and lectures in songwriting for various universities.
In brief
the music industry tries to demand that once the door to a discerning audience has been opened, an artist must keep their foot wedged in it whether they have anything interesting to say or not.
it’s our good fortune that tom baxter abides by his own rules, and that’s what helps to make his records a genuine event.
tom baxter fills his songs with real life, sings them like he means them, and arrives in this envelope via the reassuringly old-fashioned medium of word of mouth.
this is a man who has built his reputation from a humble acoustic beginnings, of which can be heard on the like of ’the uncarved block’ or ‘the other side of blue’.
however he Is probably most famous for the incredible arrangements which were created for his first 2 records (with long time friend oli Langford)
Check out the beauty in orchestration & it’s magnificent emotional ferver on:
‘golden’ (ep) ‘skybound’ & ‘feather & stone’.
before
the buzz about tom began 2003 at the age of 29 when some early demo recordings ‘a day In verona’ & ‘almost there’ became a word of mouth sensation.
The race began to be able to say you saw him live before everyone else had and he multiplied the momentum with tirelessly gigging through out London, including support slots with the likes of an old acquaintance and fellow survivor, David Gray.
record labels came knocking and before long the ‘once a month’ residency soon became littered with industry moguls trying to muscle their way in.
In 2004 tom signed his first record deal with Sony and released ‘tom baxter ep’ where hear his on tracks ‘half a man’. (recorded live 2004)
later that year tom went on to to spend an extended period at peter gabriel’s real world studios in the south of England and produced his Debut album:
debut album:
’feather & stone’ (2004).
tom spoke about the album around the time of release;
‘it’s a kind of document of a young man’s struggle into adulthood. A lot of it was basically to do with me trying to make a statement to myself. I wanted to make a record that had a reflective but positive angle on the way all of us have to deal with the trials and tribulations of life.’
despite the regular radio play and hype around tom, ’feather & stone’ didn’t reach financial milestones sony expected and so over the next few years the relationship began to disintegrate due to artistic differences.
‘skybound’ 2007.
Parting with sony didn’t stop tom touring and over the next 3 years baxter had hatched a plan to make his own follow up record.
with an innovative flare, tom financed his next album buy making art to sell alongside it.
he producing 10 original (3 ft x 3 ft) canvas paintings which sold raising £49,000 and the launch of the album at the ‘richard dennis art gallery’- (notting hill) took the broadsheet papers by storm and thrust baxter into the limelight as an ‘artist to watch’ by both the music industry and the art world.
‘skybound’ reached no.1 in Ireland in 2008 (with double platinum status) and ‘Better’ was nominated for an ivor novello after appeared in the hollywood film ‘run fat boy run’ courtesy of his good friend david schwimmer (actor & director)
tom’s music went on to receive regular radio play and he toured extensively with his band in the uk & Ireland. ‘skybound’ 2007.
After the success of Skybound Tom went to live in India for 6 months and retreated from the public eye. He later moved to Devon and began writing the Uncarved Block. (2013)
‘I needed to get away for a while and I began writing the ‘Uncarved Block’ came out of a period where I wanted to strip everything back to the bare minimum almost as a medative experiment’.
‘… on my return to London, i came up with the idea of integrating my art with my music again and started the lengthy process of raising 300,000 from my fan base to create 10 stone sculputure’s to go with the music’.
It was a really exciting project and allowed me to begin making 10 stone sculptures which would sit alongside my songs off ‘the uncarved block’
I wanted to situate the sculpture in live in a stately home somewhere and include bluetooth technology chips inserted into the underside of the sculpture so that as you walked around with headphones on… the music (for the corresponding sculpture) would fade in and out depending on how close you got to it.
the other side of blue’ 2018
in more recent years tom made ‘the other side of blue’ a more introspective records cataloguing the pain of divorce and the start of a new relationship.
‘The other side of blue’ was a intense album to make but I knew I had to do it. it was like closing a chapter for me. I also knew it would be my last record for in a while as I wanted to concentrate on fatherhood and so decided to consciously diversify into film music for a while to enable me to be at stay at home dad…
Tom Baxter 2022
Becoming a father has been incredible blessing for me but I do miss touring and writing and hope to make another album soon….
Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the years and please keep in touch xx'.
‘Tom Baxter has a skill of hitting you straight in the heart. saying the things you want to say but don’t know how to articulate them. I Don’t bother trying to write them down any more, I just surf through baxter’s back catalogue and I always find a song which says it perfectly for me’
- Paul gamborchini . BBc radio presenter & journalist.
