Thomas Alan Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by one critic as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock styles such as blues, jazz, and Vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. Waits has also worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including The Fisher King, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Short Cuts. He has been nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.Lyrically, Waits' songs are known for atmospheric portrayals of bizarre, seedy characters and places, although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters, despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists — for example "Jersey Girl" performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Downtown Train" performed by Rod Stewart, and "Ol' '55" performed by the Eagles. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards, and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations.
Close friend of Chuck E. Weiss , a fellow L.A. scenester and co-founder of The Viper Room with Johnny Depp , and frequently mentions him in lyrics and liner notes on his records.
Close friends with the Coppola family including Nicolas Cage ; often cast in Francis Ford Coppola movies.
Frito-Lay used an unauthorized sample of his song "Step Right Up" in one of their commercials. He successfully sued for an undisclosed amount of money. Frito-Lay unsuccessfully counter-sued.
Children: Kellesimone , Casey Xavier (b. 1985), Sullivan (b. 1993).
Uses a large collection of electric megaphones to create unusual tonal effects on his recordings. One of his favorites is a 1944 vintage issued by the US Navy Bureau of Ships, manufactured by Guided Radio Corp. of New York.
Shops at hardware stores for items to be used as percussion instruments.
Owns obscure and custom made instruments such as a Chamberlin Music Master 600 (an analog synthesizer manufactured in the 1960s) and a photon clarinet ("[It] sounds like a keyboard lobster dying on a campfire.").
He converted a 4 cubic yard metal box (intended as a debris dumpster) into a musical instrument called a "Strata Dumpster" (aka "Dumpstalele"). He cut a 2 foot hole into one side, and streched seven piano strings across it, fastening them with two welded bridges. The strings can be plucked, strummed or bowed. He describes the sound as "trainlike and huge, like trash day with a purpose."
The photo on the cover of his album "Rain Dogs" includes a man who many believe to be him. It was one of a series of photos taken at the Cafe Lehmitz in Hamburg by the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen. Waits reportedly saw the photo at an exhibition, was taken by the similarity of him and the man in the photo, and asked permission from the photographer to use it as an album cover.
His maternal grandmother, Olga Regina Olsen, was the daughter of Norwegian parents (her family was from Oslo). Toms other ancestry is English, Scottish, Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), German, Swiss-German, and Welsh.
He has said that Bob Dylan is his favorite songwriter and his main influence for initially getting into music. He contributes his shift to more experimental, eccentric music starting with the album "Swordfishtrombones" to the influence of Don Van Vliet. Ironically, Dylans more recent work has been said to be comparable to Waits music.
Is a good friend of Keith Richards who makes frequent appearances as a guitarist on his records.
A big Baz Luhrmann fan.
Bears such a striking resemblance to actor Ron Perlman that he was once credited under the name "Ron Perlman" on a movie poster.
Being a family friend of the Coppolas, he performed at the wedding of Sofia Coppola and Spike Jonze.
Originally slated to play Lefty, one of the singing cowboys in A Prairie Home Companion .
His album "Rain Dogs" is mentioned in the script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .
All of his recent original songs are credited as being written by both Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan , although some of them are written solely by Waits.
His role in Domino is immediately preceded by his own song "Jesus Gonna Be Here," from his 1992 album "Bone Machine".
Lives in Sonoma County, California.
Member of the "Sons of Lee Marvin". Along with Jim Jarmusch (Founder). A private and humorous group consisting of invited members whom could plausibly be Lee Marvins son.
Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 14, 2011. The other inductees were Darlene Love , Neil Diamond , Alice Cooper , Leon Russell and Dr. John.
His father, Frank, was a teacher at the largest high school in Los Angeles, Belmont High School.
Beyond the aforementioned Bob Dylan and Captain Beefheart, Waits is a big fan of Frank Sinatra , Thelonious Monk , the Rolling Stones, Gavin Bryars , the Lounge Lizards, The Pogues, Leonard Cohen , Little Richard , James Brown , Frank Zappa , Elvis Costello , Paul Simon and Prince. His number one favorite album of all time "In the Wee Small Hours" by Sinatra.
Member of the "Sons of Lee Marvin". Along with Jim Jarmusch (Founder). A private and clandestine organisation consisting of invited members whom could plausibly be Lee Marvins son.
(August 2001) Lives in California.
Before she was an established actress Winona Ryder once babysat for Toms children.
Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.
I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil,station.
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.
The Universe is making music all the time.
I’ve always been a word guy, I like weird words and I like American slang and all that and words that are no longer being used… I like to drag them out of the box and wave them around… this is an interesting one, it’s amazing how in addition to punctuation just a little pause in the wrong place can just completely transform the meaning of something.
And I remember quiet evenings trembling close to you. . .
You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
New York, of course, is to be in endless surreal situations where a fifty-thousand dollar, gun-metal Mercedez pulls up into a puddle of blood, and out steps a twenty-five karat blonde transvestite with a two dollar wristwatch.
As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
Mostly, I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
