Tom Odell

Biography

Thomas Peter Odell (born 24 November 1990) is an English singer-songwriter. His debut EP, Songs from Another Love, was released in 2012, earning him a BRITs Critics' Choice Award. He won an Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year in 2014. His first full-length album, Long Way Down, came out in 2013 and was followed by Wrong Crowd in 2016. Odell went on to release Jubilee Road (2018) and Monsters (2021), both through Columbia Records. In 2022, he became an independent artist and released two more studio albums: Best Day of My Life (2022) and Black Friday (2024), the latter featuring the breakout track "Black Friday", which is one of his most successful singles to date. In 2025, he published A Wonderful Life.

== Early life == Odell was born in Chichester, West Sussex, England, to an airline pilot father and a primary school teacher mother. He has an older sister. He spent part of his childhood living in Auckland, New Zealand after his family moved to the country. He was educated at Bishop Luffa School and Seaford College in West Sussex but also recalls attending school in New Zealand. Throughout his school years, Odell wrote songs in a band that had trouble maintaining a lead singer. This trouble inspired him to start singing the songs he wrote, and Odell says he "sang [the songs] how [he] wanted them to sound" rather than worrying about someone else not bringing his vision to life. At 18, Odell abandoned plans to attend the University of York and attempted to gain a place at a music college in Liverpool. A year later, he moved back to Chichester after being made redundant from his job as a barman. Using his grandmother's car, he travelled regularly to London to play shows and to put advertisements in music schools. He studied at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM) in Brighton playing as part of the band Tom & the Tides before moving to London where he decided to become a solo artist because he "didn't want to have to rely on people".

== Career ==

=== 2012–2013: Career beginnings and Long Way Down === Odell was signed to In the Name Of, an imprint of Columbia Records. He was discovered by the label head Lily Allen, who remarked that "his energy onstage reminded me of David Bowie". He released his debut extended play, Songs from Another Love, in October 2012. He made his television debut in November 2012 as a performer on Later... with Jools Holland; the show's producer Alison Howe later described it as "a classic Later debut". Odell was announced as one of 15 nominees for the BBC Sound of 2013 poll in January 2013. Also that month, his single "Another Love" was used by the BBC to advertise their 2013 schedule. Odell's music has been used in numerous Burberry fashion runway shows. He was named the BRITs' Critics' Choice Award winner, previously won by artists such as Adele and Florence and the Machine and was the first male artist to win the award, and was interviewed alongside previous winner Emeli Sandé during the television ceremony in February 2013. Odell's debut album, Long Way Down, was released on 24 June 2013 and reached No. 1 in the UK Official Chart. He was due to support The Rolling Stones at London's Hyde Park on 13 July 2013, but was unable to perform because of illness.

=== 2014–2015: Recognition ===

Odell performed his first new song since the release of Long Way Down, entitled "Alex", on 7 February 2014 at the Plymouth Pavilions. The show kicked off the last leg of his UK Long Way Down Tour. Odell was named 'songwriter of the year' at the 2014 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony. Odell's song "Can't Pretend" was used in the TV series The 100. "Can't Pretend" and "Long Way Down" were also featured on The Blacklist and the award-winning movie The Fault In Our Stars. His song "Grow Old With Me" was featured in an episode of Reign. The song was also featured in a major 60 second ad campaign for Kaiser Permanente entitled "Thrive". His song "Heal" was also used in the film If I Stay and The Miracle Season, and the TV series NCIS, The Vampire Diaries and Elementary along with "Another Love". Odell's next song, a cover of "Real Love" by The Beatles, was the audio track to the 2014 John Lewis Christmas advert and gained him great publicity. Within hours of the advert being aired for the first time, the track reached to the top of the music recognition service Shazam’s trending list. Within three days of release, it went straight to 21 in the UK top 40, peaking at 7. In 2014, during Tomorrowland (festival), Swedish DJ Avicii premiered a collaboration between him and Odell. It hasn't been released, but it was titled "Can't Love You Again", according to the official tracklist. Avicii has previously stated on Quora, that the song was due to release on a 2016 album, but both the album and the song was cancelled later. Odell's music was featured in a Sony advert in 2016, with a cover of "True Colours" by Cyndi Lauper.

=== 2016–2017: Wrong Crowd === Odell began working on his second studio album in 2015, and played a variety of new songs at Forest Live, a concert series in England's forests by the Forestry Commission. On 4 April 2016, the first single, "Wrong Crowd", was released, and an upcoming second studio album of the same name was announced. In addition, Odell announced that he would be going on tour in the US and Europe. On 15 April 2016, the second single from the album, "Magnetised", was released. The next day, Odell revealed that his sold-out shows were titled the No Bad Days Tour, which kicked off on 20 April 2016 in London. The full album was released on 10 June 2016. In an interview with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning, Odell revealed that in some countries outside the UK, audiences have misunderstood the title of the album to be an insult, that they are in fact a bad crowd or so to speak the 'wrong crowd'.

=== 2017–2020: Jubilee Road ===