Biography
Badly Drawn Boy was the performing alias of English songwriter Damon Gough. Known for his bedraggled appearance onstage, Gough did a unique mix of pastoral folk, orchestral pop and hip-hop, earning cult-hero status through a string of indie releases. His first vinyl record, the EP EP1, was recorded in his bedroom, and he played low-key gigs around Manchester in the mid-'90s; his stage name was borrowed from a TV show, Sam & the Magic Ball. Gough's career began in earnest during a night of clubbing when he met Manchester DJ Andy Votel; he was impressed by Gough's demos and the two agreed to start a label together. The label Twisted Nerve operated until 2012 and had releases by 19 different artists, including both of the founders. But its first real success was Badly Drawn Boy's first full album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, released to great acclaim in 2000. An elaborate production with 18 tracks and 20 musicians (and Giough playing nearly two dozen instruments himself), it won that year's Mercury Prize and its success led to Gough being commissioned to score the movie "About a Boy" (2001), based on Nick Hornby's novel. Gough's next album, Have You Fed the Fish?, was recorded in Los Angeles and sported a slicker sound, yielding his only UK Top Ten hit, "You Were Right." However his career was entering a difficult stretch as later albums (including 2006's Born in the UK, which referenced his longtime hero Bruce Springsteen) didn't match the acclaim of the debut. He also developed a well-documented habit of losing his temper onstage: At one show in Northampton UK, he pronounced the venue a "s---hole" and threw a tambourine at a woman who disagreed. More successful were his later returns to soundtracking; he scored the UK TV drama "The Fattest Man in Britain" in 2009 and the movie "Being Flynn" in 2012. During the summer of 2015 he marked the anniversary of The Hour of Bewilderbeast by performing the album in full for the first time on a seven-city UK tour. The shows found Gough in an upbeat mood and ended with a cover of Springsteen's "Thunder Road."
