Ainslie Henderson

Ainslie Thomas Henderson (born 28 January 1979) is a Scottish animator and singer-songwriter.

In 1998, Henderson started Scottish rock band Suburbia with bass player Alasdair Crooks.

Henderson acted as Suburbia's main vocalist, with guitarist Peter Deane (then replaced by Chris Plews in early 1999), and drum player Simon Usher.

Suburbia caught the attention of major American recording labels such as Capitol Records, Interscope Records and RCA Records before eventually securing a recording contract with record label City of Angels based in Los Angeles.

This introduced Suburbia to collaborators such as Tony Visconnti and Scott Litt.

During the course of Suburbia's activity, Henderson lauded as a "storm-voiced troubadour" by The List's Sarah Dempster, who "command[ed] total attention" by Southern Reporter's Sarah Williamson.

He gained fame via his participation in the BBC's television programme, Fame Academy, in 2002. He signed a recording contract with Mercury Records after leaving the show, having been placed fourth.

His subsequent single, "Keep Me a Secret", written alongside fellow contestants in Fame Academy, reached the fifth position on the UK Singles Chart.

When City of Angels went bankrupt, Suburbia split in March 2002 on amicable terms.

After his departure from the show, he was signed to Mercury and, in March 2003, released a solo single of "Keep Me a Secret" with "Take Out Time" as the B-side, which entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 5.

Henderson became unhappy with the direction his musical career was taking with Mercury.

In late 2003, before releasing the album or a second single, Henderson was dropped.

Although he was allowed to retain the rights of the songs he had already written and recorded, they have never been released.

One of their songs, "Always", appeared on the soundtrack of football simulation video game, FIFA Football 2004, after the band's split two years ago. Suburbia did not yield a full studio album despite having announced a work-in-progress album titled "Anyone can be anyone" which consisted of six songs.

The album was described to be surrounded by themes of coming-of-age and teenage angst.

Suburbia saw their sole official release in the form of a 4-track self-titled extended play that included demo versions of songs meant for their album.

After his Fame Academy stint, Henderson considered having Suburbia members act as his touring band.

After the split of Suburbia, Henderson lived in London as an unemployed songwriter and had deferred his entry into Edinburgh University for six years.

He then auditioned for and appeared in the first series of the BBC talent/reality show Fame Academy, which incorporated an elimination system that allowed both viewers and participants to vote for a contestant to be eliminated.

During his time participating in the show, Henderson wrote "Keep Me a Secret" with fellow contestants Malachi Cush and Sinéad Quinn and "Take Out Time" with Mark Hunter and Saul Davies of James, as well as co-writing "Lullaby" with contestant Lemar Obika.

All three tracks would later reach the top 5 in the UK Singles Chart, the latter two as B-sides.

Henderson was voted off the show in the penultimate week, coming fourth.

In 2004, Henderson visited the US to collaborate with the American singer-songwriter Jason Mraz, co-writing the song "Clockwatching" which appears on Mraz's album, Mr. A-Z.

In 2006, Henderson independently released his debut album, Growing Flowers by Candlelight, which consisted of indie rock and acoustic songs.

He revealed one track, "Coming Up for Air", on his MySpace profile in 2006.

This has since been released officially on Amazon music.

In promotion of the album, he embarked on a series of live music shows in the UK throughout 2007 and 2008.

In the same year, Henderson starred in short film Mono directed by British screenwriter Richard Smith.

In 2009, Henderson took a break from music and attended the Edinburgh College of Art, where he met future collaborator Will Anderson.

In 2011, the two collaborated on documentary animated film The Making of Longbird, for which Henderson co-wrote and animated.

His graduation film, I Am Tom Moody (2012), received a BAFTA Award nomination in 2014.

The film went on to win a BAFTA for Short Animation in 2013.

Since then, Henderson has worked on both solo and collaborative projects.

In 2014, Henderson collaborated with Anderson on animation short film Monkey Love Experiments, which went on to win a BAFTA Scotland Award in 2014 and receive a BAFTA Award nomination in 2015.

Henderson also animated a music video for the single "Moving On" by the band James.

In 2015, Henderson collaborated with Anderson on short film Stems as a director, together with British composer Poppy Ackroyd, which earned a BAFTA Scotland Award.

In 2019, Henderson directed stop motion short film Archie.

In 2022, Henderson co-wrote and directed documentary film A Cat Called Dom with Anderson.

Henderson's 2023 film, again in collaboration with Anderson and Ackroyd, was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland Award.

Henderson mostly works with the stop-motion medium, with materials such as plasticine.