Tom Fletcher

Thomas Michael Fletcher (born 17 July 1985) is an English musician, composer, author and vlogger.

He is one of the lead vocalists and rhythm guitarist of English pop rock band McFly, in addition to being the group's founder.

In his 20-year career as a professional songwriter, Fletcher has written 10 UK number one singles and 21 top-ten singles.

He is credited as having written songs for One Direction, Busted, the Vamps and 5 Seconds of Summer.

Fletcher was born on 17 July 1985, in Harrow, London.

In 1995, Fletcher made a small appearance in the video for the Mike + The Mechanics single "Over My Shoulder".

When Fletcher was a schoolchild, he was schoolmates with Busted bassist Matt Willis.

At a very young age, Fletcher began writing music commercially.

He originally auditioned for band Busted, but lost out on the place to Charlie Simpson after the record label Island Records decided the band should be a trio rather than a four-piece; Fletcher states that he was in the band "for about 24 hours."

This led to a job with the band's songwriting team, mainly because of the label's intrigue with his writing talents, Fletcher then got to know Busted band member James Bourne, which would then lead to a strong songwriting relationship between the two.

He has since stated that it was Bourne who taught him "how to structure a pop hit".

During the writing project for Busted's second album A Present for Everyone, Fletcher was asked by the record label if he was available to film auditions for a new band, V.

It was at this time that he and Danny Jones met for the first time; Jones went to the audition mistaking the band to be a Busted-esque band, rather than the conventional, all-singing, all-dancing, boy band for which they were intended.

Impressed with Jones's style, Fletcher invited him to write with him and Bourne.

When writing projects for Busted had come to an end, the two began collaborating for their own (as yet unnamed) band, and, eventually, moved into the InterContinental Hotel in London for two months to concentrate on writing together.

During this time together Fletcher and Jones wrote most of their first album, Room on the 3rd Floor.

Bassist Dougie Poynter and drummer Harry Judd were subsequently recruited via a classified advertisement.

Fletcher came up with the idea to name the band after Marty McFly, the main character from his favorite film Back to the Future.

McFly then rose to fame after Busted helped launch them by inviting them to be the opening act on their tour in March 2004

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In 2004, McFly made it into the Guinness Book of World Records, beating the Beatles's record for "the youngest band to have a debut album go straight to number one".

Fletcher has written the majority of McFly's songs with Jones and Poynter, with occasional contributions by Judd; Bourne has also assisted with songwriting on occasions.

As of 15 November 2010, McFly have released five studio albums and two compilation albums.

He attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London, where, at the age of 13, he met Giovanna Falcone, whom he would later marry in 2012.

He has a younger sister, Carrie Hope Fletcher, who is a musical theatre actress.

When he was 10 years old, Fletcher starred as the main role in Oliver! at the London Palladium alongside Jim Dale as Fagin.

He then went on to do a documentary about HIV for schools and starred in a commercial.

A greatest hits album entitled Memory Lane: The Best of McFly which includes a number of B-sides from earlier albums, original demos of well known tracks as well as three new singles, was released in November 2012.

As well as being the founding member of McFly, Fletcher plays rhythm guitar, shares lead vocals with Danny Jones, and sometimes undertakes the role of ukulele player and pianist.

Fletcher has written or co-written 10 UK number-one singles: "Crashed the Wedding", "Who's David?", and "Thunderbirds" for Busted; and "Five Colours in Her Hair", "Obviously", "All About You," "I'll Be OK", "Please, Please", "Star Girl", and "Transylvania" for McFly.

He co-wrote eight of the songs on A Present for Everyone, as well as all but one ("Not Alone", written by Jones) of the tracks on McFly's debut album, Room on the 3rd Floor.

He is the primary writer on the majority of tracks on all seven of the band's albums.

Of McFly's four members, he has "the most songwriting credits and therefore the most money".

Fletcher wrote "On a Rainbow", the official song of the 2012 Summer Olympics' mascots Wenlock and Mandeville.

The song features vocals from him and his sister Carrie Hope Fletcher.

He also wrote the song "I Want" for One Direction's debut album Up All Night, and co-wrote (with Dougie Poynter and Danny Jones) "I Would" for their second album Take Me Home and "Don't Forget Where You Belong" for their third album Midnight Memories.

He has co-written several songs with James Bourne including "Chills in the Evening", recorded by V.

He also co-wrote "High Hopes" along with all four members of the Vamps for their debut album, Meet the Vamps.

Fletcher is also credited as having co-written the 5 Seconds of Summer track "Try Hard".

The song was originally released on YouTube on 1 June 2013, and in 2014 featured as a B-Side to their hit single "Don't Stop".