Born in 1947 in the UK, he is an English music producer who has worked with: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Roxy Music, Badfinger, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Pulp and the Pretenders. He has also produced landmark albums for the Sex Pistols, Climax Blues Band and INXS.
Thomas studied violin and piano as a child, only to later start playing bass in London pop bands, at one point turning down the opportunity to play with Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell. After a few years, he decided that he was not interested in a career as a concert musician. In a 1998 interview, he stated: “I realised that being in a band, I was dependent on all these other people. It got to me that if I ever had success with a band, I would want to stay in the studio and just make records. I wasn’t that interested in playing live.”
Wanting to break into production, Thomas wrote to The Beatles producer George Martin and was hired as an assistant at AIR, an independent production company set up by Martin and three other EMI producers. Thomas has produced (without credit) The Beatles’ “Birthday” and “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”. He has worked with Procol Harum (four albums) and with Pink Floyd on their famous album “Dark Side of the Moon”. He got hired after David Gilmour, Rick Wright, Roger Waters and Nick Mason could not agree on how the album should ultimately be mixed. The producer then became involved with the group Badfinger. In 1976, Malcolm McLaren asked him to produce an album for the Sex Pistols. Thomas’ colleagues in the music industry were horrified by this fact. In 1985, he played a key role in the worldwide success of the Australian band INXS. Chris Thomas has won the Rolling Stone Critics’ “Producer of the Year” award, the “Billboard” magazine’ “Producer of the Year”, as well as Grammy and Brit Awards. During the Soundedit Festival, he will be honoured with the “Man with the Golden Ear” statuette in recognition of his visionary and pioneering solutions in music production.
