- Born
- Birth nameThomas Alan Waits
- Height1.80 m
- Thomas Alan Waits was born in Pomona, California, to schoolteachers Alma Fern (Johnson) and Jesse Frank Waits. Described as one of the last beatniks of the contemporary music, Waits in fact has two separate careers. From 1973 (LP "Closing Time") to 1983 ("One From The Heart" soundtrack), he recorded nine LPs for Asylum Records, writing songs mainly in the manner of Tin Pan Alley, mixing them with jazz and blues. Extraordinarily, he never produced a hit, but he earned a cult following all over the world. In 1983, he signed with Island Records and released a series of albums that stunned the music world. Beginning with "Swordfishtrombones", he introduced a whole new orchestration, which included some of the instruments invented by Harry Partch. He found a new ground for his innovations, searching in sound fields that never before were searched. This second part of his career coincided with his marriage to Kathleen Brennan, a former writer for Francis Ford Coppola (Zoetrope (1999)). His LPs "Rain Dogs" (1985), "Big Time" (soundtrack) and "The Black Rider" are today what Kurt Weill's music was once. "The Black Rider" brings music written for the show directed by Bob Wilson and staged in Germany.- IMDb mini biography by: Dragan Todorovic
- SpouseKathleen Brennan(August 10, 1980 - present) (3 children)
- ParentsAlma Fern Waits (Johnson)Jesse Frank Waits
- Raspy, gravelly singing voice
- Songs about seedy characters and places
- Eccentric personality
- He converted a four-cubic-yard metal box (intended as a debris dumpster) into a musical instrument called a "Strata Dumpster" (aka "Dumpstalele"). He cut a two/foot hole into one side, and stretched seven piano strings across it, fastening them with two welded bridges. The strings can be plucked, strummed, or bowed. He describes the sound as "trainlike and huge, like trash day with a purpose.".
- The photo on the cover of his album "Rain Dogs" includes a man who many believe to be him. It was one of a series of photos taken at the Cafe Lehmitz in Hamburg by the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen. Waits reportedly saw the photo at an exhibition, was taken by the similarity of him and the man in the photo, and asked permission from the photographer to use it as an album cover.
- Bears such a striking resemblance to actor Ron Perlman that he was once erroneously credited as Perlman on a movie poster.
- Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on 14 March 2011. The other inductees were Darlene Love, Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Leon Russell, and Dr. John.
- Uses a large collection of electric megaphones to create unusual tonal effects on his recordings. One of his favorites is a 1944 vintage issued by the US Navy Bureau of Ships, manufactured by Guided Radio Corp. of New York.
- Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.
- No, I don't have a drinking problem except when I can't get a drink.
- I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
- I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil station.
- I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
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