Nick Laird-Clowes

Who is Nick Laird-Clowes?

Nick Laird-Clowes is a musician and composer, most famous as the lead singer and one of the principal songwriters for the band the Dream Academy. His most famous songs include "Life in a Northern Town", "The Love Parade", "The Edge of Forever", "This World", "Indian Summer", "Power to Believe" and "12/8 Angel".

He was also a presenter for the first series of the Channel 4 music show, The Tube.

He was a member of Alfalpha and the Act, which predate the Dream Academy.

His solo album, Mona Lisa Overdrive, was released under the name Trashmonk in 1999 under Alan McGee's Creation Records, and re-released a few years later with two extra tracks under the reinvented PopTones label, again by McGee.

A friend of David Gilmour, with whom he co-produced both 'The Dream Academy' and 'A Different Kind of Weather' albums, he also contributed lyrics to two songs on Pink Floyd's album The Division Bell. As Trashmonk, he opened for some of Gilmour's performances in the early 2000s.

In recent years, he has been heavily involved in film soundtracks and documentaries, producing the score for The Invisible Circus, directed by Adam Brooks & starring Cameron Diaz. He was the musical consultant for Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and was responsible for composing the music for Fierce People, a 2005 film directed by Griffin Dunne, starring Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland and 'Wit Licht', directed by Jean van de Velde.