Biography

Phil Thornalley 1981

I grew up next door to a very musical Italian American family and with their influence I discovered the passion of playing, singing and writing music. Two of the brothers, Mike and Tony Nocito, and I played the US airforce bases in Suffolk in a 9 piece Soul band led by a terrific singer called Al Sharp. And we made money!

In 1978 I started work in the music business as an assistant engineer at RAK studios in London. Making tea, placing mics and operating the tape machine for The Jam, Paul McCartney’s Wings and lots of post-punk bands. My boss was the legendary producer Mickie Most (Hot Chocolate, The Animals, Jeff Beck, Kim Wilde). His approach was “Find a great singer – find them a smash song – make a hit record”. He made it seem that easy. Ouch!

I graduated to recording engineer and worked with two more successful and inspirational producers, Steve Lillywhite (U2) and Alex Sadkin (Bob Marley). From 1980 I started producing and began with The Cure (“Pornography”, ”Love Cats”) . I became a mixer for hire working on albums for Sting, XTC and DuranDuran. I joined The Cure as bass player for 18 months and toured the world posing with my foot on the monitors as smoke billowed up my trousers.

Eventually I ‘moved on’ and resumed producing. At the studio I would stay ‘after hours’ to record my own songs and was signed to MCA in the USA and made my flop solo album “Swamp”. By this time my childhood friend Mike Nocito had started the group Johnny Hates Jazz and invited me to join for their second album called “Tall Stories”. I realized that my passion was for writing songs; not performing them. AHA! The penny drops….

On a writing session with Anne Previn and Scott Cutler we wrote the song “Torn”. 5 years later I produced Natalie Imbruglia performing it and the accompanying album “Left Of The Middle” including 5 other songs of mine eventually sold 9 million copies. Voila! It was as though a door had swung open for me and I found my new songs were now better and being recorded by other artists. Check out the Never Ending Discography on the site.

Recently I’ve enjoyed Three UK Number One’s with Pixie  (“Mama Do”,“Boys & Girls” and “Cry Me Out”). I have written for the stage (West End Show “Dreamboats And Petticoats”) and also had TV commercials for Peugot, Dreams Beds & FindAProperty (see the Links page).

I’ve had the opportunity to work with great contemporary songwriters such as Don Black and Bryan Adams and I’m enjoying a productive writing and producing partnership with Mads Hauge.

Latest releases include songs by Eliza Doolittle (‘Go Home”) , Darren Hayes (“Nearly Love”),Dionne Bromfield (“Ouch That Hurt!”) & Matt Cardle (“Stars And Lovers”). I must be terrific or lucky. Or both.

Phil