Matt Johnson

Matthew Johnson (born 15 August 1961) is an English singer-songwriter best known as the lead vocalist and only constant member of his band The The. He is also a film soundtrack composer (Cinéola), publisher (Fifty First State Press), broadcaster (Radio Cineola), conservationist, and local activist. Johnson grew up with his three brothers, Eugene, Andrew (the artist Andy Dog Johnson), and Gerard, in east London. Much of his youth was spent in or around the Two Puddings, a London pub run by his family over the course of 40 years. In 1979, Johnson placed an advert in NME looking for like-minded fans of the Velvet Underground, the Residents and Throbbing Gristle to form a band with him. The The began as a duo, then a four-piece, then a singular entity with a rotating cast of musicians that has included Sinéad O'Connor, Gail Ann Dorsey, Simon Fisher Turner, Johnny Marr of the Smiths, and David Palmer of ABC. "I like to think of The The as a fluid thing", Johnson said in a 1993 Melody Maker interview. "People can work with me, then stop for a bit, then work again." In 1981, Johnson released the studio album Burning Blue Soul on 4AD under his own name (since re-released under the name the The), still regarded by some as a much overlooked masterpiece. In 1982, Marc and the Mambas released their debut studio album called Untitled and Johnson was part of the ensemble put together by Marc Almond of Soft Cell. By 1983 Johnson and Keith Laws the artists signed to Some Bizzare Records t…