Alexis Taylor (born 20 April 1980) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist, keyboardist, and guitarist of the band Hot Chip. He is also the keyboardist of the band

About Group Dotdash Meredith (formerly About.com) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, l ...

and has released solo material.

Early life

Alexis Taylor was born in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on 20 April 1980, the son of a Greek mother and an English father. His mother is a psychoanalyst, while his father is a professor of English at a university.

Career

Taylor formed Hot Chip with Joe Goddard while at Elliot Secondary School in the

Putney Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ancient paris ...

area of London. He studied English at

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

from 1999 to 2002, during which time Hot Chip played a variety of gigs (with various line-ups) at Cambridge's live music venues. In 2007, Taylor and Hot Chip produced a two-song album, ''Doubleshaw'', as Booji Boy High under the pseudonyms Georgios Panayiotou and Mother Markzbow. The name

Booji Boy Booji Boy is a character created in the early 1970s by the American new wave band Devo. The name is pronounced "Boogie Boy"—the strange spelling "Booji" resulted when the band was using Letraset to produce captions for a film, and ran out of ...

comes from the character created by Devo. After the release of Hot Chip's second album, '' The Warning'', Taylor released his first solo album, ''

Rubbed Out ''Rubbed Out'' is the first solo album by the leader of British indie electronic band Hot Chip, Alexis Taylor. It was released on October 13, 2008 in the UK. According to Taylor, he "just made it there wasn't any thinking behind it really." The ...

'', in 2008. The same year he formed the improvisational quartet About Group with Spring Heel Jack's John Coxon, pianist Pat Thomas and former

This Heat This Heat were an English experimental rock band, formed in early 1976 in Camberwell, London by multi-instrumentalists Charles Bullen (guitar, clarinet, viola, vocals, tapes), Charles Hayward (drums, keyboards, vocals, tapes) and Gareth Wil ...

drummer Charles Hayward. A solo EP, ''Nayim From the Halfway Line'', was released on

Domino Recording Company Domino Recording Company or simply Domino is a British independent record label based in London. There is also a wing of the label based in Brooklyn, New York that handles releases in the United States, as well as a German division called Dom ...

in 2012, and in 2014 the same label released the album ''Await Barbarians''. In June 2016, Taylor released ''Piano'', the follow-up album to ''Await Barbarians''. An accompanying album, ''Listen With(out) Piano'', was released in March 2017. It features re-works of tracks from ''Piano'' with other musicians; both albums can be played separately or at the same time. In February 2018, Taylor announced his new album, ''Beautiful Thing''. The album was produced by

Tim Goldsworthy Tim Goldsworthy is a British record producer, DJ and recording artist. Career Originally a musician/producer for Unkle with James Lavelle, he later worked with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and was formerly joint owner of DFA Records. G ...

, co-founder of

DFA Records DFA Records is an American independent record label founded in 2001 by Mo' Wax co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, musician James Murphy, and manager Jonathan Galkin. They previously had a production team called The DFA, consisting of Goldsworthy and ...

Albums

* 2008 - ''

'' - Treader * 2014 - ''Await Barbarians'' -

Domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also c ...

* 2016 - ''Piano'' - Moshi Moshi * 2017 - ''Listen With(out) Piano'' - Moshi Moshi Records * 2018 - '' Beautiful Thing'' - Domino * 2021 - ''Silence'' -

AWAL AWAL (an initialism of Artists Without a Label) is a British music distribution company owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The company serves as an alternative to the traditional music label deal, offering deal structures to artists and independ ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Alexis Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge English record producers English rock keyboardists English male singers Atomic Bomb! Band members Domino Recording Company artists 1980 births Singers from London Hot Chip members