Courtney Taylor-Taylor Biography

Courtney A. Taylor (born July 20, 1967), known as Courtney Taylor-Taylor, is an American singer-songwriter from Portland, Oregon. He is the lead singer and guitarist of alternative rock band The Dandy Warhols, a band he co-founded. The majority of the band's songs are written by Taylor-Taylor, including hits "We Used to Be Friends" and "Bohemian Like You".

Taylor-Taylor co-wrote a graphic novel titled One Model Nation about a fictional 1970s German krautrock band, which was released in 2009. This was accompanied by a studio album titled Totalwerks, Vol. 1 (1969-1977), a fake greatest hits album by the fictional band, released in 2012.

Early life and education

Taylor-Taylor attended Sunset High School in Beaverton, a suburb of Portland and studied sociology, psychology and music at Cascade College, also in Portland. He recalls sticking out as a teenager: "You don't fit in if you're a make-up-wearing weirdo, surrounded by large, clumsy guys and cheerleaders". He found refuge in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Kurt Vonnegut. It was here he met future bandmate Peter Holmstrm.

After graduating, Taylor-Taylor worked as a mechanic while playing drums for the local band Nero's Rome. He was also the drummer in the Portland-based glam rock-pop band The Beauty Stab.

Career

Music career

Taylor-Taylor appears in and narrates the film Dig!, a documentary about the relationship between his band The Dandy Warhols and sometime friends and rivals The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Non-music career

Taylor-Taylor appeared in an episode of the second season of the TV show Veronica Mars, "Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang", performing the song "Love Hurts". He appeared in the 2009 music documentary film The Heart Is a Drum Machine as well as a 2011 episode of the Australian music quiz television show Spicks and Specks.

Taylor-Taylor was one of the contributors to the book Sex Tips from Rock Stars by Paul Miles, published by Omnibus Press in July 2010.

Personal life

Taylor-Taylor informally added the second "Taylor" to his last name around 1999. On the issue of his double-barrelled surname, Taylor-Taylor has said, "There have been so many wonderful explanations that I would hate to stop that by addressing it. It's wonderfully silly and fun so let's keep it that way". Taylor-Taylor has also said that "I was just tripping on the 'my parents are still married' thing. Basically, when my friend Gina Williams started dating my other friend Kevin Williams, they decided to hyphenate their names. So she started calling herself Gina Williams-Williams and then I became Courtney Taylor-Taylor".

Like his cousin and bandmate Brent DeBoer, Taylor-Taylor is of Dutch ancestry.

As the chief songwriter for "Bohemian Like You", Taylor-Taylor earned approximately 1.5 million US dollars in royalties for Vodafone's usage of the song; with part of these earnings, he purchased a quarter of a city block and turned it into a complex with space for recording, film editing, and web design.

On December 22, 2007, Taylor-Taylor married long-time girlfriend Lockett Albritton at the Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River, Oregon. Lockett Taylor is a yoga practitioner and instructor. On February 1, 2010, she gave birth to their first child, a son, Ajax.