Brian Eno ( ; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, sound designer and political activist. He is known for his pioneering contributions to ambient and electronic music, and for producing, recording, and writing works in rock and pop music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures. In 2019, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.
Born in Melton, Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at Ipswich Civic College's art school in the mid-1960s, and then at the Winchester School of Art. He joined Roxy Music as their keyboardist in 1971, contributing to their first two albums, and left in 1973. With the guitarist Robert Fripp, he recorded (No Pussyfooting) (1973) using tape-delay and reel-to-reel loops. In 1974, Eno released his first solo albums, Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Eno released the genre-fusing Another Green World (1975) the following year, which has been described as "a universally acknowledged masterpiece". Concluding his pop and rock run, he released the Oblique Strategies-inspired album Before and After Science in December 1977. At this time, Eno began to compose and release minimalist music via classically-constructed electronic composition. Several albums exemplifying this approach include Discreet Music (1975), Fripp & Eno's Evening Star (1975), the Moebius-Roedelius collaborations Cluster & Eno (1977) and After the Heat (1978), and Music for Films (1978).
During 1978, Eno recorded electronic music intended to be both compositive-friendly and "as ignorable as possible". The result was the start of the Ambient series, Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1979), an album credited with coining the term "ambient music", and described as the greatest in the genre's history by Pitchfork. He went on to record the second part with Harold Budd, The Plateaux of Mirror (1980). After producing the Laraaji-released third instalment Day of Radiance (1980), Eno released On Land in 1982, the last of the series. Eno, along with his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois, released Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983), the ambient-driven soundtrack of the delayed NASA film For All Mankind (1989).
Eno has been a producer and occasional backing musician for several artists since the start of his career. David Bowie, an admirer of Eno's work, recruited Eno in his production line-up in Berlin. Those recorded in Berlin (Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977) (which also featured Robert Fripp), and Lodger (1979)), in what became known as the Berlin Trilogy, became some of Bowie's most acclaimed material. Eno became Talking Heads' co-producer in 1978, producing More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979) and Remain in Light (1980); the latter has been called one of the greatest albums. He and Daniel Lanois were also U2's head producers, producing The Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), and Achtung Baby (1991). He became a producer and writer for Coldplay in 2007, producing their album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008) and co-writing all of Mylo Xyloto (2011).
Eno has also collaborated with John Cale, Devo, Peter Gabriel and Genesis, David Byrne, Slowdive, James, Laurie Anderson, Robert Wyatt, Grace Jones, Karl Hyde, and Fred Again. An advocate for humanitarian causes, Eno writes on a variety of subjects and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation. He is an activist on behalf of environmental, anti-war and pro-Palestinian causes.
Early life Brian Peter George Eno was born on 15 May 1948 in the village of Melton, Suffolk, England. He is the son of William Arnold Eno (1916–1988), a postal worker and clock and watch repairer, and Maria Alphonsine (née Buslot; 1922–2005), a Belgian national. His grandfather was a multi-instrumentalist who played the saxophone and bassoon and built and repaired pianos and church organs. Eno is the eldest of three children; he has a brother, Roger, and sister Arlette. They have a half-sister, Rita, from their mother's previous relationship. The surname Eno is derived from the Huguenot surname Hennot. Eno was raised Catholic.
In 1959, Eno attended St Joseph's College, Ipswich, a Catholic grammar school of the De La Salle Brothers order. His confirmation name is taken from the founder of the De La Salle Brothers, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, giving "Brian Peter George St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno". During this time, he began to listen to American R&B, blues and doo wop artists such the Lafayettes, Don and Juan, the Silhouettes and Little Richard. He was also inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, whom he discovered while staying with Carl Otto Eno, his uncle, an art collector.
While at school, Eno used a tape recorder as a musical instrument. In 1964 he joined his first group, the Black Aces, with Eno on drums, that he formed with three friends he met at the youth club he visited in Melton. By 1964, after earning four O-levels, including in art and mathematics, Eno had developed an interest in art and music and had no interest in a conventional job. He enrolled at the Ipswich School of Art, taking the newly established Groundcourse foundation art degree established by the new media artist Roy Ascott. One of Eno's teachers was the artist Tom Phillips, who became a lifelong friend and encouraged his musical ability. Phillips recalled the pair stripping pianos, aligning them in a hall and striking them with tennis balls.
In late 1967, Eno formed the Merchant Taylor's Simultaneous Cabinet, an avant-garde performance trio with Winchester undergraduates. This was followed by short stints in multiple avant-garde and college groups, including the Maxwell Demon and Dandelion and the War Damage, with Eno as frontman who adopted a theatrical persona on stage and played the guitar. In 1969, Eno graduated with a diploma in Fine Arts at the Winchester School of Art. At Winchester, Eno attended a lecture by the Who guitarist Pete Townshend, another former student of Ascott. He cited this as the moment when he realised he could make music without formal training.
Career 1969—1971 In 1969, after separating from his wife, Eno moved to London, where his professional music career began. He became involved with the Scratch Orchestra and the Portsmouth Sinfonia. Eno's first appearance on a commercially released recording is the Deutsche Grammophon edition of The Great Learning (1971) by Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra, which features Eno as one of the voices on the track "Paragraph 7". He also appeared on the soundtrack to Berlin Horse (1970), a nine-minute avant-garde art film by Malcolm Le Grice. For three months, Eno worked as paste-up assistant for the advertisement section of a local paper. He quit and became an electronics dealer by making new cabinets for old speakers and selling them to friends.
In 1971, Eno co-formed the glam rock band Roxy Music following a chance meeting with the saxophonist Andy Mackay.Strong, Martin C. (2000). The Great Rock Discography (5th ed.). Edinburgh: Mojo Books. p. 838. ISBN 1-84195-017-3. Eno later said: "If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now." Eno played on their first two albums, Roxy Music (1972) and For Your Pleasure (1973). He used the EMS VCS 3 synthesiser and is credited for tape effects, backing vocals and production. Initially, Eno did not appear on stage at Roxy Music shows, but operated the mixing desk off-stage, where he had a microphone and sing backup vocals. After the group secured a record deal, Eno joined them on stage playing the synthesiser and became known for his flamboyant and androgynous costumes and makeup. After the For Your Pleasure tour ended in mid-1973, Eno quit Roxy Music, citing disagreements with the lead singer, Bryan Ferry.
1973—1974
In 1973, Eno released (No Pussyfooting), a collaboration with the King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp. It was recorded using tape looping and delay systems, later known as Frippertronics. The record is hailed as groundbreaking for developments in drone and what would later be termed ambient music. In 1975, Eno and Fripp released Evening Star and completed a European tour before Fripp temporarily retired from music. Eno's first solo studio album, Here Come the Warm Jets, was released in February 1974, along with a documentary filmed during its recording, Eno. Several songs features Fripp's guitar. The album was acclaimed on initial reviews and came to be regarded as a classic.
In February 1974, Eno embarked on his first tour as a solo artist, backed by London pub rock band the Winkies. To promote the tour, they recorded a session for John Peel, as well as the single "Seven Deadly Finns", backed with the B-side "Later On", which was a sound collage composed of various short segments from the No Pussyfooting LP and was released that March. However, Eno was forced to cancel the remainder of the tour after he suffered from a collapsed lung following the sixth date of the tour at the Guildford Civic Hall, and his working relationship with The Winkies ceased following this, although Winkies bassist Brian Turrington became a frequent collaborator on subsequent albums, including on Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) that autumn.
Eno and Kevin Ayers contributed music for the experimental/spoken word album Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy (1974) by poet June Campbell Cramer, while also producing the Portsmouth Sinfonia's 1974 albums Plays the Popular Classics and Hallelujah! The Portsmouth Sinfonia Live at the Royal Albert Hall, both of which feature Eno playing clarinet. After recording it in September that year, Eno released his second solo studio album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), in November 1974. Featuring fellow artists and collaborators such as Phil Collins, Phil Manzanera, Robert Wyatt and Andy Mackay, the album featured numerous efforts of art pop and rock, but distanced itself from the psychedelic qualities of Here Come the Warm Jets. Taking Tiger Mountain contains the track "Third Uncle", which has been regarded as one of Eno's best-known songs of his pop and rock phase, owing in part to its later cover by Bauhaus. Critic Dave Thompson wrote that the song is "a near punk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion" which "could, in other hands, be a heavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavish air guitarist".
1974—1976
Between 1974 and 1975, Eno began to write new material for a third solo studio album. Within this time, in January 1975, Eno was hit by a taxi cab while crossing the street and spent several weeks recuperating and room-ridden at home. During this time, one of Eno's closest friends and fellow artist Judy Nylon had brought him a record of 18th century harp music. After she had left, he put on the record and lay down. He then realised that he had set the amplifier to a very low volume, and one channel of the stereo was not working, but he lacked the energy to get up and correct it.