Thomas Michael Fletcher (born 17 July 1985) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, composer, author and vlogger. He is one of the lead vocalists and rhythm guitarist of English pop rock band McFly, in addition to being the group's founder. He originally auditioned for, and was accepted into the band Busted before losing out on the place after the record label decided the band should be a trio rather than a four-piece, but still carried on writing with the band. In his 20-year career as a professional songwriter, Fletcher has penned 10 UK number one singles and 21 top-ten singles. He is credited as having written songs for One Direction, Busted, the Vamps and 5 Seconds of Summer. Early life Fletcher attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London, where, at the age of 13, he met Giovanna Falcone, whom he would later marry in 2012. He has a younger sister, Carrie Hope Fletcher, who is a musical theatre actress. When he was 10 years old, Fletcher starred as the main role in Oliver! at the London Palladium alongside Jim Dale as Fagin. He then went on to do a documentary about HIV for schools and starred in a commercial. In 1995, Fletcher made a small appearance in the video for the Mike + The Mechanics single "Over My Shoulder". When Fletcher was a schoolchild, he was schoolmates with Busted bassist Matt Willis. Musical career At a very young age, Fletcher began writing music commercially. He originally auditioned for band Busted, but lost out on the place to Charlie Simpson after the record label Island Records decided the band should be a trio rather than a four-piece; Fletcher states that he was in the band "for about 24 hours." This led to a job with the band's songwriting team, mainly because of the label's intrigue with his writing talents, Fletcher then got to know Busted band member James Bourne, which would then lead to a strong songwriting relationship between the two. He has since stated that it was Bourne who taught him "how to structure a pop hit". McFly During the writing project for Busted's second album A Present for Everyone, Fletcher was asked by the record label if he was available to film auditions for a new band, V. It was at this time that he and Danny Jones met for the first time; Jones went to the audition