Career
Born in Shoreditch, London, England and an engineer by trade, Tom McCourt formed The 4-Skins in late 1979 along with Gary Hodges, Steve 'H' Harmer and Gary Hitchcock. Their first concert was in summer 1980, supporting The Damned and Cockney Rejects at the Bridge House in Canning Town. McCourt, Hodges and Harmer were all part of the Cockney Rejects road crew, as featured on the back cover of the album Cockney Rejects Greatest Hits Volume 1.
McCourt played guitar on The 4-Skins' first commercially-released recordings (two songs on EMI's 1980 punk compilation, Oi! The Album) before switching to bass for the remainder of the band's existence. McCourt performed vocals in the song "New War", on the 1984 album A Fistful of 4-Skins, and performed lead vocals on a re-recorded version of "Chaos", which was released for the first time on the 2000 4-skins compilation Singles & Rarities.
McCourt was a continuous member of the band through its original incarnation, writing all of the music from 1979 to 1984, as well as writing most of the lyrics after Hodges' departure. McCourt was also a DJ at skinhead/mod bars and clubs in North and East London, such as the Blue Coat Boy at The Angel, Islington. He was known for his encyclopaedic knowledge of 1960s soul music, reggae and ska. McCourt has not joined the reformed line-up of The 4-Skins because, in his opinion, the band "was about youth".
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