- Born
- Nicknames
- Runt
- God
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- Considered by many to be the "Ultimate Rock Cult Hero", Todd Rundgren has maintained a legion of fans through four decades, rivaled only by Grateful Dead. Todd was raised in the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) area, and his first professional bands, Money and Woddy's Truckstop, achieved much regional success. It was in the late 1960s, however, that Todd's searing guitar work reached a nationwide audience, in his role as lead guitarist for the blues-psychedelic band Nazz. he wrote and arranged almost all of the work that went into the three albums the group produced. Their music ranged from Southern blues to hard rock to heavily orchestrated symphonies. Nazz broke up in the early 1970s and Todd released two solo albums under the name of Runt. His first big solo success was in 1971 with "We Gotta Get You a Woman" and in 1973 from the double album "Something/Anything?" he scored big on the charts with "I Saw the Light" and a revision of a Nazz song, "Hello, It's Me." Perhaps the superstardom that seemed imminent at this time eluded Rundgren due to his reluctance to be pigeonholed into any single type of music. He still released albums with great love ballads, but they were also laced with heavy guitar rock, and occasionally mini rock operas. Rundgren has scored huge as a music producer, most notably on Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" opus. In the late 1970s and through the 1980s Todd formed the group Utopia, each member an accomplished musician and vocalist. In recent years Rundgren has become a computer enthusiast, marketing many new innovations, some in conjunction with his music. He has also been called on by films and TV for his musical scores. Todd also maintains his own website.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Buxx Banner <Buxx572@aol.com>
- SpouseMichele Gray(June 22, 1998 - present) (1 child)
- Liv Tyler's stepfather.
- Recorded and produced an album entitled "Acapella", which featured only his voice, processed through various electronic devices, to emulate various musical instruments.
- Co-inventor of the Flowfazer, a computer program that generates visual effects.
- His creation of the first color graphics tablet in 1980 was licensed to Apple Computers and released as "The Utopia Graphics Tablet."
- In 1978, he performed the first interactive television concert, broadcast live over the Warner/QUBE system in Columbus, Ohio (the home audience chose each song in real time during the concert by voting via QUBE's 2-way operating system).
- That's what I like about Frank Ocean or Bon Iver - they try to capture a feeling in the most sincere way.
- It's hard for me to say that what I'm doing isn't even really music, because deep inside of me, what I want to do is much greater than music.
- People get comfort from music. They get joy from it and understanding from it, and most of all, the average person can't do without it in some sense.
- All it takes to become president is money and a certain kind of power. Being president is the first thing I can shoot for, not the highest. It may come to a point where people take rock and roll musicians more seriously than they take politicians. It may eventually turn out that musicians have more credibility.
- I've always done very 'composed' music and worked-out solos. But sometimes it's fun not knowing where you're going.
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