Official Music Bio

Pattinson plays guitar and piano, and composes his own music. He also appears as the singer of two songs on the Twilight movie soundtrack: "Never Think," which he co-wrote with Sam Bradley, and "Let Me Sign," which was written by Marcus Foster and Bobby Long. The songs were included in the film after director Catherine Hardwicke added Pattinson's recordings into an early cut without his knowledge, and he agreed that "one of them specifically, it really made the scene better. It was like it was supposed to be there." The soundtrack for the film How To Be features three original songs performed by Pattinson and written by composer Joe Hastings.

Aside from recording for the soundtracks, Pattinson has said, "I've never really recorded anything - I just played in pubs and stuff", and when asked about a professional music career, he said, "Music is my back-up plan if acting fails."

In early 2008, he performed with his first girlfriend's current boyfriend's band, called Bad Girls. 

In June 2008, Rob's secret MySpace account, registered under his stage name, Bobby Dupea, was discovered and broadcast to the world via Twilight Lexicon fan site.  On his MySpace were some of his live recordings.  The account has since been set to private and seemingly abandoned.

Instruments

• Acoustic guitar

• Piano

Musical Inspirations

Van Morrison

"I don’t know much about contemporary music. I do have an iPod but I listen to a lot of old blues. I listen to John Lee Hooker and Elmore James. I have been listening to them for years. I was obsessed with Van Morrison for years. I went to see him recently where he performed Astral Weeks. I just spent the entire night crying, but I was really obsessed with Van Morrison."

Jay Z

What does a newly minted British movie star do when he hits New York? He heads straight to Brooklyn to visit Bedford-Stuyvesant, apparently. “I visited the Marcy projects this afternoon,” said Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen, the handsome vegetarian vampire in the film “Twilight,” which opens Nov. 21. “It was great. Nobody noticed me at all.” Mr. Pattinson, 22, said that visiting the old stamping ground of one of his musical idols, Jay-Z, brought back memories of his own earlier artistic endeavors.

Acting Inspirations

Jack Nicholson

"I aspire to be Jack Nicholson. I love his every single mannerism. I used to try and be him in virtually everything I did, I don't know why. I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I was about 13, and I dressed like him. I tried to do his accent. I did everything like him. I think it kind of stuck with me."

Rob has performed under the name Bobby Dupea, (in tribute to his favorite actor, Jack Nicholson, and the character Jack played in Five Easy Pieces.)

Other Inspirations

Ian Wright

"I really liked Ian Wright when I was younger. I used to always try and get the double of his sticker for my sticker album."

Quotes On His Musical Past

"When I was 14, I fronted a rap trio.  Pretty hard-core for three private school kids from suburban London.  And my mum’s, like, cramping our style, popping her head in to ask, ‘You boys want a sandwich?’"

"I have been playing the piano for my entire life - since I was three or four. And the guitar - I used to play classical guitar from when I was about five to 12 years of age. Then I didn't play guitar for like years. About four or five years ago, I got out the guitar again and just started playing blues and stuff. I am not very good at the guitar, but I am all right. I am in a band in London as well."

"I am in a band at the moment called Bad Girls. The band belongs to my first girlfriend’s current boyfriend and he was having an open mic night. He invited me to sing, but it was just a bit of fun – that was about six months ago. I don’t know where that’s going to go."

"[The band] is kind of like rocky Led Zeppelin type stuff. We only have done a couple of gigs. We are still trying to figure out its style. It is just a couple of friends of mine and some other people that I have met fairly recently. We just wanted to start a band for something to do. A lot of my friends are actors and we have so little to do all the time, so instead of just being bored, we were like, ‘Why not start a band?’ So we did!"

"I won’t consider it [an album] until I quit acting. I’ve only played in pubs. I had never recorded anything or made money with music. Maybe just 60 Euros for playing here and there. I don’t want to become a franchise like the Disney kids."

"I think if I did it [record an album], I’d do it under a different name and not promote it. Maybe I could just do it under Edward Cullen, and we’ll see what happens. That would be pretty obvious. But, maybe? I don’t like to look like I’m cashing in on stuff, so I probably won’t do it for a while. I’m not really interested in having a music career. I don’t care if people buy my stuff or not."

"I think Nikki [Reed] gave a CD of stuff I had recorded on my computer to Catherine Hardwicke and I recorded it years ago. I think Catherine just put it into a cut and then said ‘Look at this’ and she played it and it kind of worked. I hadn’t even realized what it was at first and it kind of fit really well. I did not really think about it other than that. I didn’t know it was going to be on the soundtrack or anything. I wanted to do it under another name because I thought it would be distracting, which it has been. So it’s probably all been a big mistake but I like the idea of it and I just think the song fit and I did not think it sounded like me. So I thought it would just work but I don’t know I’m not trying to get a music career out of it or anything."

"I was in a band years ago. Not like a proper band but I had kind of roll-on, roll-off musicians. I still try and play but it’s weird now since when I’m trying to do it as an actor, it always seems kind of cheesy. I liked playing at open mikes in bars and stuff because it was the only time I really felt free. I did a couple of gigs in LA and people filmed and put them on the Internet. It just ruins the whole experience. You’re like ‘Oh, that wasn’t the point.’ So I stopped. I’m going to wait for all this to die down before I start doing live gigs again."

"I used to love playing live at open mics at bars. You could go nuts and be completely free. It would be a cathartic experience for me. I’ve lost a huge chunk of my life."

"Music means freedom to me. But in acting you can pretend to be someone else and I like that."