Trevor Charles Horn (born 15 July 1949 in Durham, England) is an English pop music record
producer, songwriter and musician. Horn has produced commercially
successful songs and albums for numerous British and international
artists. He won a Grammy Award for co-writing "Kiss
from a Rose" with Seal. As an artist
himself, he has had chart success with his own bands The
Buggles, Yes and Art
of Noise. He also owns a significant stake in the recording
company ZTT
Records, Sarm Studios and a music publishing
company, Perfect Songs. The three are combined
under the corporate umbrella of SPZ. Horn was regarded for much of the 1980s as
the best producer in Britain, evidenced by a note that the band China
Crisis made on their 1985 album Flaunt
the Imperfection (not produced by Horn). They
addressed their producer as "Walter (Trevor Who?) Becker". (Walter
Becker is one-half of Steely Dan). There are many such casual
references to Horn in British culture.
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Contents
- 1 Professional
life
- 1.1 Bands
- 1.2 Production
- 1.3 Songwriting
- 1.4 Music
publishing
- 1.5 Trademark
- 1.6 Awards
- 2 Personal
life
- 3 External
links
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Professional life
Bands
Horn began his professional career as a backing musician in
the late 1970s for disco
star Tina Charles. One of the
other members of her backing band was keyboard player Geoff
Downes. Horn and Downes formed the Buggles in 1977, in which
Horn played bass, guitar and percussion as well as providing vocals.
Horn, Downes and Bruce Woolley (Tina Charles'
guitarist) co-wrote "Video Killed the Radio
Star", which was released by The Buggles in 1979 reaching No 1 in the
UK charts. The song also appeared on the group's first album, The
Age of Plastic, which was released in 1980.
Later in the same year Horn and Downes were invited to join the rock
group Yes. Horn became the lead vocalist, replacing Jon
Anderson. He recorded one album with the band, Drama,
on which he also plays bass on one track. However, he left after seven
months, at the beginning of 1981, to concentrate on his production
work. He also completed a second Buggles album, Adventures in Modern
Recording, mainly alone after a falling out
with Geoff Downes. Horn did work with Yes again, not as a band member,
but (co-)producing their next two studio albums, including the noted
1983 "comeback" album 90125, and also went
on to be a founding member of the Art of Noise. He is known for
performing on albums he produces. His latest band is The Producers,
in which Horn plays with various musicians/producers, namely Lol Crème,
producer Steve Lipson and singer/songwriter Chris
Braide. The band performed its first gig at the Camden
Barfly in November 2006.
Production
Horn's first production success came with the pop band Dollar
in 1981 and 1982. He then went on to produce The
Lexicon of Love (1982) by ABC,
which reached no. 1 in the UK album charts, and has since been
acclaimed as one of the 100 best albums of all time. It was during the Lexicon
sessions that Horn first assembled the production "team" that would
characterize and define the sound of a Trevor Horn production in the
1980s: Anne Dudley on keyboards and
arrangements, Gary Langan (later Stephen
Lipson) as chief engineer, J.J. Jeczalik on the lion's
share of programming for the Fairlight CMI (which was still a
novelty but would prove integral to Horn's production technique),
background vocalist Tessa Webb, percussionist Luis
Jardim and others. Originally brought in to flesh-out keyboard parts,
Dudley was soon co-writing with the group and scoring the album's
much-noted orchestrations. She (and the others) would soon be in great
demand due to their contributions to Horn's successes.
He achieved his greatest commercial success in 1984, firstly
with the Liverpudlian
band Frankie Goes to Hollywood,
and secondly with the charity group Band
Aid and their enormous hit "Do They Know It's
Christmas?" In the UK, Frankie Goes to Hollywood was the best-selling
band of 1984; the success of singles such as "Relax"
and "Two
Tribes" helped to bankroll ZTT Records, which Horn had co-founded in
1983. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" became one of the best-selling
singles of all time.
Other artists he has produced include Cher, Grace
Jones, Seal and Propaganda,
also Tina
Turner, Lisa Stansfield, Tom
Jones, Paul McCartney, Pet
Shop Boys, Simple Minds, Eros
Ramazzotti, Mike Oldfield, Marc
Almond, Charlotte Church, t.A.T.u, LeAnn
Rimes, and Belle & Sebastian.
Horn received a Grammy
in 1996 for Seal's second album.
On November 11, 2004, a Prince's Trust charity concert
celebrating Horn's 25 years as a record producer took place at Wembley
Arena. Performers at the show included the Buggles, Bruce Woolley, ABC,
Art of Noise, Belle & Sebastian,
Lisa Stansfield, Pet Shop Boys, Seal, Dollar,
Propaganda, t.A.T.u., Yes, Grace Jones and Frankie Goes to Hollywood
(with Ryan
Molloy replacing original vocalist Holly
Johnson). Simple Minds were scheduled
to perform but did not. A double CD compilation titled Produced
by Trevor Horn was released in conjunction with
the concert. An edited version of the concert has been broadcast on
television in several countries under the title 25 Years Of
Pop: Produced by Trevor Horn, and a DVD release of the full
concert is planned.
On 22
May 2006,
the Pet Shop Boys released their
album Fundamental
which was produced by Horn. The album reached number five in the UK
charts. In the same month, he featured in a Pet Shop Boys concert
specially recorded for BBC Radio 2. Following the critical
success of the event Horn has produced an album version, called Concrete,
which was released 23 October 2006. The show included songs from Fundamental,
classic PSB tracks and special guests including Robbie
Williams singing 'Jealousy', Rufus
Wainwright singing 'Casanova in Hell' and Frances
Barber singing 'Friendly fire'. Horn also produced Captain's
debut album, This is Hazelville,
released late 2006.
Songwriting
Trevor Horn's songwriting credits date back to 1979 when he
co-wrote a song for Dusty Springfield, ‘Baby
Blue’ with Bruce Woolley and Geoff
Downes.
All the Buggles' hits – including Video Killed The Radio
Star, ‘Living In The Plastic Age’, ‘Elstree’ and ‘I Am A Camera’ - were
co-written by Horn and Downes and, occasionally, Bruce Woolley. Horn
also co-wrote all of the 1980 Yes album, Drama. On
his return to the band (as producer) in 1984 he contributed to their
biggest ever hit, ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ and
the dance hit ‘Leave
It’.
For Dollar’s The Dollar Album
(1982), Horn wrote a love story across four songs: ‘Hand Held in Black
and White’ (the meeting), ‘Mirror Mirror’ (the loving), ‘Give Me Back
My Heart’ (the break-up) and ‘Videotheque’ (the postscript). All four
singles broke the top twenty and two, ‘Mirror Mirror’ and ‘Give Me Back
My Heart’, both reached number four on the UK singles chart.
During 1982 and 1983, Horn worked with Malcolm
McLaren and Anne Dudley, writing numerous
worldwide hits including ‘Buffalo Gals’, ‘Double
Dutch’, 'Duck for the Oyster’ and the Duck Rock
album of world beats and new hip-hop styles.
In 1984, he co-wrote several classic hits with the Art of
Noise including ‘Close (To The Edit)’, ‘Beat
Box’ and ‘Moments in Love’. The next year he
co-wrote ‘Slave to the Rhythm’. This was originally intended as Frankie
Goes to Hollywood’s second single, but was instead given to Grace
Jones. Horn and his studio team reworked and reinterpreted it, jazz style, into six
separate songs to form the Slave
to the Rhythm album.
In the 1990s Horn wrote two songs for solo female singers.
'Riding Into Blue (Cowboy Song)' was recorded by Inge a/k/a German
artist Inga Humpe (Neonbabies, 2raumwohnung) and 'Docklands' which was
recorded by Betsy Cook. He also co-wrote two songs with Terry
Reid for his 1991 album, The Driver and
‘The Shape of Things to Come’ for Cher's 1995 album It’s a Man’s
World).
For yet another tangential career progression, Horn co-wrote
the theme song 'Everybody Up' to the TV programme The Glam Metal Detectives,
a comedy sketch show which appeared on BBC2 in 1995. This was another collaboration
with Lol
Creme, a member of the Art of Noise, 10cc
and Godley and Creme
Horn’s songwriting can be heard on numerous film soundtracks.
In 1992, Horn collaborated with composer Hans
Zimmer to produce the score for the movie Toys
starring Robin Williams, which included
interpretations by Tori Amos, Pat
Metheny and Thomas Dolby.
In the 2000s Horn provided additional production on three
international hits for t.A.T.u, ‘All the Things She Said’, ‘Not
Gonna Get Us’ and ‘Clowns (Can You See Me Now)’. He also wrote ‘Pass
the Flame’ (the official 2004 Olympic song) and co-wrote the title
track from Lisa Stansfield’s 2004
album The Moment.
Music publishing
In 1982, Horn founded the musical publishing company Perfect
Songs together with his wife, Jill Sinclair. This coincided with their
then recent acquisition of Basing Street Studios, which also housed the
fledgling publishing company. Perfect Songs was able to harness and
develop the up and coming young artists working in the recording studio.
The first to be signed were Frankie Goes to Hollywood,
followed by the Art of Noise and Propaganda. These first few signings
to the company were instrumental in establishing the company ethos of
"innovation and artiste development, taking risks and signing acts far
into the left field".
Successful songwriters he has signed since include Seal, Ian
Brown, Gabrielle, Chris
Braide, Shane MacGowan, Marsha
Ambrosius, Alistair Griffin and Paul
Simm (writer of the hit "Overload"
for Sugababes).
Trademark
Trevor Horn always wore large "nerdish" style glasses when he performed however as that
style was a fashion in the 1980s, he always wore them until the 1990s.
However he still wears the hard-framed glasses whenever he performs.
One of his jokes beyond wearing the large glasses was that "he was a
camera," as went along with his hit "Video Killed the Radio Star" and
his other hit "I Am A Camera." However today, he wears the more modern
smaller glasses.
In his music videos with The Buggles, he frequently wore a
silver suit and wore a white sports
jacket in his live performances.
Awards
- BRIT Awards 1983 - Best British Producer
- BRIT Awards 1985 - Best British Producer
- BRIT Awards 1992 - Best British Producer
- Grammy Awards 1995 - Record Of The
Year (as producer of 'Kiss From A Rose')
Personal life
Horn married former mathematics teacher and business partner Jill Sinclair in 1980. They have four
children, a son Aaron (born 1984) and three daughters. Their main home
is a £2 million mansion in Checkendon near Henley-on-Thames,
Oxfordshire;
while other property includes in St John's Wood, North London, and the
United States. Horn has one brother – Kenneth, formerly a lighting
cameraman then director of TV programmes such as Brookside
and now a producer for ITV – and two sisters who live in Canada.
On 25
June 2006,
while at home from Goldsmiths College, University
of London, Aaron was practising with his air rifle.
Not realising his mother was close by, a .22 pellet accidentally hit
Jill in the neck, severing an artery. She was rushed to Reading
hospital intensive care unit where her condition was described as
"critical but stable". She was initially reported to be under deep sedation in an
induced
coma, possibly suffering from brain damage. [1] [2] Communication from ZTT Records
confirmed, as of 1 September 2006, that Jill is in a natural coma and has
been moved to a rehabilitation centre. As of June 2007, Sinclair
remains unresponsive and in a coma.[3]
External links
| v • d • e Yes |
| Jon
Anderson | Chris
Squire | Steve Howe
| Rick Wakeman | Alan White |
| Bill
Bruford | Peter
Banks | Tony Kaye | Patrick
Moraz | Geoff Downes | Trevor Horn | Trevor
Rabin | Billy Sherwood | Igor Khoroshev |
| Discography |
| Studio albums:
Yes | Time
and a Word | The
Yes Album | Fragile
| Close to the Edge
| Tales from Topographic
Oceans | Relayer
| Going for the One
| Tormato
| Drama | 90125
| Big Generator
| Union | Talk
| Open Your Eyes
| The
Ladder | Magnification |
| Live albums:
Yessongs
| Yesshows
| 9012Live: The Solos
| Keys to Ascension
| Keys to Ascension 2
| House of Yes:
Live from House of Blues |
| Compilations:
Yesterdays | Classic
Yes | Yesstory | Highlights: The
Very Best of Yes | Something's
Coming: The BBC Recordings 1969-1970 | Keystudio
| Yes Remixes | The
Ultimate Yes: 35th Anniversary Collection |
| Video releases:
Yes: Live - 1975 at Q.P.R. |
| Box sets:
Yesyears
| In a Word: Yes (1969 - )
| The Word is Live
| Essentially Yes |
| Related
Articles |
| Band members | XYZ
| Cinema
| Asia
| Anderson Bruford
Wakeman Howe | Circa: |
