Trevor Charles Horn (born 15 July 1949) is an English record producer and musician. His influence on pop and electronic music in the 1980s was such that he has been called "the man who invented the eighties".
Horn took up the bass guitar at an early age and taught himself to sight-read music. In the 1970s, he worked as a session musician, built his own studio, and wrote and produced singles for various artists. Horn gained fame in 1979 as a member of the Buggles, who achieved a hit single with "Video Killed the Radio Star". In 1980, he joined the progressive rock band Yes as their lead singer for the Drama album and tour until the band broke up.
In 1981, Horn became a full-time producer, working on successful songs and albums for acts including Dollar, ABC, Malcolm McLaren, Yes (who reformed in 1983), Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, and Pet Shop Boys. In 1983, Horn and his wife, the music executive Jill Sinclair, purchased Sarm West Studios, London, and formed a record label, ZTT Records, with the journalist Paul Morley. Horn also co-formed the electronic group Art of Noise. He produced further hits in the 1990s and 2000s for Seal, LeAnn Rimes, and t.A.T.u., and produced the 1992 Mike Oldfield album Tubular Bells II and the 2003 Belle and Sebastian album Dear Catastrophe Waitress. He has performed with the Trevor Horn Band since 2006.
Horn's awards include Brit Awards for Best British Producer in 1983, 1985, and 1992, a 1995 Grammy Award for Seal's song "Kiss from a Rose", and a 2010 Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.
Early life Trevor Charles Horn was born on 15 July 1949 to John and Elizabeth Horn in Hetton-le-Hole, County Durham, England, and grew up in Durham City. The second of four children, he has two sisters, including the novelist Marjorie (M.M.) DeLuca, and a brother, the television producer Ken Horn. His father was a maintenance engineer at the neighbouring dairy and a professional musician who played the double bass in the Joe Clarke Big Band during the week. Horn attended Johnston Grammar School in Durham.
At around eight years of age, Horn took up the double bass and was taught the basics by his father, including the concept of playing triads. He taught himself the bass guitar and became confident in sight-reading music, using guide books and practising on his father's four-string guitar in the spare room of the house. In his early teens, Horn filled in for his father on the double bass in the Joe Clarke band when he was late for a gig. At school Horn was given a recorder, which he picked up with little effort as he already had music knowledge, and performed in the local youth orchestra. His interests turned to contemporary rock acts such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. At 14, Horn played electric guitar in his first group, the Outer Limits, named after the 1963 television series, playing mainly covers by the Kinks."Buggles to be honoured at the Prog Awards!", Prog, issue 69, p. 12
Horn pursued a series of jobs, including one at a rubber company. He also put on a Bob Dylan imitation act for two nights a week and played the bass at occasional gigs. At seventeen, Horn decided to pursue a career in music. His parents were reluctant, hoping he would become a chartered accountant as he performed well in maths, but Horn had failed the required exams. His parents pleaded with him to try one more job, but three months into his role as a progress chaser in a plastic bag factory, he was fired. The next day, received an offer to play the bass in a local semi-professional band at a Top Rank Ballroom, playing top 40 and dance music for £24 a week for five nights' work. Horn also received airplay on BBC Radio Leicester, performing self-written songs on a guitar.
Career 1971–1979: Early work At 21, Horn relocated to London and took up work by playing in a band, which involved re-recording top 20 songs for BBC radio owing to the needle time restrictions then in place. This was followed by a one-year tenure with Ray McVay's big band, included performances at the world ballroom dancing championship and the television show Come Dancing. Horn also joined the Canterbury Tales, a group based in Margate, and spent time in Denmark where he ended up broke. His mother sent him money for his return journey. He also worked as a session musician for rock groups and jingles. At 24, Horn began work in Leicester, where he had a nightly gig playing bass at a nightclub and helped construct a recording studio. He produced songs for local artists, including a song for Leicester City F.C.
By 1976, Horn had returned to London. He played bass in Nick North and Northern Lights, a cabaret and covers band, which also featured the keyboardist Geoff Downes and the singer Tina Charles. Horn formed Tracks, a jazz fusion band inspired by Weather Report and Herbie Hancock, with the future Shakatak drummer Roger Odell, before he left to play in Charles's backing band. Also in the band were the keyboardist Geoffrey Downes and the guitarist Bruce Woolley, both of whom Horn later worked with in the band the Buggles. Horn and Charles entered a short relationship, and Horn learned from her inspiring producer Biddu.
In the mid-1970s, Horn worked for a music publisher on Denmark Street, London, producing demos. From 1977 to 1979, Horn worked on various singles as a songwriter, producer, or orchestra director, but without profit. Among his first was "Natural Dance" by Tony Cole and "Don't Come Back" by Fallen Angel and the T.C. Band, featuring Woolley as songwriter, which Horn produced under the name "T.C. Horn". He wrote "Boot Boot Woman", the B-side to the Boogatti single "Come Back Marianne". In 1978, Horn wrote, sang, and produced "Caribbean Air Control" under the pseudonym Big A, which features Horn pictured as a pilot on the front sleeve. In 1979, a full studio album, Star to Star, by Chromium, a "sci-fi disco project", was released. It featured Horn and Downes as songwriters and producers, and Horn's future Art of Noise bandmate Anne Dudley on keyboards. Other artists that Horn worked with included Woolley, John Howard, Dusty Springfield ("Baby Blue"), and the Jags ("Back of My Hand"). Horn achieved his first production hit when "Monkey Chop" by Dan-I reached No. 30 on the UK singles chart in 1979.
1978–1980: The Buggles and "Video Killed the Radio Star"
In 1978, Horn and Downes formed the new wave band the Buggles with early contributions from Woolley. They secured a recording deal with Island Records and spent much of 1979 recording their debut album, The Age of Plastic (1980). The credits list Horn with co-production, lead vocals, guitar and bass.
The Buggles' debut single, "Video Killed the Radio Star", was released in September 1979 and reached No. 1 in the UK, propelling Horn, aged 30, to fame. In August 1981, "Video Killed the Radio Star" became the first music video to air on MTV.
1980: Yes The Buggles secured management from Brian Lane, who was also managing the progressive rock band Yes. The Yes singer, Jon Anderson, and the keyboardist, Rick Wakeman, had both departed. Horn and Downes were invited to replace them, and Yes recorded an album, Drama (1980), with Horn on vocals and bass. On tour, Horn was poorly received by fans, and Wakeman would later say "this fat, dumpy guy at the front singing ... it was an absolute nightmare from start to finish". Yes broke up after the tour, with Anderson fronting the band again when they reformed in 1983.
1980–1982: Dollar, ABC and Malcolm McLaren In 1980, Horn married the music executive Jill Sinclair, who became his manager. Sinclair told him that as an artist he would always be "second division", but if he pursued production he would become the best in the world.Horn assembled studio equipment, including a Roland TR-808 drum machine, a sequencer, a Minimoog synthesiser and Simmons electronic drums. He spent £18,000 on a Fairlight CMI, an early digital synthesiser, one of four in the UK at the time. The Fairlight was one of the first digital samplers, allowing musicians to play back samples such as sound effects at different pitches. He said later: "I knew what it was capable of, because I understood what it did. Most other people didn't understand at the time – sampling was like a mystical world." Horn is credited as the "key architect" in incorporating sampling into "the language of pop". His understanding of electronic equipment made him influential on the development of pop music in the following decade. In 1981, Horn completed a second Buggles album, Adventures in Modern Recording, largely on his own following Downes's decision to form Asia. Horn produced a string of hit singles by the pop duo Dollar, writing the songs "Mirror Mirror", "Hand Held in Black and White", "Give Me Back My Heart" and "Videotheque". All four became top 20 hits in the UK. Though Dollar were a middle-of-the-road band with little credibility, Horn saw an opportunity to combine the electronic music of Kraftwerk and the crooner Vince Hill. The music journalist Alexis Petridis said that The Dollar Album "mapped out ... the sonic future of 80s pop", with "booming drums, high-drama synthesisers and sampled voices". Horn did not complete The Dollar Album, and the production of the remaining tracks was attributed to Dollar themselves.
Horn's success with the Dollar singles generated interest from other acts. He next produced The Lexicon of Love by ABC, working also with Anne Dudley for the string arrangements. ABC's debut became one of the best-selling albums of 1982. During the recording, he persuaded ABC to replace their bassist, feeling he was not up to scratch. Horn regretted the decision, and he later learnt that U2 had declined to work with him as they were concerned he would split the band. Horn won the 1983 Brit Award for British Producer of the Year, thanks to his work on the album.
In 1982, Horn and Sinclair formed a music publishing company, Perfect Songs. In 1983, Horn produced Duck Rock by the former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren. It featured the single "Buffalo Gals", credited as the first British hip hop single.
1983–1989: ZTT, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Grace Jones
In 1983, Horn and Sinclair purchased Basing Street Studios in west London from Chris Blackwell and renamed it Sarm West Studios. With the journalist Paul Morley, they co-founded a record label, ZTT Records. The first act they signed was Frankie Goes to Hollywood. He dramatically restructured the lead single, "Relax", described by Sound on Sound as a "hi-NRG brand of dance-synth-pop" that "broke new sonic ground, while epitomising '80s excess in all its garish, overblown glory". "Relax" reached No. 1 on the UK singles chart. At this point, Horn was working with Foreigner in the US on their album Agent Provocateur (1984). He left the project to work on the follow-up Frankie Goes to Hollywood single "Two Tribes" and their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, which produced two more hit singles, "The Power of Love" and "Welcome to the Pleasuredome".
Horn worked with Yes again to produce their 1983 album 90125. He persuaded them to record "Owner of a Lonely Heart", which they resisted, deeming it "too poppy". It became their only No. 1 single in the USA. In 1983, Horn co-formed the band the Art of Noise, co-writing hits including "Close (To the Edit)", "Beat Box", "Moments in Love", and "Slave to the Rhythm". "Slave to the Rhythm" was intended as Frankie Goes to Hollywood's second single, but was instead given to Grace Jones. Horn and his studio team reworked it into six separate songs to form Jones's 1985 album Slave to the Rhythm. It features the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour.