Top of the pops: Gary Howard’s 35 years in music

Currently celebrating 35 years in music, UTA agent Gary Howard is the undisputed agency king of pop, with a roster that includes Craig David, Steps, N-Dubz, and Zayn Malik. Here, he tells Gordon Masson about his route to the top – from shovelling shit (literally) to becoming the only agent named on The O2 arena industry wall of fame…

As a wayward teenager, Gary Howard was, perhaps, the only person who didn’t know what he was going to do for a living.

“I’m still friends with people I was at school with, and they all tell me that they knew what I’d end up doing for a living because I was obsessed with music: I was always playing music, talking about it, and singing,” he recalls.

School days are best forgotten, however. “I got expelled, sort of, when I was 15. I loved being at school but didn’t take it seriously enough. It was a fun place for me to have a laugh with friends. Plus, I loved sport – I captained the rugby team, got picked to represent my district, and represented the school at football and basketball,” he says. “But after a series of altercations, they told me on January 31st, 1986 that I was suspended until further notice. Then just before my 16th birthday in April, I found a job polishing hotel bathtubs that paid me £80 per week, cash-in-hand. Back in 1986, that was a lot of money. And come Friday night, I was spending all my money on my mates in the pub, having a great time. So, when the school asked me to go back and do my exams, I couldn’t see the point. I’d missed out on all the coursework, so I felt they were setting me up to fail. But meanwhile, I had a job and was making my own way in life.”

“I didn’t go to my first concert until I was about 15 – Madonna and Michael Jackson at Wembley Stadium”

Flitting from job to job, Howard reveals that one of his favourite jobs was also the most disgusting. “We were cleaning up industrial estates – cutting the grass, sweeping the kerbs. Up in Boreham Wood, behind this row of shops that backed onto Elstree Studios, there was an alleyway where we had to clean up dog shit. On those days, you’d always want to be driving the van because the driver would have the keys, meaning they could get into the back first to grab the shovel, because when you were shovelling, you’d deliberately miss the opening of the bag and cover your mates in shit… I think this is why, now, I can handle most things that are thrown at me.

“Even on that job, my mates would accuse me of singing just to try to get discovered, because they then filmed Top of the Pops at Elstree.”

Rewind
Passionate about music from day one, Howard grew up in the village of Istead Rise in rural Kent before his parents’ divorce saw him move to Gravesend, on the outskirts of London.

“In 1981, I was obsessed with Adam Ant and would play his album, Kings of the Wild Frontier, over and over. Amazing that one day [he would be sitting] in my office asking me to be his agent. My 11-year-old self would have died.

“But I didn’t go to my first concert until I was about 15 – Madonna and Michael Jackson at Wembley Stadium, and then Wembley Arena for Alexander O’Neal, who I also later represented.”

“I told my mum I needed to borrow the money as I knew that this was the thing I could make money from”

However, his passion for pop meant teenage Howard was a regular “at a lot of underage discos in Gravesend.” Indeed, the town’s DJ alumni included the likes of Eddie Gordon, head of A&R at Polydor, Pete Tong, and Steve Wolfe, was head of A&R at A&M Records.

“These guys really made me find my love of soul music, and they would also host personal appearances [PAs], which really engaged me – artists like Mel & Kim and Phil Fearon from Galaxy,” says Howard. “At around that time, I got into the ticket selling business. Things were different then as it was box office sales only. I lived in Gravesend and went to school in [small village] Meopham, so my friends struggled to buy tickets. It was my first lesson in supply and demand, I guess, because I would pop in and get everyone’s tickets, adding a few quid on top to ensure that I had enough for my ticket and to pay for my night out.”

Forever ambitious, Howard said his eureka moment came courtesy of one of those local DJs, Richard Smith. “He also worked as an agent for Worldwide Talent, with Albert Samuel and David Levy. And when he told me about what he did for a living, I realised that he was the first person I had ever met that actually wanted to go to work on Monday. And that was the lightbulb moment for me, having not known what I wanted to do for a living.”

Suitably impressed by Howard’s passion for music, Smith offered him a job as a tour manager. “It was 1989, so I was 19 at the time – the year before I became an agent. Richard told me that tour managers needed a car to drive the acts around to all the clubs. So I ended up borrowing £1,000 from my grandad to buy a big old Ford Sierra,” he recalls. “I told my mum I needed to borrow the money as I knew that this was the thing I could make money from. She backed me, and I will never forget her belief in me – I always wanted to make her proud of my success. She should have worked in A&R because she could hear a hit before anyone I ever met.

“My first job was touring a young act called Akasa, who was signed to Warner, for which I got paid something like £600 to do this very long tour… I say I got paid but Warners still owe me the money.”

“I got to know all the club managers, and I learned about routing without even realising it”

One advantage of the thousands of miles that he clocked up on the road delivering talent for PA performances was that in addition to gaining a good grasp of geography, his industry contacts were multiplying. “I got to know all the club managers, and I learned about routing without even realising it, given that back then every city had a club, and I went to all of them.”

When the work dried up, he found himself temporarily working on a building site. “I hated it. But it really taught me that I needed to find something full-time in music if I wanted to be happy.”

Luckily, Richard Smith recommended Howard to MK Artists, whose founder, Mario Kyriakou, was looking for someone to help build his agency, having just had massive success with (Dirty Cash).

“MK were based above a bakery, and there were three floors of offices: we were on the first floor, the second floor was empty, and the top floor was Simon Napier-Bell, who managed Wham! I remember seeing all his gold discs and being blown away. And then Simon Cowell moved into the empty office, and through him, I met Albert Samuel, who owned Mission Control agency with Pete Waterman.”

As he began to make a name for himself, Howard’s first proper signing, Xpansions, had a top ten hit with dancefloor filler Elevation, and people elsewhere in the business began to take notice of his talents.

“When I was tour managing, I’d worked with an artist called Lonnie Gordon, who had one massive hit: Happenin’ All Over Again. So, when an agent left her agency, Mission Control, Albert approached me. But when he offered me the job, he also told me he thought I was shit, and he didn’t think it would work out, so he put me on a commission rather than a wage. It was brilliant reverse psychology because I was determined to prove him wrong.”

“At one point in the 90s, I had seven artists in the top ten, and I had three years where I always had at least one act in the top 20”

Within a month, Howard was the agency’s top earner, prompting Samuel to review his decision. “I was put on a wage, which wasn’t that great, but I was in the proper music business, and I was getting respect.”

With Mission Control, Howard was working closely with many of Pete Waterman’s PWL artists, so other acts would flock to the company, and Howard’s first signing at the firm changed everything. “I started working with Right Said Fred, and on the first single [I’m Too Sexy], we went to number two in the charts and stayed there for six weeks, with Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It for You at number one. Then my second signing, 2 Unlimited, also went to number two with Get Ready For This for three weeks – also kept off the top spot by Bryan Adams. We couldn’t break number one, but it was a really great start.”

That success opened doors and established one of Howard’s most fruitful relationships. “It allowed me to have a first meeting with David Zedeck, who is a hero of mine. I was only 21 years old, but I knew Right Said Fred would break America, so I introduced David, and I think they gave him his first number one in America. In return, he gave me CeCe Peniston and Kym Sims, and I was just smashing it!”

While Howard was enjoying triumph after triumph: “At one point in the 90s, I had seven artists in the top ten, and I had three years where I always had at least one act in the top 20.” As a result, Howard would win agent of the year at Disco International Magazine’s annual awards, seven years in a row.

However, he notes that the bigger agency world was yet to grasp the contributions that British pop acts could make to their businesses.

“At the time, there was only really us and Louis Parker at Concorde doing pop; the others largely ignored what we were doing,” Howard recalls. “Louis was a gentleman, and I really looked up to him and respected him. Watching him, I learned how I should be as an agent. In fact, once we were at an after-show party, and because I was on my own, he invited me to join him and introduced me to his clients and others in the music industry. I was shocked that he could be so nice and amazed that he was giving away his contacts to me. But I realised that he didn’t live in fear of me stealing his acts. He was looking out for the little guy, and of course he was trying to get me to work for him. He tried a few times to persuade me to join Concorde but for various reasons that never happened.”

“The big agencies were all into rock bands, indie acts, and stuff like that. But it was a short-sighted approach”

Despite the lucrative business, for decades other agencies failed to see the value in pop acts. “The big agencies were all into rock bands, indie acts, and stuff like that. But it was a short-sighted approach because we were doing phenomenal business with JX, Phats & Small, Whigfield, Baby D, The Venga Boys, Undercover… the list is endless of those pop things that we did,” says Howard.

Overcoming reservations of dealing with academia – “I was very anti-student at the time,” – Howard recognised that student unions offered opportunities to expand his clients’ fanbases.

“At the time, they were booking bands and not club PAs, so I used the Endsleigh Insurance directory to contact student unions’ entertainment [ents] officers to persuade them to book my roster, pointing out that we were selling out 2,000-plus-capacity nightclubs. One person who helped me pioneer the university world was Steve Homer (now at AEG), who was at Sheffield Uni. I still take the piss out of Steve because he’s known for the massive acts that he’s worked with – Rihanna, Bruno Mars, loads of heavy metal bands – but I like to remind him he booked Whigfield off me, along with Mike Flowers Pops, and others.

“Steve distributed my roster and contact details to about 80 ents officers at a convention they were at and that’s how we became good friends – he was massively helpful to me, and I’ve never forgotten that.”

• The concluding part of IQ’s Gary Howard interview can be read here.

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