The house lights dimmed, causing a ripple of excitement to pass through the audience. Then a pre-recorded introduction to the night was played, which went something like this: “From Seal to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, from ABC to Yes, from Grace Jones to Belle and Sebastian, and from Robbie Williams to Pet Shop Boys, one man has been at the heart of some of Britain’s most important pop music of the past 50 years: Trevor Horn.
The super-producer has been described as the man who invented the eighties, and he was also responsible for the sound of such artists as Dollar, Malcolm McLaren, t.A.T.u. and countless more, including Hans Zimmer, Marc Almond, Tori Amos, Peter Gabriel, Tina Turner, Art of Noise, Rod Stewart and LeAnn Rimes.
After achieving a number one hit with his band The Buggles, with ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, Horn became a member of Yes before becoming the most important hit- maker of the 1980s – and beyond. Awards followed: four BRITs, a 1995 Grammy for Seal’s Kiss from a Rose, a 2010 Ivor Novello for his Outstanding Contribution to British Music, and a CBE.
Following the publication of his best-selling memoir Adventures in Modern Recording: From ABC to ZTT, Horn is visiting a select handful of theatres to talk about his exploits as a bona fide legend of pop.”
Danielle Perry (British broadcaster, music journalist, and musician), our host for the night, came on stage and introduced Trevor Horn. The pair sat in armchairs with a table between them, Perry asking the questions and Horn responding with stories and anecdotes about his life and career in music.
Horn was born in County Durham in 1949. His father was a maintenance engineer at the neighbouring dairy and, crucially, a professional musician who played double bass in the Joe Clarke Big Band. At around eight years of age, Horn learned to play double bass from his father and became proficient enough to stand in for him in the band. He later taught himself bass guitar and how to sight-read music.
Perry knew that the best way to get the most out of Horn was to let him talk. Her real role was to keep him to time and ensure the highlights of his career were covered, thus, we had something of a whistle-stop tour. But it was engaging and amusing, nonetheless.
Horn talked about a musical epiphany he had when seeing Bob Dylan sing on the BBC. From that moment, he knew what he wanted to do. To get there, though, he had to endure some menial jobs, including working at the John Bull Rubber Plant and a plastic bag factory, though he was usually fired by his employer! By then, he had moved to Leicester with his parents and played in pubs before being offered a contract to play bass in a local semi-professional band at a Top Rank ballroom.
He moved to London in the early 1970s and landed a tenure with Ray McVay’s Big Band. He earned enough money to return to Leicester and build a recording studio, where he recorded a single with Leicester City Football Club. From 1977 to 1979, Horn worked on various records as a songwriter, producer and orchestra director. It was around this time that he met Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley, with whom he would form The Buggles. Horn described the writing and recording of ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ and how The Buggles signed to Island Records. The song went to number one in 16 different countries. As if they needed reminding, the audience were treated to an audio clip of the song.
Horn then went on to talk about his time recording and touring with prog-rockers Yes. After the interval, Perry simply said, “The eighties”, and let Horn take us through them. His late wife had suggested he should drop any ideas of continuing as an artist, he would always be second-rate, she said, but as a producer, he could be world-class. How right she was. The acquisition of a Fairlight CMI digital synthesiser with its embedded sampler, at a cost of £18,000, enabled him to make records that sounded like nothing that had gone before. He cut four singles with Dollar before producing ‘The Lexicon of Love’ for ABC. He set up his own record label, ZTT, and publishing company. The first act he signed was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, whose singles ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’ became cultural phenomena. Perry moved him swiftly into the 1990s so he could talk about his work with Seal.
After a brief Q&A, Perry brought the show to an end. Trevor Horn proved to be an entertaining, articulate and humorous raconteur, and even stayed behind after the show to meet fans, pose for photographs and sign autographs.
The tour runs until 12th November and tickets can be purchased through the official tour website, link below, or directly from the box offices of individual venues. https://www.awaywithmedia.com/tours/trevor-horn
Reviewer – Adrian Cork
On – 29.10.2025
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