A TRACK RECORD THAT'S HARD TO BEAT

Top record producer Trevor Horn looks back on Bowie, Seal and Frankie Goes To Hollywood as he is set to share his music stories on tour.

- By MARION MCMULLEN

TREVOR HORN was just 17 when he woke his parents at 4am one day to tell them he had decided to become a professional musician.

The announcement caused them a bit of concern ... they had wanted him to be a chartered accountant.

Soon after, he was playing in a Top Rank ballroom for £24 a week and had made his mark on London’s fabled Denmark Street by the late 1970s producing demos and meeting such luminaries as Anne Dudley, with whom he later worked with in Art of Noise, and Geoffrey Downes, who played alongside him in The Buggles and Yes.

The two made their breakthrough at the end of the 1970s when Video Killed The Radio Star gave them a number one hit. It had taken Trevor 13 years to become an overnight sensation.

"Advance word on Video Killed the Radio Star was going crazy. Radio play had taken us to the top of the music week chart and the record wasn’t even out yet,” remembers Trevor.

“At some point it was released, going in at 57 on September 9, 1979, rising to number 24 the following week, number six the week after, number two on October 13 and number one the week after that.

“It was the same story abroad. Video Killed the Radio Star raced up every chart it met, home and away. Video Killed the Radio Star would end up going to number one in 16 countries, selling around 12 million. It was insane.”

Within a year, Trevor had joined the prog rock megaband Yes, who were also managed by The Buggles manager Brian Lane.