Steve Brown

Versatile producer BORN C.1958

Steve Brown’s early musical endeavours included playing bass in Archangel with his schoolfriend Steve Lilywhite and working as drum roadie for Elton John. By the early ’70s he was engaged at Phonogram’s London studio, where his engineering credits included hits for Wizzard, Thin Lizzy and The Boomtown Rats. As a producer in the ’80s, he found pop success with ABC, Haysi Fantayzee and Wham!’s debut album Fantastic. Later in the decade he moved into rock, producing LPs like The Cult’s 1985 breakthrough Love, plus LPs by Then Jerico, The Godfathers and Balaam And The Angel. In 1992 he produced Manic Street Preachers’ debut Generation Terrorists, and in 1994, contributed to their third album The Holy Bible. He also worked with Bobby Tench, Alison Moyet, King Kurt, Freddie Mercury, The Pogues and Mansun, and ran the BeHive International music education programme. “(1992 hit) Motorcycle Emptiness was his masterpiece with us,” wrote the Manics’ Nicky Wire in tribute, “he taught us so much.”