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I always respected tough love.
Most of the time people aren't very good, you have to be honest. And what I wasn't going to do was change who I was just because I was on TV.
I wasn't going to lie to these people and say, oh, I think you're amazing and everything's going to happen because I knew the reality.
It's hard enough if you can sing.
I mean, it's impossible if you can't sing.
Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Simon Cowell used sharp business skills and blunt opinions to become one of the best -known music moguls in the world.
Back in 2010, a 16 -year -old kid walked onto the stage of the talent TV show X Factor.
He was charming, polite, and slightly nervous.
He told the judges about his part -time job at a bakery, and then, with no music to back him, he launched into a pretty shaky a cappella version of Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely?
After he finished, one of the judges paused, looked straight at him and said, With a little vocal coaching, this kid could actually be pretty good.
That teenager was Harry Styles.
And the judge who saw something special in him was Simon Cowell.
Simon Cowell is one of the most recognizable personalities in global entertainment.
He's the guy who helped bring us shows like American Idol, The X Factor, and America's Got Talent.
He's helped launch the careers of artists like Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood, and Adam Lambert, to name just a few.
But what's maybe more surprising is that Simon never studied music.
He doesn't play an instrument.
He can't sing. But what he does have is instinct, a deep understanding of what makes a hit, and more importantly, what makes a star.
Now, long before Idol or One Direction, Simon was working behind the scenes, scouting talent, cutting compilation records, and even licensing music tied to shows like Power Rangers and WrestleMania.
He was able to recognize the connection between pop culture and pop music, and he built not just a company called Psycho Entertainment, but an entire persona, the brutally honest judge who says what everyone else seems to be thinking and sometimes what no one wants to hear.
And if you think he's being rude, well, take a listen to this interview to get his perspective on why he says the things he says.
Anyway, as a child, Simon grew up in a well -to -do family in the London suburb of Elstree, where he was exposed to the film and TV studios that were based there.
Simon's dad worked in the real estate business and his mom had once been a ballet dancer.
Yeah, she was very glam.
If I had to describe her to anyone, it would be Elizabeth Taylor, the hair, the makeup, the dresses.
is she would always, I remember this, her telling me this, that she would always kind of get herself, I suppose, doled up when my dad came back from work.
And I was like, why?
She just said, I just like it.
You know, she was kind of like very classic in that way.
And was she, I mean, I've seen her described as a quote unquote socialite, which is a bit of a a weird word because it conjures up, you know, images of superficiality and things like that.
But was she, I mean, did she entertain at the house?
Was she sort of known as somebody who, you know, you always want to go to, you know, you always want to go to her parties?
Like, oh yeah, Julie's having a party.
Let's go to her house.
Everyone, yeah, used to entertain.
There was, you know, if it wasn't our house, it would be the neighbor's house.
Pretty much every weekend, there would be a large party and obviously in the summer when the weather was good it would be outdoors and you know I always remember my next door neighbor was a guy called Jerry Blatner and he ran I think it was MGM Studios in the UK so we all looked and he was a little guy but we all kind of looked up to him as oh god he's the producer you know he's the guy because when we We used to look over into the garden during the parties.
All we ever saw were film stars.
And I always thought that must be the best job in the world, being him.
How were you as a – I mean, from everything I've read, including in your biography, you really loved your parents.
You had a really good relationship with them, but you were not – I mean, you weren't a good student, for example.
You talk about this, right?
Was there – did that create conflict at all between you and your parents?
Well, I think if I – let's say Eric, my son, had turned out like me, I would go, we have a problem because I just rebelled against any form of discipline.
I just – I couldn't deal with it.
If they said, don't do that, I would always do the opposite.
Obviously, there was, you know, one particular school I went to and the teachers were just brutal.
I mean, to the point where, I mean, I went home one day like I was beaten up because this teacher whacked me so hard. And eventually, you know, I told my mom and my mom came to the school and had this massive fallout with the headmaster and this awful teacher.
So I think that didn't help.
I think they knew I was kind of bright, but not academic.
Yeah, I guess you never really finished school.
I mean, I think you left or dropped out when you were like 16 or maybe 17.
Yeah. And then a few years later, you got one of your first, I guess, quote unquote, real jobs at EMI Music Publishing.
It was in the mailroom.
Yeah. And from what I read, you pretty much hated it, right?
I didn't actually hate the job.
I tell you what I experienced um I kind of was bullied a bit there were people uh who were my age by the way a little bit older who would work in say the copyright department of EMI music publishing you know they were what I would call desk jobs so they were my age and I'm wandering around with my mail cart and they used to be sort of sneering you know like oh here comes you know the male guy you know and they were just rude so I just was frustrated I suppose I didn't like them I didn't actually want their job I just didn't like being sneered at having said that I actually quite liked the job
because I thought eventually I'm going to get out of there and I'll find a job you know because I started to understand what a music publishing company actually does And actually, being in the mailroom, I used to see some of the checks that turned up.
I'm like, my God, these people are making a fortune.
You know, I used to always go into like the executive's rooms when I delivered mail and just say, well, come on, give me a job working for you.
And it didn't happen, unfortunately.
And I think you left that mailroom job like after a year or maybe two and went to work briefly at your dad's real estate company.
But then you went back to EMI.
But this time with a better job, right, like helping to, I guess, produce cover songs or something like that?
Yeah, so my job was sort of a song plugger, which was any copyrights EMI owned from, say, I don't know, country artists from America, I would listen to thousands of songs over a period of time and then try and get other people to record them.
And a lot of these songs were hits in America, weren't hits in the UK.
And I would then try and find a well -known artist to cover these songs.
So I would meet with A &R guys on a regular basis or try to, which was honestly really, really difficult to do.
And once you were in, you had about 30 seconds.
And if they didn't like what you were doing, they would basically just throw you out.
Wow. And, and so you're doing that.
Did you, did you, I mean, did you sign, successfully sign anybody like notable?
I think I got a lot of songs recorded.
So it was enough for my boss to say, I think Simon, you're going to do well, you know, in music.
I'd been thinking about leaving EMI, would you consider leaving with me?
And I'd only been in that job for about, I don't know, a year.
Yeah and I was so young and naive I didn't really know what I was doing and I was like well okay but I'm quite happy here are you sure this is the right thing to do and he and he said yeah I've got some financial backing cut a long story short I said yes I went with him and then I realized very quickly we just didn't have the money we would need to be an independent music publishing company this was Ellis rich I think who was your boss and he formed a label that um I guess really went went nowhere yeah well Ellis did well to be fair to him I mean uh you know he he became I think president of one
of the publishing associations or something so he was very well respected um just for me at that age I had very itchy feet And I thought, I don't have the patience to try and build something from scratch. And I also didn't really want to be a music publisher.
I wanted to be an A &R guy.
I'd made that decision.
You wanted to be the guy who was going out there, going to shows, going to clubs, looking for up and coming artists to sign, basically.
Yeah, I thought the fun job would be to be the person who signs the artists and makes the records, basically.
Just for me, it was more exciting than being a music publisher, which is quite slow.
So that's why I decided to do that.
Yeah. Did you naturally feel comfortable like in this role of going to gigs and just going up to artists and bands that didn't know you and just kind of introduce yourself and try to strike up a conversation with them?
Well, it's a good question.
I don't think anyone even today is really trained to be an A &R person.
I don't even know how people today get that job because a lot of the A &R people I knew were genuinely tone deaf.
Seriously, it was all about blagging it.
I just thought, you know what, I just want to have hit records.
That was it. and this was just at the cusp where there was this kind of crossover period between what was happening in a lot of the gay clubs in the uk they were kind of ahead of the curve it was like you want to know what's going to happen in six months time you went to this club the music was fantastic the energy was incredible so i would sit in the booth and just watch and listen and think yeah, if I can get a record as good as one of those with an artist signed to me, I think this is a good way to start.
It just made sense.
Um, and I was fortunate one night I was out and I, and I met this girl and she told me that she'd be making some demos and, uh, I heard her songs and I thought, actually, she can really sing.
And I felt with her, her, Sunita, this girl, actually, if we could find a record that we could break through those clubs, but is commercial enough to then be a record, that might be a good way of starting.
What was your sort of criteria in your mind?
I mean, I want to kind of dig, dig into the story of Sunita a bit, because this is like 1983.
And you, she's a teenage singer, her right and and were you listening for a sound that you that you just appealed to you or were you listening for something that you thought would have mass appeal whether you liked it or not i kind of had a benchmark in terms of what i thought the record should sound like so we made two records one was called cruising and one was called so macho and i just thought those two words so macho it's funny um and I thought the lyric is quirky enough to be a crossover record and I could break the record probably by taking Sanita to every kind of club I could in the UK
you know we'd manufacture I don't know five six hundred white labels uh 12 inch vinyls and i would take the white labels into the club go up to the dj can you play this record yes and then if they liked it sometimes they would invite her back to actually perform in the club so we started to build a kind of an audience for her really at a grassroots level it reminds me of so much of the story troy carter told about lady gaga you know going in vans all all up and down California in clubs.
It's really amazing.
I mean, that's how you have to do it.
So there was a song, So Macho, and I confess I have heard it and seen the video.
We didn't have a big budget.
No, clearly you didn't.
But I mean, this was somebody you had kind of quote unquote discovered and had the song written for her.
And I guess you borrowed money to put the song out, to make this record, to press the records and get some kind of video.
But I'm wondering, like, in 1984, 85, how do you then, you know, when you're just you, you're a young guy with, you know, how do you get that on the radio?
How do you get that song to be heard?
Well, that was the issue.
I met this guy, Ian Burton, who I really liked because he ran a management company and an agency, agency, a traditional kind of agency.
Was he older than you?
Yeah, he was probably about 10 years older than me.
And I said to him one day, I said, look, Ian, I really like you.
And I think you're doing really smart.
Have you ever thought about running a record label?
He went, I wouldn't know how to start.
And I said, well, I could do that for you.
So in other words, if you pay me, it's your company.
I just need a salary.
He said, well, how much do you want?
I said, I don't know 65 pounds a week and I can't remember the number we ended up it wasn't it wasn't as high as that but it was round about that figure so I started very quickly found Sunita and I persuaded him to you know give me enough money to sign her make a record make a video and everything else that goes with it um i did the radio promotion myself i did the television promotion myself as you could tell by the video we didn't have much money it was like it was somebody in a camcorder it was classically bad and i had to release this particular record three times i tried to get into the top
40 each time whether it was the clubs or whether it was getting the artist on tv i would do anything i could to get my record in the shop even to the point there was a so -pop pro which was running for years in the uk i used to phone the producer of this so -pop because they used to have a cafe and in the cafe they had a radio and i'd say could you play my record on the radio on the show next week and he'd be like what i'm like yeah i just want people to hear this record so i i was just i was a constant hustler which meant it started to get some radio plays and some traction and then the record
just flies up the charts so i thought oh my god the world's fantastic this is incredible you know it's my first record uh everyone's doing well i bought a house i bought a car and then this was just just to just interrupt for a moment i mean this this was all on the strength of that first single so macho like, so you as the sort of the, the person behind this song, you didn't write it, but you produced it.
And I mean, you had made quite a bit of cash off of that off of that song.
Well, I was making Yeah, I was making more than 65 pounds a week.
And it sold. I can't remember 800 ,000 a million copies.
And I guess you should mention that there was another hit song that she had called toy boy, which is like a proto spice girl song.
Like, like it's, it was 10 years before the spice girls, but it had elements of what that would be 10 years later.
It's sort of, there's like a spice girls element of like wannabe at the beginning with a group of young women, just kind of rap singing.
And then Sinita kind of takes over the song and it's called toy boy.
And it's a totally ridiculous song, but it became a huge hit.
And I, I mean, this is what what i'm curious about right because especially because i you know in certain kind of parts of our culture there's a tendency for especially young people to kind of become like music snobs like oh that's not cool or you know like like what at your time it was like somebody would be listening to smiths not toy boy right like that kind of person would just have utter contempt for for that kind of popular music and i wonder whether you were because you were onto something you understood that people were gonna like that song and it didn't matter what the sort of the smith's crowd
might have thought of it right it's a you're absolutely spot on you've hit the nail on the head that's this is what i had to deal with and to your point about you know the song I actually thought it's a very commercial song.
I could picture in my mind people liking the song.
I liked the song. I thought the melody was brilliant and it just sounded like an obvious hit record. chord I mean it's what I never did though I never tried to pretend that I could produce a record or be a musician because I couldn't I can't produce records I can't play instruments I don't know what note anyone's any singing in whether it's c b d or g I have no idea so I only I base everything I ever do based on do I like it I I never guess it's like do I like it yes or no All right.
So everything's looking good with these two hit songs you've got with Sunita.
But then you run into some trouble, right?
Because I guess at one point, your record label had gotten acquired by a larger company.
And then sometime in the late 80s, that company kind of, I guess, went bust. Yeah.
So basically, you know, my label was just a tiny part of this much larger company, which I didn't have anything to do with.
So when the larger company went broke, we only found out when we turned up for work one day and, you know, we were told as we tried to get in, the company's bust. So you're broke.
You had a mortgage on your house.
And what did you do at that point?
I mean, did you I'm assuming that part of you knew that you would be okay, because you had already had experience with success?
Or was it a low point?
Do you remember feeling like I failed?
Well, I was making anything to make money.
So there was one sort of craze that happened.
They were called mega mixes.
And what a mega mix was, is that you would find a session singer and say, I don't know, ABBA, you do an ABBA mega mix.
So you would just find singers who sound like ABBA and just record 10 ABBA songs and get a DJ to mix one song into the next, into the next, put them on 12 -inch, and sell them as export records.
And we could sell 10 ,000 at a time, if we were lucky, and make a decent profit.
So I just jumped on this, and I was making tons of these records.
And I did make a wham mega mix.
Unfortunately, George Michael didn't like the wham mega mix.
So we were taken to court and George Michael's lawyer was a guy called Tony Russell.
So as we lost this case, I walked up to him and I said, Mr. Russell, you absolutely killed us in there.
Would you mind representing me in the future?
I just liked him. And so when all this terrible things were happening in my life, the one person I reached out to at that point was this lawyer, Tony Russell.
And I said, look, I've got myself into a real mess.
i had next of equity on on the house i owed the bank a lot of money i had nothing basically and i said tony what do i do and he said uh you're gonna have to find a major label simon now to back you uh and that means getting a label deal i said what does that mean he said well Well, some of the major labels are offering, you know, people like yourself, their own label, which, you know, you'll own a part of, but they will bankroll everything.
Because without that, there's nowhere else for you to go.
Two companies were willing to meet me.
One, I think, was Polydor, which is now part of Universal.
And the other company was BMG.
and I went in to meet with Polydor.
I thought we had a really great meeting.
I basically told him, you know, I've had some success.
I think there's a massive gap in the market, you know, for pop music.
This is what I do best. I had a similar meeting with BMG, which I didn't think went as well.
And then two days later, I got a phone call from my lawyer and he said that they don't want to do it.
And I'm like, okay, so where are we left?
He said, you're left now with BMG.
If they say no, you have a big problem.
So I had to wait about a week and I'll never forget it.
He called me and he went, I've just heard back from BMG.
And I went, yeah? He said, they're going to give you one year.
And that was probably one of the most exciting phone calls I've ever had in my life.
So you become like an independent consultant for BMG, like an ANR consultant for a year.
You get a year contract.
And I'm assuming under the terms of this, you had to sell a minimum number of records for them.
Correct. It's exactly right.
That was part of the condition is that, because I didn't have any artists at that point.
I had to start really all over again.
I had an ANR budget, which wasn't very much, by the way.
I was able to hire, I think, an assistant.
and i remember we were in their offices the first week in this tiny little office with one telephone and we just used to stare at it and it never rang so it's like okay fine i know well i did i didn't have a business plan nothing you know it was literally just sell records it whatever you can we can find just sell records that's all i kept thinking about the the thing that i'm really really interested in is that while you are in, in that time at BMG, you did something very unusual and risky and kind of crazy, which is you suggested signing, um, like, well, puppets, for example, doing, doing a test. So I
should, I should get some backstory here.
Cause I don't think most people will know who Zig and Zag are.
Zig and Zag were this, it was this weird weird tv show i think it was irish and it was weird alien puppets and they would just sing songs be the kind of thing today that would just pop up on tiktok or youtube and be huge i mean it was just really funny irish humor which kids and adults liked it was nuts and i remember there was something about them singing so you know obviously they weren't real puppets so i found out who the the two guys were and i called them and i said you know hi i'm simon i work at bmg would you ever you know consider about putting our record because you are you know singing
on on one of the shows they were doing and they went yeah and at the same time the power rangers were huge in in the uk and i said no i can't remember which one came first power rangers or or the world wrestlers But I also, someone told me that the wrestlers had sold out Wembley Stadium, 87 ,000 seats in two minutes.
And I'm like, what?
And, you know, I'd seen enough of them on TV and saw how much music they used in their shows to go, gosh, they're selling so much merchandise.
If I could get the wrestlers on record, this is a no brainer, which I fortunately managed to get them to do.
And I did the same thing with the Power Rangers.
I mean, so Zig and Zag, Power Rangers, WrestleMania.
So let's let's kind of take Power Rangers, for example, like they had music, right?
They had their theme song, and there was music in the show.
So I can imagine how you could take that theme and get some artists together or whoever was making the music for Power Rangers and have them write, you know, eight or 10 songs for a record and put that together and put that out there.
WrestleMania. So basically the idea was if I'm trying to work this out in my head, you thought, okay, let's get these wrestlers, put them in a recording studio, and give them, I don't know, things to say or just have them kind of talk or give them some lines to sing.
And then we'll get professional singers to fill in the gaps and add beats and just make ten songs.
How did you conceive of what that would be?
you know once i got the deal uh i went to see one of the shows and i actually thought the show was brilliant but i loved more than the wrestling was the entrances because each wrestler had a kind of like a signature theme yeah so i thought actually music's a huge part of what the show is so you know whether you're the undertaker or whether you're the british bulldog or whatever um each each person should have a kind of a signature song.
You know, by this point, I was at BMG.
I used to sit in these A &R meetings, and it took me back to the times of when I was, you know, delivering the mail.
These guys in these A &R meetings used to look at me like I am the lowest form, you know, in the room.
They couldn't even make eye contact with me because they were so serious.
And they were playing all these cool bands so we're trying to sign i'm not doing great and i used to you know play these crazy songs and they would sometimes just get up and walk out the meeting and tell me to my face what an idiot i was and i'm like well it's the music business i'm just trying to make money you know it doesn't really matter does it someone's enjoying it let them enjoy it who cares i mean the the thing about any industry and it's like, whether it's music or, you know, or, or my world or whatever.
I mean, people get horse blunders on, right.
And so all of the people around, around, like all the people who are in that world had a certain view of what good music was and what it meant to be respected and appreciated and for a good review from a critic.
But essentially you, it sounds like you didn't, that wasn't in, on your radar screen.
Like you, you're focused on what is going to sell.
Yeah. And look, to be fair, when I made the Power Rangers record and the video, I actually loved it.
I mean, I got goosebumps when I saw the video.
I just thought it was fantastic.
I found it really exciting.
I knew the music industry would hate it, but I personally liked it.
yeah it got to a point however where it was so miserable in in in one part of bmg i was working for i just had enough one day because i was sitting in this label meeting uh they were making the projections for the final quarter of that year and everyone had played their songs and this the my boss turned around to me and said and what have you got simon i said well i've got some pretty good news you know i've got the power rangers and i've got zig and zag and she's like what and i went yeah and i said well can we hear them i said yeah and i put these records on there was absolute deadly silence in the room
and there was a huge board which she was writing on and she just wrote a massive zero on the board after me playing these two songs and i just said that's it so i I went up to the big boss and I said, I'm walking out my contract.
I just can't deal with this anymore.
I'm making you a lot of money.
I'm being humiliated.
And he said, look, I'll tell you what, I'll move you to another label within BMG, a cool label.
But the best label to be on was RCA at that point.
And they were really doing well.
And they moved me over to RCA.
So with the same deal and my boss you know direct boss was head of ANR and he just said look I get it Simon you know I understand what you're doing don't let anybody make you lose your confidence you've got a good track record from where you've come just make sure your first records are hit here and that was it when we come back in just a moment how Simon taps into television yet again to find his next hit and then winds up on camera himself.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
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Hey, welcome back to How I Built This.
I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 1990s.
Simon is working as an A &R consultant for BMG and scouting around for his next hit record. The way the business worked in those days, we were still manufacturing records.
So all the independent shops or the chains, if they wanted to reorder a record, They would phone the tele -sales department, and I used to go in and talk to all the people in there.
What's hot at the moment, what's selling, it just gave me a kind of an idea what was going on.
And I was very friendly with a lot of them.
And just by luck, one morning I walked in, and one of the girls who I think ran the operation, She said, Simon, we're getting calls all morning for a song by two actors from a TV show.
I said, what is it?
She goes, Unchained Melody.
And I said, okay, leave it to me.
So anyway, I track it down, which was the night before on this show, it's a drama series called Soldier Soldier.
These two actors in a kind of a love triangle story, one of them or both of them are singing this song.
In the show. In the show.
Not for long. And it's in the end credits.
And it was, I mean, obviously a cover of Unchained Melody, which was written, I think, in the 50s and then famously sung by the Righteous Brothers.
Yes. And because the story was so powerful, the song just resonated immediately.
So the following morning, thousands of people literally are walking into record shops saying, is that record available?
And so the shops were phoning all the companies saying, do you have the rights to this record?
And they went, no. No. So I'm like, okay, this is a good opportunity.
So anyway, got hold of their agents.
Hi, I'm Simon Cowell.
Everyone's trying to buy this record. Would your clients be interested?
No. What do you mean?
No. They're actors.
Let me talk to them personally.
No. Anyway, I get a hold of them personally eventually.
Would you ever consider doing this?
Absolutely not. not um and i said well why and they just said we're not interested so i thought i can't give up on this i felt i had an understanding of what the audience wanted and that's always what drove me which i thought if there was a potential demand for something give them what they want so i just was relentless you hounded these guys i did hound them if i'm being honest with you so finally i i was able to meet one of them and i said look i know that you're taking this really seriously i think there will still be a demand for this record if i can get you in a studio quickly make the song i'll
get it out you have to do much yeah and on top of that if you go in the studio i'll give you a hundred thousand pounds to split between the two of you and they went really and i I went, yeah.
So I managed to actually to get them on a television show to perform the record. It was actually the national lottery.
The lottery show was big in those days.
So we did it. And then the following morning is the day of release.
And if you get 3 ,000, 4 ,000, 5 ,000 repeat orders on the first morning, you're heading to a top 10.
You get 10 ,000 to 20 ,000, you're heading to a top five.
You get 50 ,000 plus repeat orders, you're heading top two, number one.
So I really need to know, because we basically had to, on sale or return, give the record stores a ton of records we also manufacture.
So the risk now is getting higher and higher and higher.
So I'm really in a hole here.
I was so nervous that morning.
what's the repeat order like this morning and i looked on the screen and i saw this number and i went no what is the real repeat order this morning that number was 930 000 wow it goes ballistic this record and i mean ballistic everyone not only did they sell out once people people knew the record was available everyone's trying to buy this record we can't make enough records so I've got every pressing plant across Europe in 24 hours trying to make enough stock to fulfill the demand and I think that was my real first kind of like you know oh my god moment you know television is such an important
you know key here emotions are such an important key everything you know together if you manage to make all those things work together you know this is incredible all right let's so you have this this sort of mega hit and you're still in this joint venture with dmg and and and essentially an anr but you've got you kind of it's kind of like your your own imprint like in publishing essentially it's sort of yeah a similar analogy um and one of the one of the acts that kind of slipped through your fingers you've written about this which was a regret of yours was the spice girls not i don't think it
was your i think you wanted to sign them yeah but you couldn't sign them i think the girls were told that i turned i'd passed on them that That wasn't the story.
We used to have to sit in an A &R meeting once a week and a business affairs meeting once a week.
It was a very kind of rigid system.
You know, every week you would have to tell everyone what you were working on, you know, whether you had a chance of a hit, who you were signing.
And then in the business affairs meeting, you would be told whether you were making money or not.
So, you know, it was a really good system they'd created, you know, within BMG to kind of teach us to be entrepreneurs as well as music executives.
You know, it was really, really smart, actually.
So during one meeting, I remember one of the A &R guys saying, I'm hearing a buzz about a band called Spice.
So I just, it was in the back of my mind.
and then i went to a meeting with my uh people who used to plug my records and they had been hired to work on the spice girls at an early stage and as i pulled up the girls were in a camper van or something and and for some reason knew who i was uh you know as an anr person and dragged me into their van and played me uh wannabe and this is before mobile phones i get in my car floor it back to my office, call the manager and said, look, I'll literally double whatever deal you've been offered if you haven't already signed.
And he said it's too late, they signed.
And so whether they had or not, I don't know whether that was true or not, but that's how I missed out on them.
But soon after that, you sign Westlife, which also becomes a huge act.
And I know that you've talked about this when Westlife, when their record hit number one you also found out that same day that your your father had passed yeah yeah and you know the the terrible thing about it was was yeah i mean i was kind of at a point where i never actually could believe that my parents would ever pass away i just loved them so much i just couldn't ever imagine it so uh when i was playing demos and things like this at home you know my dad had a really good ear for music and he would say i think that's going to be a hit sign i would go with that record if you're going to choose
between the two and he was always right and he'd heard the first westlife uh single and he said i think that's going to be a big hit for you and i'm like really he went yeah okay well i'm going to give it a shot i believe in this band and I was in I think I was in I was in America I was at a conference and I was waiting to get the news about the first morning's repeat orders which were great and it was a wow this looks like it's going to go to number one and then my boss walks into my bedroom and goes I've got some news for you?
And I'm like, oh my God.
And it just hit me like a train.
I just wasn't prepared for it.
So I flew home and went to see my mom.
And I think I had to take at least one or two months off work.
I just couldn't go into work.
I was so upset. Yeah, I can imagine.
And I mean, I mean, this happens about the time where your career takes yet another major turn.
Because, I mean, here you are.
You've got a bunch of successful records now, right?
Westlife and, I mean, you could have been like a super producer, like a Clive Davis, right?
Like we could have been talking about now 20, 25 years later, all these artists that you signed and you signed this band and that band.
But that's not the direction your career went into, right?
Right. So before we get to where it went, did you let's say, I don't know, 1999, 2000.
Could you have anticipated that for the next 25 years of your life you would become a television star?
Like, was that even on your radar?
Never. No. I got an approach about this show.
It was called Pop Stars and it was about making the making a band basically on TV and there was going to be auditions.
and if I agreed to be the judge then I would get the group that was created which I did think yes this sounds like a pretty good idea reality tv started to take off and I could sort of see this in my head which is yeah I think people find the whole process interesting and it's a great platform for a new artist so you know whoever the group is they're going to sell a lot of records so So initially I said yes.
And then I thought about it and I went, you know what?
No, I'm not going to do it.
It's just too much out of my out of my time.
It's not something I'm even remotely interested in.
So I called back the television company and I said, I'm not going to do it.
So they they gave that role to somebody else, another A &R guy.
So, however, I'd heard enough about the show that it was niggling me.
And I went away on holiday and I think I must have seen something, whether it was I'd seen one of the episodes, a short bit of it.
And I thought, oh, God, this is going to be huge.
We've got to find a way of coming up with our own version, which is what me and another guy did.
This is Simon Fuller, who is the manager of the Spice Girls.
And so you kind of got together with him to create your own concept.
Yeah. Me and Simon went into two companies, ITV, BBC.
Both said yes. However, ITV said, you've got to be on the panel.
And I just thought, I can't miss out a second time.
So I said, yeah, I'll do it for a year.
You know, the artists get signed to me, which is all I really cared about, if I'm being honest with you.
And then after a year, someone else could do it.
That's honestly what I had in the back of my mind.
And then when the show aired, it became an instant hit.
And then America instantly made an offer to do their version.
So Idol becomes a huge success in the UK and Fox very soon after wants to make a version, an American version of it, American Idol.
And this really is the first time American audiences are introduced to you.
And this is 2002 when terrestrial TV was totally different than what it is now.
People would sit down and watch en masse.
So all of a sudden there's this Brit on American TV next to Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson.
Most people knew who Paula Abdul was.
A lot of people might know Randy Jackson.
They didn't know who you were.
So how were you introduced to American audiences?
How was your credibility established?
How did they do that?
I mean, there was none.
I mean, first of all, when they made the offer, I said yes.
And then about a day later, I called them back and I went, I'm just not interested.
It's not going to happen.
And I really had made my mind up.
It was absolutely no. Why were you not interested?
I mean, this was massive exposure for your business at the very least. i just didn't love the whole being on tv that much i mean i kind of loved the idea of signing the artist the being on tv just you know wasn't really my thing if i'm being honest with you guys genuinely and then a friend of mine who i really respected i spoke to her and said i'm in a bit of a dilemma at the moment you know they want me to do the show in america i don't know if it's going to work there or not and she said well look so i'm knowing you either way you're going to beat yourself up if it is a hit and you say no you're
going to beat yourself up if it isn't a hit you could say if i was on the show maybe i could have made it better so i'm like yeah you're right you're right okay so i i agreed and by the way i didn't ask for any money uh for myself on both the british show and the american show on the first year i said i don't want a contract i don't want to be be paid if it works then we're going to have a another conversation if it works so you were you were all you all you got was you could you were guaranteed to sign the winner correct yeah that was yeah and that's what i really wanted and so when i went to
america uh i remember we rented a house uh and i got to the house and the real estate agent said i'm not sure about this new show of yours and I said why he says well the network have asked for a one month break in the rental agreement oh great anyway we made the auditions the auditions were just a mess if I'm being honest with you uh there weren't that many good people and I just thought this is a disaster an absolute disaster to be honest with you guy genuinely I finished filming performing i didn't even know when the show was going to air in america i actually didn't know i'd forgotten about it
i was back busy in the uk and then i get this phone call i just hear this guy screaming down the phone you know the ratings are in ratings are in and it's a hit i'm like what american idol everyone's talking about it and they want to meet you and i'm like really and they went yeah i'm like okay and that dynamic work for at least from the viewers perspective effective worked so well with paul abdul and randy jackson like it just it the three of you it was the perfect chemistry yeah but here's the thing right and so that first season kind of legendary and i know know it very well because i've interviewed
kelly clarkson twice on different shows that i do and so i've i've gone deep into that experience for her like winning that right and kelly clarkson becomes kelly clarkson right it's his first season and now then she becomes a a megastar.
What? I mean, you didn't want to be on TV, right?
You were, it just, it sounds like you were just, it wasn't, it wasn't interesting to you.
But the thing about being on TV, because I was on TV for two years back and as a reporter 20 years ago, it's a completely different beast. Like there's a charisma you have to find, you've got to jump out of the camera.
And some people have it.
And some people really have to work on it and learn it.
It doesn't you don't come across as like a two dimensional person in that, like you come across as somebody very comfortable on TV.
So what was it uncomfortable for you?
No, I because I'd done so many auditions in my life, because we were always creating bands and groups.
You know, that was all we ever used to do.
I mean, I spent most of my year auditioning people and I knew what auditions were like you know they were like most of the time people aren't very good you have to be honest they're pretty quick and what I wasn't going to do was change who I was just because I was on tv I wasn't going to lie to these people and say oh I think you're amazing and everything's going to happen because I knew the reality you know which is it's hard enough if you can sing I mean it's impossible if you can't dancing.
So I was just frustrated that first year thinking, I just want to find a star.
And if we don't find a star, I'm going to look really stupid.
So I'm getting increasingly frustrated.
You were just doing what you would already been doing at auditions, which were not filmed.
You would get people together and you would give them feedback.
And the feedback was just very blunt.
And then you were doing the same thing.
It's not like you created a persona of like this harsh guy.
You were just doing what you do.
I always respected tough love.
And I did make that very clear, by the way, when I agreed to do the show in America.
I said, look, just so we're clear, I'm not going to pretend to like people I don't like.
I'm just not. Yeah, and I am not judging you, maybe a little bit.
No, I'm not judging, I promise.
But I'm curious about how that kind of played out because I think your your feedback today is slightly kinder a little bit and maybe that's because we're in a different era but like in the earlier days and certainly you know as it went on you can see people are like deeply hurt and and and I get it like sometimes you would have people come on or often and they would say I'm going to be the next pop star I'm going to be the biggest star in the world and they'd come on and it would be shocking like they were so horrible and you you would think, are you delusional?
And that's what you want to – like most of us in our minds are like, are you delusional?
But most of us wouldn't say that because we're kind of socialized not to say that.
We would say, oh, thanks so much. That was interesting.
I think we're going to pass.
Look, I mean the point is going back to what I learned, you know, becoming successful in A &R was when you first start out, you have to have a correct steer.
Because if I hadn't had that If I'd had somebody lying to me and saying everything which I was doing wrong was right, I never, ever, I promise you, Guy, would not have been able to have a successful career.
If you're entering into the entertainment full stop, you've got to have thick skin because you're going to get so much rejection.
I actually think, for me, I would rather someone say to my face, I think your idea stinks.
It's absolutely terrible.
And this is why it's terrible.
And I'd go, well, I'll disagree rather than it's wonderful.
And then as I leave the room, they go, that's the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.
And, you know, that does happen.
I've heard it happen.
And to give you an example, when I talked about setting up that very first business, you know, when I got that job at EMI and we, you know, it was a tiny little business and we needed backing, you know, by by getting money from each territory to give us an advance.
against earnings that was the business kind of model so we had to go to America so I turn up in my very very early 20s to LA and I'm like oh my god this is unbelievable look at this place it's everything and more and I go in to meet all these people and I thought my god I've had 10 meetings in a row and everyone's going to back me every single person this is incredible I never ever heard a word from any of those people.
And I was really pissed off because I thought, wow, every single one of you lied, just lied.
I would have rather someone said, Simon, the reason why we are not going to back you is your songwriters aren't very good.
The songs you played are terrible.
You don't have a business model, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And we are not going to risk any money about your wild idea.
And I would have gone, I respect that.
When we come back in just a moment, Simon talks about his latest project, which he says is one of the hardest things he's ever done.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This.
I'm Guy Raz. So by the mid -2000s, Simon Cowell has one of the most recognizable names in TV as the force behind American Idol, America's Got Talent, and The X Factor.
And one day while he's judging one of those shows, a kid who works in a bakery named Harry Styles shows up to sing.
He's got a lot of charisma.
You can see it already as a 16 -year -old kid.
I mean, of course, you remember that moment because he became Harry Styles.
Do you feel like when you see somebody like that, you are 100 % airtight sure that they will make it?
No. No. I think what you're looking for on a first audition is potential.
You know, has this person got potential?
That's the only thing I think you can say.
I mean, some people, you know, have better voices on their first audition, but may not have charisma.
Harry had a good voice.
He was nowhere near the peak of, you know, what he could do as a vocalist. But, you know, his charm was just, I mean, crazy charm.
I mean, he was 16. He wasn't phased by 7 ,000 people in front of him.
And he's talking to me about pies and cakes and stuff like that.
I just really liked him.
And that was it. I think it was that season where the other singers would be put together as One Direction, right?
It was that same X Factor.
I mean, was it like my sort of conspiratorial mind is like that was engineered like to find those guys and have them all audition separately and then for them to come together and make this band One Direction just seems like totally fantastical.
Well, it was, it was interesting.
None of them really popped, you know, as they did on their first audition.
And I remember seeing, you know, the five of those in particular, just going, you know, we don't have room for them as individuals, but this would be crazy, crazy to lose them.
And then I just turned around, you know, to the other two sitting at the table and I went, well, why don't we put them in a band?
I mean, it was quite obvious that these five just looked amazing and they had great personalities.
And I just thought, you know, having put together a lot of bands, you know, in my life before I thought, okay, well, maybe we just got lucky here.
What have we got to lose?
So I said, look, we're going to give you a lifeline.
You've got two weeks to work it out and good luck.
And that was just, that was it.
And this was a band that you would eventually sign to your label, Psycho, which I want to talk to you a little bit about because I think you really kind of – it really started in 2005, Psycho Entertainment as sort of a production company.
Tell me a little bit about how you operate that business or and also, you know, appear in the shows and prepare for the shows and edit the shows and then run the business.
How do you kind of manage your time?
I've you know we all evolve and we find you know how do we work best and you know even something as basic as working out one year well how many meetings do I actually have per year and the number was frightening because it was over a thousand you think about that a thousand meetings per year and it's very easy you know three six five times three is a thousand you know and you you, I don't think you can function well like that.
I think, you know, what I've learned now is less is more.
Yeah. Don't do two things in the same day.
You know, whatever it is, if I'm filming, I won't take a call, won't look at an email.
I will only concentrate on filming.
And then when I'm doing something else, it has to be just that thing for the day.
Whereas years ago, I would be doing, you know, seven or eight different things in a day, working till seven in the morning thinking i'm doing a great job and i don't think i was and it sounds crazy but in between all of this is how do you make everything good you know how do you make each artist sound good how do you make the show look good how do you make each week better than last week i mean that's really the only thing that's going on in your head is that is that no matter matter how overwhelming this is, the quality has got to get better.
I wonder about just all of that time, I know you've got a child and that I'm assuming changed your life, you know, I've got two kids, and it does change your life, it changes how you see the world.
But before that time, would you have called?
I mean, were you such a weird question?
And I know Brits particularly hate this question.
But were you happy?
I mean, would you have called Call yourself a happy person?
I mean, you were so successful outwardly, making a lot of money, you were a celebrity, traveling all over the place.
I don't think so, particularly, no. No, I don't.
I did actually remember saying to myself, before Eric was born, is this as good as it gets?
Because you get very stupidly get caught up in ratings battles, chart positions.
You know, I know this is important, but I started to think that was more important than the quality.
And I had to do a massive, massive shift. And luckily, when Eric came along and I started to really, I suppose, well, first of all, I just looked at everything he loved as a kid.
And I realized that actually he still loves the Jungle Book.
He loves 101 Dalmatians.
He loved every movie I've ever loved.
Nothing had changed.
And it kind of reminded me, actually, when something's good, it's good.
And if it can last a generation, isn't that your main kind of aim, rather than trying to be so radical one week to get the ratings up that it might damage your long term brand or something, which I think we all were guilty of at some point, you know, where now I'm completely the opposite.
I'm thinking, you know, if you get to 20 years with a show, how do you get to the next 20 years?
And you don't do it through gimmicks or anything else.
You do it by the talent has to get better, the editing's got to get better, everything has to get better.
You know, that's the kind of the drive I still have. What does the drive come from?
Is it you against yourself?
Is it you against, I don't know, someone else or an idea of what people had of you?
Because you're driven by something that keeps you going.
Like you could stop working now.
And of course, it would be interesting because working is interesting.
But but but you are still I wonder if you're still chasing something.
I'm always chasing something.
I'm doing something at the moment where I'm really putting myself in the public eye to prove that I can do something I was well -known for doing a few years ago but I haven't done it recently.
And I did it to prove a point, I think, to myself that I either can or can't do it.
This is your launch to find a new boy band?
yeah yeah and I did it you know not with any you know um buffer in any form whatsoever it was this is when we are going to launch it and this is going to see if if we get enough people to audition and and if we don't get enough people we're going to have to do what I used to do years ago and just promote promote promote and to the point on the first day genuinely guy I had no idea whether there was going to be two people or 400 people waiting for me I just didn't know And it was absolutely terrifying.
And then when I finished the auditions, because I'd only auditioned them once, I honestly didn't know whether they were any good or not.
I just didn't know.
And so there were times when I was making this thinking, why have I put myself through this?
And I suppose it's because, you know, when I'm sitting on a show and people want my opinion, I don't want them to base that opinion on something I did 10 years ago or 20 years ago because I'm not really interested in that.
I'm only really interested in what I'm doing today and tomorrow.
And to launch this idea of launching a search for a new band.
And by the way, I think you have found the band, right?
The band's created.
Is it public yet? No. No, okay.
Okay, so when will it be made public?
I think around about maybe the end of the year, I'm thinking.
Got it. Okay, so from everything I read, it was a struggle.
It probably is a struggle, right, to find the right mix of guys who can do this.
It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, and with the pressure that this is all being documented, and if this goes wrong, this is going to be really, really embarrassing.
embarrassing but I think you know and I was thinking about this before we you know we were having this conversation today because I was thinking you know we're going to touch on this and I do think as much as I don't like thinking about the past I do love that hustle I used to have to do on a daily basis because it was that or you don't survive I mean you know I wasn't left any money.
I didn't really make any money until I was in my 30s.
I had to really kind of just hustle everything.
And I really loved it.
And so when I, I like to sometimes put myself back in that position where the odds are against me.
And can we make it work without any guarantee?
It's It's kind of this weird thrill I still get.
I don't know why, but I do.
Simon, when you think about the journey you've taken, right, from dropping out and mailroom and here you are now, right?
Right. Sort of I mean, certainly one of the most well -known, if not the best known kind of music executive in in in the world, maybe.
How how much of that do you attribute to how hard you worked and how much do you think had to do with just luck and circumstance?
Everything. You have to have luck.
I think you have to work hard. I mean, there's no question about that.
that um i mean you know what i called the hustle that was the hard work i mean you know you know when i was promoting that first record i would be you know driving hours to clubs all over the country every single night you know just to get my record in front of an audience it was the only way so the idea of not doing that meant failure so i just no one else was going to do it for me because I had no resources so it was just that it was single swim yeah you know this whole path I've been on it's worked because I've also had amazing people working with me you know I've just been very very fortunate
and I do believe I've been a good mentor and many people have been an amazing mentor to me as well I really believe in that whole mentorship thing you know which is you know You know, someone comes in without much experience and, you know, you hope that after working with you for, say, 10 years, they're going to go on and do wonderful things on their own.
I get a real kick out of that.
That's music mogul Simon Cowell.
By the way, when it comes to musical recommendations, one of Simon's favorite influencers is his own son, who is now 11.
I mean, he came to me about three years ago, really excited.
he came running into my door Dad, you've got to hear this band, they're really good and he plays me a One Direction song I know this band No you don't, I said, well yeah I do How do you know them?
I said, well I used to work with them No you didn't, and you must have found out afterwards Seriously, you work with them?
Yeah I was very flattered because he the song still sounds good today you know, and that's what I think we've been talking a lot about today is that I like to feel that, you know, the things I'm most proud of are the things that have lasted the longest. research from Iman Ma 'ani.
Our audio engineers were Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley.
Our production staff also includes Catherine Seifer, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, JC Howard, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Andrea Bruce, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.
Thank you. Survey.
