Howard Devoto

Howard Devoto, born Howard Trotter, stood at the forefront of British post-punk during the final years of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s. After co-founding the new-wave band the Buzzcocks alongside Pete Shelley, he established Magazine and later Luxuria, each reflecting a comparable creative direction. Though he stepped away from recording through most of the 1990s, Devoto reentered the studio in 2002 to collaborate with Shelley for the first time in twenty-five years.

Born in Manchester, England, Devoto gained early notice in 1976 by launching the Buzzcocks with Shelley. He contributed to songs such as “Boredom,” “Breakdown,” and “Orgasm Addict,” yet performed only a handful of shows and appeared solely on the group’s debut EP, Spiral Scratch, before departing in early 1977.

In April 1977 he assembled Magazine with guitarist and songwriter John McGeoch, bassist Barry Adamson, keyboardist Bob Dickinson, and drummer Martin Jackson. The band released five albums—Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use of Soap, Live, and Magic, Murder and the Weather—before Devoto exited to begin a solo career, prompting the group’s dissolution soon afterward.

Commercial momentum slowed once Devoto left Magazine. His 1983 solo album, Jerky Versions of the Dream, met with limited sales. Five years later he resurfaced alongside guitarist Noko in Luxuria, issuing Unanswerable Lust in 1988 and Beast Box; both releases underperformed, and the duo disbanded. Discouraged by weak public response, Devoto withdrew from music in 1990 to work full time as a photo librarian at a photography agency, a role he maintained until resuming recording twelve years later.