Nick Lowe

Nick Lowe has long stood out as a multifaceted talent, crafting songs that weave together wit and feeling, shaping records as a producer of considerable impact, and singing with a voice that conveys both poise and warmth. Over the decades he helped launch pub rock, figured prominently in punk’s formative era, scored success as a power-pop artist, and later embraced a refined role as a polished vocalist. His path began in Brinsley Schwarz, a loose-knit group of counterculture musicians who laid the groundwork for the early-1970s pub-rock scene that later fed into punk. Once that band dissolved, Lowe threw in with the punk and new-wave movements, acting as in-house producer at Stiff Records and overseeing landmark albums by the Damned and Elvis Costello. His rapid, unpolished approach earned him the moniker “Basher” while helping define punk’s do-it-yourself ethos. During new wave’s peak he co-led Rockpile alongside Dave Edmunds, the two frequently contributing to each other’s solo projects through the early 1980s. The era’s high point arrived with the 1979 album Labour of Lust, a hook-filled power-pop collection whose playful tone shone brightest on the hit “Cruel to Be Kind.” After Rockpile disbanded, Lowe gradually leaned into country-rock, experiencing a creative resurgence with the 1994 release The Impossible Bird, which included “The Beast in Me.” That record steered him toward his mature identity as a sophisticated crooner, a direction he has continued even while enlisting Los Straitjackets for several EPs and the 2024 album Indoor Safari.

Born to a British Royal Air Force officer, Lowe passed part of his youth in the Middle East before the family settled in Kent. As a teenager he performed in groups such as Three’s a Crowd and Sounds 4 Plus 1 alongside guitarist Brinsley Schwarz. In 1965 the pair started the guitar-pop outfit Kippington Lodge, which signed with Parlophone Records the next year. Over the following four years the band issued five singles that attracted little notice. By 1969 Kippington Lodge had transformed into the country-rock band Brinsley Schwarz, which landed a United Artists contract in 1970. Early on the group tried to manufacture attention with a showcase at the Fillmore East, yet the ploy backfired and left them pariahs in the British scene by the time their debut appeared. Across the next five years they slowly cultivated an audience as leading figures in pub rock, a straightforward, good-time style that carved out space in the early 1970s.

Pub rock’s unpretentious sound and look helped set the stage for punk’s arrival later in the decade, not only through its reliance on basic three-chord structures but also by establishing a network of small venues. Among the scene’s veterans, Lowe exerted the greatest influence on punk’s development. When Brinsley Schwarz folded in 1975 he already enjoyed a reputation as a distinctive and skillful songwriter and had begun producing acts including Graham Parker, Dr. Feelgood, and the Kursaal Flyers. His writing was moving away from the country and blues-inflected rock of his Brinsley period toward sharper pop constructions. Eager to exit United Artists, he cut a string of deliberately uncommercial singles in an attempt to force his release. The first, “Bay City Rollers We Love You,” credited to the Tartan Horde, inexplicably became a hit in Japan, prompting the Japanese division to request a full album and keeping Lowe on the roster. After the follow-up “Let’s Go to the Disco,” issued under the name the Disco Brothers, the label finally dropped him.

He then became the inaugural signing on Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson’s new independent imprint Stiff Records and served as its staff producer. Cut for only 65 pounds and released in summer 1976, the single “So It Goes”/“Heart of the City” stands as the first British proto-punk release of the late 1970s, drawing strong reviews though modest sales. Lowe quickly turned out numerous productions, including the Damned’s debut Damned Damned Damned—the first British punk album—and Costello’s My Aim Is True in 1977; he would helm every Costello album from My Aim Is True through 1981’s Trust. He also oversaw singles by Wreckless Eric, the Rumour, and Alberto y los Trios Paranoias, plus Graham Parker’s early LPs. That summer he joined Dave Edmunds’s touring band Rockpile, which soon became his own regular backing group. He issued the Bowi EP in 1977—a playful nod to David Bowie’s Low—and participated in the Stiff package tour Live Stiffs before departing the label with Costello to join Riviera’s new venture, Radar Records.

His first full-length, Jesus of Cool (issued in the U.S. as Pure Pop for Now People), appeared in 1978 and contained his initial British Top Ten single, “(I Love the Sound Of) Breaking Glass.” The follow-up single “American Squirm” emerged that autumn with little impact. After producing the Pretenders’ debut track “Stop Your Sobbing,” Lowe recorded his second album, Labour of Lust, backed by Rockpile; Edmunds’s Repeat When Necessary was tracked during the same sessions. Labour of Lust yielded Lowe’s sole major American hit, the reimagined Brinsley Schwarz number “Cruel to Be Kind.” Between recording and touring in 1979 he married Carlene Carter, Johnny Cash’s stepdaughter; he would later produce her albums Musical Shapes (1980) and Blue Nun (1981).

Lowe and Edmunds toured with Rockpile to promote their 1979 releases, and the pair were profiled in the BBC documentary Born Fighters later that year. The band became known for exuberant, often inebriated shows and a lively mix of originals and rare covers. In 1980 the members attempted a group album, yet friction between Lowe and Edmunds clouded the sessions. Seconds of Pleasure, Rockpile’s only LP, surfaced in autumn 1980 to mixed notices and spawned the single “Teacher Teacher,” written by Eddie Phillips. The band dissolved months afterward, with the remaining musicians electing to back Edmunds on his solo work.

Lowe resurfaced with Nick the Knife in February 1982, touring behind it with a lineup featuring guitarist Martin Belmont and keyboardist Paul Carrack; initially called the Chaps, the ensemble became Noise to Go for the American leg. The album achieved modest success, but its 1983 successor The Abominable Showman did not. In response Lowe shifted toward roots rock on 1984’s And His Cowboy Outfit. Both that record and its 1985 follow-up Rose of England earned favorable reviews and stronger sales; the former contained his final U.K. hit “Half a Boy Half a Man,” while the latter included his last U.S. chart entry, a fresh take on the longstanding “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock & Roll).” In 1986 he reunited with Costello to produce Blood & Chocolate. Throughout the 1980s he also helmed projects for the Fabulous Thunderbirds, John Hiatt, and Paul Carrack.

Plagued by alcohol issues for much of the mid-1980s, Lowe, aided by Costello and Riviera, overcame his struggles and abandoned the pursuit of mainstream pop success, turning instead to country-rock and roots-oriented material. Pinker and Prouder Than Previous (1988) signaled this change, though it passed largely unnoticed. Produced by Edmunds, Party of One (1990) marked his first charting album since 1985. Later that year he and Carter divorced. The following year he formed the supergroup Little Village with Hiatt, Ry Cooder, and Jim Keltner—all veterans of Hiatt’s 1987 album Bring the Family. The project was marked by internal strain, and its self-titled 1992 release and subsequent tour suffered accordingly; the band dissolved once the tour ended. While preparing new material, Lowe’s Brinsley Schwarz composition “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”—already a hit via Costello—was recorded by Curtis Stigers for the soundtrack to Whitney Houston’s film The Bodyguard. The album became the highest-selling soundtrack ever, unexpectedly making Lowe a millionaire through publishing royalties.

He staged a return in 1994 with the country-focused The Impossible Bird. Widely praised as one of his strongest works in years, the album resonated within the rising Americana field in the U.S., and he supported it with his first solo tour in five years, backed by guitarist Bill Kirchen, formerly of Commander Cody. In 1998 he issued Dig My Mood, then delivered three albums for Yep Roc: 2001’s The Convincer, 2004’s live set Untouched Takeaway, and 2007’s At My Age. His fourth Yep Roc outing, 2011’s The Old Magic, outperformed his prior releases on the label thanks to near-universal acclaim. Two years later he released Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family, his first holiday collection. He toured in support with Los Straitjackets, a partnership fruitful enough that the instrumental group issued the Lowe-cover album What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Los Straitjackets in 2017. That same year Yep Roc reissued his long-out-of-print 1980s catalog.

Lowe next enlisted Los Straitjackets for the June 2018 EP “Tokyo Bay”/“Crying Inside.” Another tour with the band followed, after which he issued the “Love Starvation”/“Trombone” EP in May 2019. Lay It on Me, his third EP with Los Straitjackets, appeared in June 2020 and included an instrumental reading of Shocking Blue’s “Venus”—Lowe’s first production credit in twenty-five years. The collaboration continued on the 2024 album Indoor Safari, which mixed fresh compositions, revisited recent singles, and updated versions of previously unreleased older material. Before the September release Lowe performed at the Newport Folk Festival, Wilco’s Solid Sound, and a Brooklyn concert presented by the Grammy Museum, then embarked on a month-long North American tour.