Pete Waterman

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Pete Waterman is an English producer, songwriter and television personality. He was born in 1947 in Coventry and after school worked as a fireman on steam locomotives. Inspired by the Beatles he then chose music. He collected rare American records and became a DJ with a mix of rhythm and blues and soul. At the Locarno club in Coventry he played afternoon discos for young people under eighteen. There he noticed that young dancers loved fast records, something he never forgot. He then worked for record companies, including in Philadelphia and in Jamaica with Peter Tosh and Lee Perry.

Music and breakthrough

In 1984 he started his own company PWL and brought in the producers Mike Stock and Matt Aitken. This is how Stock Aitken Waterman came about, the most successful production team of the British 1980s. Waterman was the man with the ear for what the public wanted and the business side, while Stock and Aitken worked the songs out in the studio. From their studio in the Borough they made hits for Dead or Alive, Bananarama, Mel and Kim, Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. Their sound was fast, tight and electronic, with choruses you could sing along to straight away, exactly what the dancers at the Locarno had always wanted.

Influence

Waterman was involved in at least twenty-two British number 1 hits, later also with the group Steps. On television he presented The Hit Man and Her and sat on the jury of Pop Idol. He is also a great railway enthusiast with his own collection of locomotives.

Listening

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 7: The 1980s^NL Reader
• Mixtape 12: The Hit Factory^NL Reader