Speakers

Mike Howlett

Award-winning music producer and musician Mike Howlett is the head of QUT's music program.
Prior to his academic career, Dr Howlett received a Grammy award for his work producing Flock of Seagulls. He also produced platinum and gold selling albums and had a string of Top 10 UK Hits with bands including Gang of Four, OMD, Martha and the Muffins and Berlin. Dr Howlett has played bass guitar on 22 commercially released albums and still performs with cult legend Gong, which was the second act to be signed to Virgin Records. Gong headlined the Orange Stage at Fuji Rock and The Glade stage at Glastonbury this year. Dr Howlett was responsible for bringing together the members of successful rock act The Police, has run his own record label and was chairman of the Record Producers Guild in the UK.
Born in Fiji, Howlett spent his teenage years in Australia, leaving for the UK in the 1970s as bass player with The Affair, a Sydney group who won a UK trip from the Hoadley's "Battle of the Bands" competition. He returns to Australia to take up the position of Head of Music at QUT. His PhD, undertaken at the University of Glamorgan in Wales, investigated the role of the record producer by analysis of five of his own hit records.

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Mike Howlett