Brian Howe, the former lead vocalist for British rock outfit Bad Company, died Wednesday at the age of 66, TMZ reports. Howe suffered a cardiac arrest at his home in Florida, a relative told the outlet. The singer, who is also known for singing lead vocals for guitarist Ted Nugent, had existing heart issues, and suffered a heart attack in 2017.
Howe truly launched his music career in 1983, when he became the lead vocalist for Nugent’s Penetrator album and fronted the subsequent world tour. He then became the lead singer of Bad Company in 1986, when Mick Ralphs and Simon Kirke relaunched the band without Paul Rodgers, who was tied up performing with The Firm. A songwriter, Howe handled the writing for most of Holy Water in 1990, which went platinum and ended up on the Top 40, making it the group’s most successful album. Howe’s final album with the group was Here Comes Trouble in 1992, which went gold with hit song “How About That.”
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He then left the group in 1994 after tensions rose amid band members and went on to have a solo career, releasing album Circus Bar in 2010. “It’s actually pretty cool to be back in the saddle. Thirteen years is a long time to be away from a recording career and it feels good to be accepted again,” he told The Rock And Roll Report at the time.
Reflecting on the his career with Bad Company, Howe said, “That came about because I knew Mick Jones from Foreigner. He was good friends of Simon Kirke and knew they were looking to get a band together and were looking for a singer. Mick actually called me at Ted’s house and convinced me to join up with the Bad Company boys and all along I was just praying that Ted wasn’t on an extension.”
He said of his plans for the near and distant future, “My first plan is to have a distant future. The rest should have fallen in place for that to be achieved. Seriously though, I am not a guy who writes songs all the time: I store ideas and when the time is right they pop out. I want to make my best record next time out. That’s my aim: to make a Brian Howe definitive CD where people say, ‘Wow, he is actually pretty good!’ I will try to achieve that in the next couple of years. My other aim is simply to be around to walk through the park with my granddaughter Izabella. She thinks I am truly great [and] I am trying to live up to that.”
