He is the eldest of three boys. His birthplace is Southampton, England, and he spent his early years in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, and attended the Royal Grammar School. He now lives with his family in Somerset, England.
When he was young, he used to give piano lessons. One of his clients was a girl named Jan Smith, who he later married. Whilst working with her, a vehicle crashed into their van, injuring Jan. She claimed compensation and used the money to buy Howard a synthesiser, a Moog Prodigy. The shop delivered two by mistake, and Howard liked the combination of the two so much that he paid for the extra one.
He hit the charts in 1983 with a song called "New Song," which made it into the UK top ten. Speaking with Songfacts, Jones explained the song is his manifesto, and why he wanted to get in the music business and write songs to begin with. Said Jones: "I was working in the factory at the time - I was doing the gigs at night and I was working in the factory. And I wanted to say to people, 'You can. It is possible to do what you really want to do if you've got enough guts and determination. You can do what you're really good at in this life if you set your mind to it.' And so really that's what that song's about. It's about letting go of fear and seeing both sides of an argument and throwing off the things that hold you back mentally."
Jones subsequently had three more hits over the next twelve months and a UK Number 1 album, Human's Lib. He acquired a hardcore fanbase made up of both starstruck teenagers and more mature music lovers, who saw the musicianship which went into the electronic sounds of his songs. His mother ran his fan club. Jones was a close temporal and stylistic contemporary of Nik Kershaw, and the two musicians were often conflated in the affections of the contemporary pop audience.
Howard was known as a respectable face of pop, combining innovative synthesiser music with strong feelings on animal rights and life's excesses. In his early days, he performed with a mime artist called Jed Hoile, who used to do improvised choreography while doused in white paint as Howard played behind him.
In the summer of 1984, he released a single called "Like To Get To Know You Well", which he said was 'dedicated to the original spirit of the Olympic Games'. Although it wasn't an official Olympic anthem for the Games in Los Angeles that summer, it caught on and was a huge worldwide hit. The sleeve featured the song title in ten different languages; while Howard sang the title line in French and German on the extended version. The song appeared in the film Better Off Dead.
Howard's second album was a ground breaking 'remix' album. It contained six songs, all but one of which had been previously released, but which appeared in elongated formats, including the multi-lingual version of "Like To Get To Know You Well". The album was called The 12 Inch Album and the sleeve featured a miniature Howard standing next to a 12-inch ruler.
When he released his second studio album, Dream Into Action, in 1985, he introduced his own backing band, including future Soul II Soul singer Caron Wheeler as one third of female backing vocal trio Afrodiziak. Playing bass guitar, meanwhile, was Howard's own brother Martin, who had to have an extra string added to his instrument to play some of Howard's bass lines, which were originally played on a keyboard without regard for the range of a real bass guitar. One of the singles released from this album, "No One Is To Blame", was later re-recorded and featured Phil Collins as drummer and producer.
In July 1985, Howard performed at Wembley Stadium as part of the Live Aid concert, singing his 1984 hit "Hide And Seek" while playing a piano belonging to Freddie Mercury.
Howard had his last UK Top 40 hit in 1986 and thereafter concentrated on production, songwriting and running a successful vegetarian restaurant, though he had Billboard Top 10 success in the States in the 1990s. His eldest son, Oisín (pronounced Osheen), was born in 1985 and is now an actor.
In 2005, he competed on the American TV show Hit Me Baby One More Time, losing to Irene Cara. Although he lost the in-studio vote to Cara, he won the online poll vote.
There are other artists with the same name:
2. Howard Jones is the current lead singer of American metalcore bands Killswitch Engage and Blood Has Been Shed.
Jones resides in Connecticut. His first success was in Connecticut with the band Blood Has Been Shed. After the release of The Novella of Uriel, the band went on tour, but Jones was eventually approached for a bigger project. Howard Jones replaced the lead singer of Killswitch Engage, Jesse Leach, in July of 2002, shortly after the release of Alive or Just Breathing, Killswitch Engage's Roadrunner Records debut album.
Meanwhile, Blood Has Been Shed released their third album, Spirals in 2003. Critical reviews were mixed, with some saying the album was a bit stray from the music found on I Dwell and Novella, while fans found it to be the band's most sonically-challenging album yet.
The first time KSE fans heard Jones they were impressed by him. Later he would be heard on the song "When Darkness Falls", which was first released on the soundtrack for the movie Freddy vs. Jason. Finally, Killswitch Engage released their first album with Jones as the new singer, as well as Blood Has Been Shed drummer Justin Foley. The End of Heartache would spawn two successful singles, "Rose of Sharyn" and the Grammy-nominated title track, "The End of Heartache". There was a minor spot of controversy with some fans over the Grammy nomination, as the song that was picked was a remixed version that would eventually appear on the Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack. The differences between the original recording and the remixed version are the fact that the song is sung in a traditional singing style rather than using the original scream track that appears on the album, and several sections of the song have been shortened for a more commercially dynamic vision.
In November 2006, Killswitch Engage released their fourth album (and second with Howard Jones) entitled As Daylight Dies. The album has spawned the singles "My Curse" and "Arms of Sorrow", and it has been cited by the band through numerous interviews that the album recalls influences from bands in the NOLA music scene, as well as metal bands like Pantera and Machine Head.
Despite his front man role in Killswitch Engage, Jones is still the lead singer for Blood Has Been Shed.
Aside from singing, Jones has also taken on the role of a manager to new and upcoming artists. Currently, he manages two bands, Twelve Tribes, Mikoto, and also the producer Zeuss.
He is also known for his vocal styles, which include deep, booming roars, a higher, raspier scream, and operatic clean vocals. The clean style is absent from most of his work with Blood Has Been Shed, however, with Killswitch Engage, he usually makes use of all of his vocal styles in almost every song, particularly in As Daylight Dies and Holy Diver.
3. Howard Jones is an English folk singer and musician. He was a member of The Electropathics and currently performs with Albireo and as a solo performer.
Assault And Battery
Howard Jones Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
For feasts at the table
A life of misery
Ending with a shock
Brutal murder (brutal murder)
All hands to the slaughter
Mass torture
And I can hear the screams
With the knife, the jolt, the wring
They must follow in our dreams
Carrying a twisted sting
Children's stories with their farmyard favourites
At the table in a different disguise
Don't talk to me of health
Or something someone else will do
We're talking about the act
Of taking life for me and you
And I hear their screams
The lyrics of "Assault and Battery" by Howard Jones are depicting the horrors of animal slaughter, comparing it to brutal murder, mass torture, and the sound of screams. The first verse talks about how lives are being taken, referring to the animals being killed for food. The phrase "for feasts at the table" emphasizes the way humans consume meat as a luxury when it is actually the opposite for animals who suffer in life and death. The phrase "ending with a shock" implies the cruelty of the killing process.
The chorus is the centerpiece of the song, the repetition of the phrase "brutal murder, all hands to the slaughter, mass torture, all hands to the knife," transforming the song into an anti-slaughter anthem. The sound of screams mentioned in the second verse indicates that the singer is not detached from the horrible acts. The phrase "they must follow in our dreams, carrying a twisted sting" means that the screams of the animals should haunt us as a twisted reminder of what we are doing.
The last two lines in the song prove that the intent is not to lecture the listeners about a healthy lifestyle, but instead about the moral aspect of taking someone's life for food. "Don't talk to me of health, or something someone else will do, we're talking about the act of taking life for me and you" talks about how responsibility for animal slaughter falls upon every individual and disregarding it and hoping that someone else will do better is no excuse.
Line by Line Meaning
The lives were taken
People were killed
For feasts at the table
They were killed to be eaten
A life of misery
The victims suffered before they were killed
Ending with a shock
They were killed suddenly
Brutal murder (brutal murder)
The killings were violent and cruel
All hands to the slaughter
Everyone participated in the killings
Mass torture
The victims were tortured
All hands to the knife
Everyone participated in the killing with knives
And I can hear the screams
The singer can imagine the victims screaming
With the knife, the jolt, the wring
The killings involved using knives to stab, shock, and twist
They must follow in our dreams
The memory of the killings haunts us in our dreams
Carrying a twisted sting
The memory of the killings is painful and disturbing
Children's stories with their farmyard favourites
The killers may have grown up hearing stories about animals they now kill for food
At the table in a different disguise
The victims are being consumed for food
Don't talk to me of health
Eating meat isn't necessarily healthy
Or something someone else will do
Don't expect others to change things for you
We're talking about the act
We're discussing a specific action
Of taking life for me and you
The action is the killing of animals for food
And I hear their screams
The singer imagines the screams of the animals being killed for food
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: HOWARD JONES
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Olivia 73captain73
The lives were taken
For feasts at the table
A life of misery
Ending with a shock
Brutal murder (brutal murder)
All hands to the slaughter
Mass torture
All hands to the knife
And I can hear the screams
With the knife, the jolt, the wring
They must follow in our dreams
Carrying a twisted sting
Children's stories with their farmyard favourites
At the table in a different disguise
Don't talk to me of health
Or something someone else will do
We're talking about the act
Of taking life for me and you
And I hear their screams
mkl62
This hit from Howard Jones was heard on the Miami Vice episode, Little Miss Dangerous, which aired on January 31, 1986. Miami Vice will always be one of my all time favorite shows. It was the first to combine MTV with police action drama.
Bob Davis
This great song was not a single and was not a chart hit in the normal sense; it's about animal slaughterhouses and going vegetarian, which many pop programmers would have been averse to playing.
Jonathan Szuhai
“Combine MTV with police action drama”
That premise would sound absolutely awful if it were the MTV of today.
SNARC
That's how I found out about it too. Richard Blade was referencing the music of Miami Vice for his 1st Wave "Thursday Themes."
Brian Adamson
Jackie!!!!! I love you!!!
nick haswell
Always thought this was a hauntingly brilliant masterpiece
Hare 1970
Bought the album in 1985 aged 15, this song has stayed with me ever since, harrowing yet beautiful
Silverdevlin
Such a wonderful song by Mr.Jones. A song that targets your conscience. Used in Miami Vice for completely different but very effective reasons.
daniel moran
Saw this Vice episode when it was first broadcast in 85. Absolutely riveting back then and still to this day.
Ludovic CELLE
Nice song! The 80's are endless. I keep discovering jewels.