MARK HOWITT BIO

Since I started playing music in the late 90's, I had always been interested in playing metal music and the heavier side of the art. I started my musical journey playing bass in Reign, and from there I became a metal vocalist which to many is what I was known for best. It was not until around 2016 that I started to become interested in actually singing clean vocals, as opposed to the throat singing styles of the metal genre. 

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Although I had started to sing clean vocals in certain parts of Wolven Ancestry songs, such as the epic chanting parts and occasional clean passages, I wanted to broaden my palette and really focus on getting better at singing what some might call traditionally. To begin this learning process, I remember choosing the song "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails, however I was influenced by the Johnny Cash version of the song as I really felt the emotion in that rendition of Hurt. 

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Getting there was no easy task, however. I remember locking myself in a closet at my apartment with my laptop, sitting on a milk crate with headphones and recording take after take of the vocal part, redoing the singing parts at least a thousand times and still not being 100% satisfied with it. For months I practiced singing, and at some point during the recording process I was finally content enough with what I had recorded and began learning other cover songs.

Out of anything musically I had learned up to that point, clean singing was the hardest of them all and is something I still practice with to this day. I know where I wanted to be vocally but getting it to sound good on record is an entirely different beast. I taught myself the singing techniques of chest and head singing, even though at one point I had considered getting vocal coaching lessons. However, in the end, just as with all the other instruments I had learned, I ended up teaching myself which gave me my own style and sound, something I have continued to develop over the years.

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It was not until 2017 when I decided to release a compilation of my first songs, which included some originals and cover songs from that era of my life. The release was called "Demos & Covers" and was to be the first album recorded under my own name as a solo project. Due to the insane learning process and struggle I had to get the songs to where I was happy enough with them, I decided to rename this album "Demo(n)s & Covers". After that release, I began experimenting with several different covers and during the Covid lockdown had the time to really focus on getting better at playing and singing at the same time. I remember playing for hours every day trying to perfect various songs, many of which resulted in me creating some music videos for the songs which appeared on "Songs for the End of the World", which was a 20 song cover album with a couple of originals that I released in 2020. 

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Since then, I have experimented with my solo project and have several releases ranging in style and genre. Essentially, anything that doesn't quite fit with my other projects such as Amaranth or the heavier stuff I do will likely find itself as a Mark Howitt release. To increase my vocal abilities, I also started hosting my own karaoke night at a local bar called Zigs and now sing everything from Johnny Cash to Mobb Deep, Led Zeppelin and Cannibal Corpse. I plan on incorporating the new vocal skills I have learned to future projects and continue to expand my musical influences.