Howie Klein, one of the most influential and artist-friendly record executives of the modern era, has died aged 77. Klein passed away on December 24, 2025, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer. His death marks the loss of a rare figure who bridged underground music culture, major label power and uncompromising political activism, leaving a legacy that continues to shape how the music industry understands creative freedom.
Born Howard Klein in Brooklyn on February 20, 1948, Klein’s relationship with music began long before boardrooms and platinum records. While studying at Stony Brook University in New York, graduating in 1969, he immersed himself in live music culture, writing about bands and booking performances for the university’s student activities board. Even at that early stage, his instincts were remarkable. Artists he promoted during those years included The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, Otis Redding, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and Tim Buckley, a roll call that reads today like a condensed history of late-1960s rock.
After university, Klein spent several years travelling through Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Europe before settling in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, where his influence deepened. From 1976 to 1978 he co-hosted The Outcastes on KSAN, recognised as the first regular punk radio show in the city. At a time when punk was still viewed with suspicion, Klein gave airtime and serious conversation to artists including Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Devo, The Cramps, Dead Boys and Roky Erickson. He later became a long-running co-host of Rampage Radio, a heavy metal program that ran for decades across KUSF and Radio Valencia, quietly shaping the Bay Area’s alternative and metal communities.
In 1978, Klein co-founded 415 Records, a San Francisco new wave label that became an essential incubator for West Coast post-punk. Through 415, he signed and developed acts such as The Nuns, The Units, Romeo Void, Translator and Wire Train, several of whom later transitioned to major labels. The imprint demonstrated Klein’s defining professional philosophy, that artists deserved long-term belief and room to evolve.
That philosophy reached a global platform when Klein joined Sire Records in 1987 and, two years later, became president of Reprise Records, the Warner label founded by Frank Sinatra to protect artistic independence. From 1989 to 2001, Klein presided over what many consider Reprise’s most creatively fertile era. During his tenure, he oversaw and supported releases from artists including Lou Reed, Depeche Mode, Talking Heads, Joni Mitchell, Ramones, Neil Young, Pretenders, Alanis Morissette, Green Day, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Ice-T, Enya and Barenaked Ladies.
Klein was known inside the industry as an executive who listened first and interfered last. That reputation stood in stark contrast to the increasingly corporate direction of major labels in the late 1990s. His resignation in 2001, following the Time Warner and AOL merger, symbolised a broader cultural shift away from artist-driven decision making.
Beyond the business, Klein’s moral authority came from his outspoken opposition to censorship. During the height of the Parents Music Resource Center campaign and the introduction of parental advisory labels, Klein emerged as one of the industry’s most articulate defenders of free speech. He viewed artistic expression as inseparable from democratic rights, a stance rooted in Reprise’s founding principles but expanded under his leadership.
He became a driving force behind Rock the Vote, helping mobilise young music fans into political participation, and was honoured with major civil liberties awards, including the Spirit of Liberty Award from People for the American Way and the Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. His compilation project Fuck Censorship underscored his belief that protecting speech was often uncomfortable but always necessary.
In later years, Klein channelled his political energy into writing and organising. From his Los Angeles home he ran the progressive blog DownWithTyranny!, founded Blue America PAC and served on boards aligned with progressive policy and electoral reform. He also appeared in several music documentaries, including I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, preserving his role in key moments of modern music history.
Klein’s influence now lives on through the artists he championed, the executives he mentored and the political movements he helped energise. In an industry often driven by short-term gains, Howie Klein stood for conviction, cultural memory and the belief that music matters beyond commerce.
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