Mark Holden: The Holden touchdown

Former teen-pop sensation Mark Holden, best known to Australians today as a judge on the top-rating show Australian Idol, is a well-respected entrepreneur in the music production industry. Wealth Creator chats with Mark about mixing creativity and business … and working with The Hoff.


While studying law at Adelaide University, Mark Holden was offered a record deal with EMI and rose to fame in the mid 1970s as a young carnation-toting pop star. As his music career took off, his ability to study waned and despite his best efforts to complete his final year at the University of NSW it wasn’t to be.“I was on the road, I was touring, I made a record, and so I only managed to finish one subject in my final year and dropped out three months before the end.”

Mark achieved an amazing amount of success at an early age. He recorded three albums with EMI Australia, some of which went on to platinum sales, and enjoyed a string of smash hits. He also won three Logies for his roles in television and starred in two feature films, Blue Fire Lady and the iconic Newsfront.

Pop goes ...

It was on his way to the Cannes Film Festival in 1980 to promote Newsfront that Mark stopped by the US. While there he was introduced to three brothers whose self-titled label the Scotty Brothers had a deal with Atlantic Records. He signed to them and in a wise career move relocated to Los Angeles, California.


“I’d had five or six years on the roundabout in Australia and I knew that as a real pop singer, the clock was ticking,” he says. “Also I had a kind of a yearning as a songwriter to do something substantial and I didn’t really know how to do it. Most people who’ve had that moment never have another moment.”

Mark was determined to make a name for himself in America, but the transition was tough. His career in Australia came to a grinding halt and during his two years with the Scotty Brothers, they released just one single which didn’t work. He did get his green card however, which presented him with a crucial decision. Should he return to Australia, or hang in and try and make a career in America as a songwriter?

“I had come to the conclusion that my time as a recording artist was over, that I really didn’t have a strong enough voice for incredible, great records. And I had no real reason to believe that I could ever make it as a songwriter. All the songs I had had hits with in Australia were songs that I hadn’t written. But it was something that I actually loved.”

So began a period of intense soul-searching. Mark read the books of Carl Jung, wrote down his dreams for a year and analysed himself in a bid to find out what to do. In the end he made the decision to stay in America and become a songwriter.

Inspired by a dream, Mark penned the song Lady Soul and in a moment of synchronicity met some people who worked with Motown group the Temptations.  He produced a demo of the song entirely on his own and gave it to his contacts, who loved it. He went on to do over two albums with the group, notching up two top ten hits, one of which was Lady Soul.

Mark’s success with the Temptations in the 1980s validated his decision to hang in and be a songwriter. “The affirmation of that hit happening in that magical way had a really transforming effect on my whole life. If you really truly do get in touch with yourself, you can make things happen that are literally magical, in my opinion.

“But,” Mark laughs dryly, “I realised that just being a songwriter [in Los Angeles] was pretty bloody difficult. I slowly started to make a transition from being a songwriter into being a business person. If I was going to get cuts as a songwriter, I needed to actually be involved with making the records and finding the records to make.” 

The music business

Mark formed a partnership with Don Wilson, an African American lawyer and Vice President of Quincy Jones’ company Quest, and Anthony Curtis, then General Manager of the production company Kalimba. While his partners ran the business Mark focused more on the creative side, developing essentially young, black producers. “I started to co-manage and co-write with them. I would write the melodies and the lyrics, and they would write the track and make the record. We had over four top ten R’nB hits in the billboard charts, and that was a really good time for me which was essentially the ’80s. I really enjoyed that.”

Mark knew the music industry backward, but admits going into business was a steep learning curve. “Each area I’ve gone into has been an area I haven’t known. I’ve taken what I’ve known from the step before with me to the next step and surrounded myself with people I could learn from. And challenged myself and put myself in situations that no right-minded person would have put themselves into.”

In the early 1990s Mark seized the opportunity to run a publishing company called Left Bank Management. Unfortunately, the move immersed him more in the business side of things. “It was entirely business and no creative. I lasted a year there, and it made me ill. I found that if there wasn’t a creative core … the 100% business part of it was just too much for me.”

In a recurring effort to find a balance between creativity and business, Mark struck out on his own, developing and producing artists. He notched up hits with a number of top recording artists including model and actor Milla Jovovich, and started working with David Hasselhoff, writing his songs as well as producing and coordinating his albums, live promotions and musical promotion for television. They worked together for three years, during which time David enjoyed multi-platinum successes in Europe.

In 1995 Baywatch was about to end and Mark’s wife Anna gave birth to their daughter, Katie. “I could see another end so I thought it was time to go home. I wanted my daughter to grow up here (in Australia) not there.”

On his return Mark decided to return to law school. “When I got back here, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. So I went back to law school. It was something that I really felt incomplete about and I figured if I didn’t do it then I never would, because I had the time. Going back to uni as a mature-aged student was absolutely one of the best experiences of my life. The first time around ... I had no idea what I was studying. This time I had a lifetime’s experience. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.”

Australian idols

In 1999 Mark formed his production, publishing and management company MarJac Productions with Jack Strom, from Red Faces of Hey, Hey It’s Saturday. Jack’s administrative skills complemented Mark’s creative input. “Jack handled the administrative side; also he managed the tour management side. I’m a home body and I like my family. So it was a good division of labour. He was ready, willing, able to be on the road, be the tour manager and do that kind of administrative stuff and neither of those things are really things that I like.”

In 2000, MarJac Productions, along with Transistor Music Australia and Universal Music International launched Vanessa Amorosi onto the Australian and international music scene. Mark laughingly acknowledges the (un)fortunate timing. “It seems like any time I try to finish my law degree a hit happens. But this time I was determined to actually finish. I was on the road, I was studying in hotel rooms, but I managed to finish.” He graduated with an LLB in 2001.


Mark became involved as a judge on the record-breaking show Australian Idol in 2003. It was during the show’s second season that he established Dream Dealers, his own managing, music publishing and record label. He immediately signed the talented Joel Turner.

“Doing the record company on my own, a one-man band with Joel, was again an incredible learning experience. Even though I had done so many things in the past I’d never been the actual record company where I had actually manufactured everything, paid for everything and made everything look efficient. And in this case I did. It was an incredible learning curve to actually on a daily basis be making those decisions.”

To aid him in the process, Mark was fortunate to have a mentor in the form of Sebastian Chase of distributor MGM, whose flagships include John Butler and The Waifs. “Even at 50 years old I learnt so much from Sebastian. I was very fortunate that [Sebastian] is such a generous person, and such a brilliant and honest person. He just took the time; every time I’d go to Sydney I’d sit in a little coffee shop with him. He’d smoke cigarettes furiously and drink coffee and he’d just share with me what he had learnt.”
 
Mark invested a lot in Joel but at the end of 2005, he was burnt out. “Again with the Joel thing I became 100% business, no creative, because I had no writing or production involvement. Joel did it all himself. And at the same time I was doing Idol and X-Factor and to be honest, that last two years where I did that, once again the same thing happened. I went 100% into the business side. And for me personally, I can do that for a short period of time, but it’s not something I can sustain. I have to pull back and get into my creative side to renew myself.”

His yearning for creative projects influenced his continued involvement in Australian Idol, currently in its fourth season.

“At the moment Vanessa’s moved off, Joel’s moved off, they’re now moving off into wherever their careers are going to go. And I have pulled back. I’m concentrating on Idol to make that happen. To give it everything I’ve got. I love … being involved with a production that’s such high quality. Apart from that I’m just looking for the next creative inspiration. Searching my dreams, searching my spirit, searching my inner life to figure out what that is.” 

Looking at his life thus far, it would be easy to assume Mark Holden was a gambler, but he asserts that couldn’t be further from the truth. “Because I take so many risks in my business life, in my personal finances and personal way of living I am actually deeply and profoundly conservative. I’m not a conspicuous consumer, I don’t drive the cool car, I don’t live in the groovy house, I don’t have lots of stuff … but I have found that I need to go and invest in the things that I believe in. And I need to be able to do it myself. There have been times that I have had to ask other people, to rely on other people to come up with the money, but the older I’ve gotten the less willing I am to do that. I want to be able to just do it myself, to back my own judgement.

“Other than that one year with Left Bank I’ve never actually had a job. Everything I’ve done has been entrepreneurial. Everything I’ve done has involved putting my own money in. It freaks my wife out, and not every one of them works. It’s the ones that work that are the exception. That’s the nature of the beast. I’ve had a very unique life experience in that I’ve done exactly what I want to do. And I’ve backed it with my own money. Fortunately every now and then I hit a home run. And the home runs have to sustain you through the strikeouts.” 

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