MTV Magazine: Howard Perl Profile – A Man of Many Talents.

I was truly honored to talk with one of Cleveland’s up & coming movers and shakers in the music business. He is an artist manager, artist developer, music publicist, music producer of both originals and remixes, contemporary song writer, and a deejay. To say the least, this man is multi-talented and very, very busy. Who is he?

He’s HOWARD PERL, and he has accomplished a lot by the age of 24, with two gold records already under his belt.

Most kids at the age of 12 are playing with their friends and starting to rebel against their parents. Howard decided he was going in another direction: he was going to start a career. Even at the age of 12, he knew he wanted to entertain people. Howard met Terry Macklin, a party deejay, at a party he attended. Howard starting working with Terry at parties. He ran a radio camp. Here he trained people to become deejays.

By 1987, he was interning at WGCL (Clevelands #1 station at that time). In 1988, Howard worked at Reel Things, a recording studio.

He was in charge of selecting a program and editing it for the Armed Forces Radio Network Special Program. He concurrently started his own DJ company called Howard Perl Entertainment.

Remember, he was only 15 years-old at the time.

During his senior year at Orange High, he returned to Reel Things to work on a senior project with his friend, Bill Rainey. They recorded a hip-hop record which Howard ended up marketing and selling in six major cities, including Cleveland. Not only was it the first time he produced a record that wasn’t a jingle or a commercial, but it was also his big break in the music industry.

After graduating from high school, Howard attended Ashland College. He was on the air in his freshman year at WRDL. During his sophomore year, he started to work on his own solo record called Perl Project. Helping in this project were Howard Murphey, Adam Lech and Meeks. Howard met former NINE INCH NAILS keyboardist, Lee Mars, who was hired to be the engineer on the record. Howard took time off from school to work on Perl Project full-time.

Mars and Perl decided to join together and form a music production company, Realworld Entertainment Corporation. Howard returned to Reel Things for the third time to begin music publishing. Here he made sure that Reel Things got their royalties for the original jingles that they did for other companies.

Howard decided at this time to sell his deejay business to his mentor Terry Macklin to pursue the music business full-time. Once Howard sold the deejay business, he returned to school and got his degree.