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And a better one.
The West Coast guitarist and vocalist for the new rock band Closure had initial success with Canuck act DDT in the '90s before walking away from the major label group.
"We started out as a punk, ska, rap rock band in '92/'93 and that was awesome," says Howes, travelling to Calgary where he and his new bandmates will play tomorrow at the Back Alley.
"And as soon as we got signed with Lars and Elektra we had all this pressure to create music that wasn't DDT, and it kind of melted down from there."
The "Lars" Howes mentions so casually is Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich who made DDT the first signing to his now defunct label, Music Company, an imprint distributed by Elektra. Howes says that even though the whole thing went south he and Ulrich remain in contact.
"I'm glad he hasn't called me and asked for my opinion on the new Metallica record," Howes laughs, "because I'd have to lie to him."
And the friendship Howes maintains with his former benefactor isn't the only thing he was left with.
The lessons he learned with his initial major label dealings have been put to good use with Closure, who were the focus of a bidding war, which had them, partially on the advice of friends Default, sign to TVT, which has now released the quartet's self-titled debut.
"I call it free college going through that whole thing because Lars basically took me under his wing for a year and taught me everything about what to do and what not to do ...," says Howes, noting that it gave him an advantage dealing with TVT that not many new artists have.
"They weren't very happy about it. Our A&R guy actually said to us 'I wish you guys were more naive.' "
With the Joey Moi-produced (Nickelback, Default) disc now out and already making a little noise at modern rock radio, Howes can relax and enjoy his new beginning -- something he plans on doing for a while to come.
"For me this is exactly what I want to be doing and we have four guys that think the same way and are on the same page," he says.