Simon Cowell says meeting Pete Waterman was 'the most important ...

Simon Cowell says meeting record producer Pete Waterman at his studio in Borough was ‘the most important day of his career.’

This comes just as Pete’s group Stock Aitken Waterman has won a Blue Plaque for the trio’s contributions to British pop music.

Britain’s Got Talent boss Simon Cowell appeared on The Diary of a CEO podcast, hosted by businessman and Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett.

On the episode, which aired on Monday 10 June, Cowell talks about how meeting Pete Waterman changed his life.

Southwark Blue Plaques: Stock Aitken Waterman, the Borough-based songwriting trio

Steven Bartlett references Cowell’s book ‘I Don’t Mean to be Rude But…’, where he writes: “The day I met Peter Waterman was easily the most important day of my career.”

Cowell, who has only done a handful of podcast interviews before, explains: “It was – because I realised very very quickly that it was unlikely I was going to be able to sign or find singer-songwriters.

“I was going to have to find artists who needed songs written for them. So I needed to find the best pop writers …in the world.”

He describes hearing a Stock Aitken Waterman record on the radio and thinking it was ‘brilliantly made,’ commenting: “No one had heard of them at this point.”

According to Cowell, who would later become one of the world’s biggest music moguls himself, he met Waterman at the studio, on Sanctuary Street in Borough, and asked him to produce a track for his talent, Sinitta.

“He said ‘No, I’m too busy’, and I asked doing what?” Cowell continued, “Then he gave me this awful wink and said ‘You’ll see.’

Within six months Stock Aitken and Waterman exploded “out of nowhere.” The trio churned out number one after number one from their studio in Sanctuary Street in Borough, nicknamed ‘The Hit Factory’ and launched the careers of major artists, including Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley.

Following this success, Cowell said he waited in their studio every day ‘making tea’ trying to convince them to work with him until Pete agreed to write the track he wanted.

The 64-year-old said: “I just used to turn up at his studio, literally every single day and make tea, sit in the studios. They were so busy they didn’t really notice me.”

He said this happened for about ‘a year and a half.’

Then one day a few months later, Pete presented Simon with the follow-up – the demo of ‘Toy Boy’ – the 1987 hit that scaled the charts both in the UK and internationally.

Cowell described Pete as ‘the best DJ in the world.’ “He could go to any city in England at one in the morning and he would know instinctively what records to play to the audience.”

“He made everything simple.”

In the past, what former Pop Idol Pete has said about Simon Cowell has been equally as complimentary – with him claiming his friend and business partner was ‘the only star’ of The X Factor.

He reportedly still resides on the site of the former studio in Borough.

The Diary of a CEO podcast is on all major streaming platforms and is available to watch on YouTube.