Baby You're a Star (9 page)

The tour was also notable as the band experienced extreme fan mania for the first time. Thousands of fans thronged the airports of places like Manila in the Philippines and Surabaya in Indonesia. The band were mobbed wherever they went, and frequently had to stop concerts briefly as fans at the front were crushed.

Meanwhile in Ireland, Louis and Paul Keogh parted ways. After Boyzone’s second No. 1 album, and another spate of hit singles, Polydor in the UK had begun to show a deep interest in Boyzone. Louis and Keogh had always had a tempestuous working relationship.

“Louis and I were still barking at each other,” recalls Keogh. Louis also knew Polydor in the UK had more influential connections than Polygram. This fact was also at the back of his mind.

“The way I looked at it was, I’d done it now for three years at this stage, and I thought: ‘Well, we have them signed, so why not get Polydor UK to do all the work, and I’ll still get the royalties’,” says Keogh.

“I was sick of travelling at that stage and to be honest with you, we at the Irish office would have had little or no deal-ings with them, but would still take money. So, it was a very profitable signing in the end for Polygram Ireland.

“It was one of the few acts that the actual record company royalties came into Ireland. U2’s artist royalties obviously come into Principle Management [owned by Paul McGuinness] but the record royalties would have gone to Island Records, nowhere near Ireland. So, we were the first record company to make a couple of million at least [out of Boyzone], so it was a very profitable time.”

While Keogh is critical of Boyzone in certain ways, he remembers his time working with the band with great fondness. He liked Boyzone, Reynolds and Louis.

“Every time somebody says ‘Boyzone’ to me I do actually laugh. That’s my first reaction because they were very funny. The one thing you couldn’t take away from them, that English acts hadn’t got, was that they had a great sense of humour and they had a great sense of devilment.

“They’d be tired and the next thing somebody would crack a joke and they’d be off again, and they’d wake up and they’d be gone messing. But they were, as somebody once said, ‘never dull, never boring, but never content’ and I thought that summed them up.”

Louis always believed Keogh had worked against him, and not with him but says Boyzone wouldn’t have happened without Keogh’s involvement.

“I was always into making the music and getting the acts, and if he had stuck to the marketing and stopped trying to control people, I think he would be in the music business now. He could have been very big in the music business but he did it his way,” says Louis.

Keogh, however, is unabashed about his handling of Boyzone and Louis.

“There was nobody in the world wanted a boyband from Ireland. We would never have got off the ground if we had rules and didn’t do all the things we did do.”

The head of A&R in Polydor in the UK, Colin Barlow, took Keogh’s place. Louis had previously attempted to involve Polydor in Boyzone through Lucian Grainge, the head of Universal Music in the UK. Grainge is reputed to be the most powerful man in the UK music industry but Louis’ first attempt to bring him on board failed.

“Someone in our promotion department said Boyzone, this Irish group, were coming over and they were doing the
Smash Hits
tour,” recalls Grainge.

“I rang him up and said ‘there’s a very good reaction and some of my people are going down to see you on the
Smash Hits
tour. I think we had another group on there at the time. He said, ‘No, we don’t want to sign to Polygram. We want to be on London.’

“So I said, ‘Well, you can’t be on London because we’re going to release you. You’re signed to Polygram in Ireland. So he said, ‘No, no, no, you don’t get it. We’re going to sign to London’ and I said, ‘Well, no, you’re not’. So I hated him.”

Barlow, like Grainge, was a heavyweight in the industry, one of only two British A&R people in the global A&R top 20. He said Louis made the first approach. “Louis came to me when the second album was finished,“ recalls Barlow.

“I started to get involved, and then kind of got slowly but surely moved into being the A&R person totally for Boyzone and made the third album. I put that whole thing together with Louis, and that was when I got heavily involved in Boyzone.”

Although Louis and Boyzone had already experienced pop success on a grand scale, Barlow believed he could take them further. “I think the key was what Boyzone hadn’t done on the first two albums was sell records outside the UK and my role really was to take it up a gear. Luckily, it did.”

Barlow went about “taking it up a gear” by bringing in high profile songwriters and producers to work on Boyzone’s third album,
Where We Belong
.

He sought the services of Mark Hudson and Mike Mancini, who worked with Bon Jovi and Hanson; Steve Lipson, who produced songs for Annie Lennox and Whitney Houston, and Denniz Pop and Per Magnusson of the Swedish song factory Cheiron. He also hired Diana Warren, who had written songs for Celine Dion.

Barlow’s instincts were correct.
Where We Belong
went straight into the UK charts at No. 1 when it was released in August 1998. Two singles from the album also made No. 1 (
All That I Need
and
No Matter What
), and two others made it to No. 1 (
Baby Can I Hold You
and
I Love The Way You Love Me
).
No Matter What
, from the musical
Whistle Down The Wind
, was also the first Boyzone single to sell over a million copies, and it was voted the best single of 1998 in a national phone poll in the UK.

The move to Polydor in the UK also signalled renewed efforts to break Boyzone in the US. Louis remained firm in the belief that US success was no longer an ambition. He believed it could be achieved. Polydor’s management was of the same opinion.

Before simply releasing their songs in America, Polydor approached Jim Steinman, the producer who co-wrote
No Matter What
. Steinman undertook the US distribution of a reworked version of
Where We Belong
on his new label Ravenous (owned by Mercury). But the record never made an impact for no clear reasons. It was well received by the critics, incredibly well received in some cases. A review in the prestigious
Rolling Stone
magazine stated: “More adventurous and genuine than ‘N Sync, less contrived and pompous than the Backstreet Boys. Boyzone are bringing their choreography and Celtic charms to the last great frontier.
Where We Belong
, released in Europe nearly six months ago, exhibits Boyzone’s penchant for unabashed radio candy — sticky sweet and addictive — as well as authentic musicianship and instrumentation.” It continued: “Nearly all fourteen tracks — from the impeccably produced
One Kiss at a Time
to the sincere ballad
All the Time in the World
— dare critics to do more than glance at the album cover and toss it in the trash. Boyzone are grassroots guys – they write and produce nearly all of their songs, a rare and respectable practice in the boy band industry.”

Boyzone’s “authentic musicianship” went unnoticed by the general public in the US.

Keogh blames Polydor for this failure. “It was the record company’s fault that they never broke America,” he says. “Nobody in the record company was prepared to put the money into it, because it would have taken about three to four million dollars just to take the single off the ground in America.”

This unwillingness to invest in Boyzone provided the first clue that the band was on a downward slope, believes Keogh. Louis partly agrees.

“Looking back now,” he says, “I don’t think the band was good enough to make it in America. They didn’t have enough. The vocals weren’t good enough.”

9

WESTSIDE STORY

Louis’ accomplishments with Boyzone convinc-ingly proved that Ireland could produce pop bands. The envious local rock fraternity in Ireland were less than effusive about his achievements. Louis was openly criticised, castigated and attacked; many of his detractors would have been happy to see his career collapse. The more he was criticised, the more he was determined to show that he could enjoy longevity as a pop manager. Partly so he would continue to succeed at his chosen profession, and partly to make sure his critics wouldn’t have the last laugh, Louis maintained an almost religious devotion to finding and cultivating new talent from 1996.

He didn’t need a clairvoyant to tell him that Boyzone would inevitably break up and he made plans for that eventuality. Although he was managing one of the world’s biggest pop bands, which had made him a millionaire several times over, his future was not secure while Boyzone were his only act. For the time being, he had power and influence, but a rapid fall from grace would be inevitable once Boyzone broke up, unless he had more acts to unveil.

While managing Boyzone, he continued to manage small bands playing in provincial towns and around Dublin city. He constantly searched for fresh talent. He was not a man who could leave things to chance in the hope that a potential pop star would come knocking on his door. He actively kept watch for bands, singers and musicians and signed a number of acts, hoping that one could be the next international smash hit. It may seem odd that he afforded other acts his time and energy given the success of Boyzone, but he did and used the connections he made bringing Boyzone success to promote his other charges.

As early as 1994, he began recruiting new talent when he signed Who’s Eddie, a pop band comprised of three sisters and a brother – Orla, Dara, Jacqui and Keith Molloy.

“We came in on the back of Boyzone,” says Jacqui Molloy. “He had heard of us and there was a message to contact him, so I rang the office. I knew he’d been an agent or something, so I thought ‘What the hell. I’ll give him a ring. Maybe he wants girls now, if he has had boys’. He was interested, came to see the band, loved the whole vibe, was very into it.”

Louis signed Who’s Eddie weeks later. Under his stewardship, the band achieved a degree of success, producing three hit singles that made the top ten in the Irish charts. Another record from the band reached the top five in the British dance charts. Louis used the same management techniques with Who’s Eddie that had worked so well for Boyzone. The band was signed by Polygram, Boyzone’s record label. He hired reputable producers, convinced the Molloys would take off. Unfortunately, international stardom didn’t happen for Who’s Eddie.

“It was easy to market a boyband or a girlband. I think we were just something a little bit different, so you couldn’t put us into a box, so that created all sorts of problems, even for Louis,” says Molloy.

“He did what he could, but he hadn’t the power that he does now. As time went on, every time you saw him, he had met somebody else, or he had got further in the music industry or met a bigger producer. He was mixing in different circles.”

The band eventually decided to leave Louis’ man-agement in 1998 and turned to Carol Hanna to book their gigs.

“It wasn’t so much that we decided that Carol would do the booking. It was just that he was never in the country, and he couldn’t do the dates. It just sort of happened. He was so busy with everything else and he was never in the country.”

The relationship ended amicably though; there were no arguments, no bitter recriminations and no harsh words exchanged.

“I think I met them too late in their career for inter-national success,” says Louis. “I couldn’t get them a record deal in the UK because people would say they were too long in the tooth. Talented, but too long in the tooth. I mean, we had meetings with Warner Brothers in the UK and lots of other people, and at least Keith got a publishing deal out of it.

“I think he’ll get a hit record with somebody in the UK. We haven’t heard the end of him. They always had great potential but they just never got the break. They’ve worked very hard for everything they’ve got. You have to admire people like that.”

With both Boyzone and Who’s Eddie under his management in the mid 1990s, Louis was still eager to find more new acts. He would constantly ask his friends to watch out for talent that he could groom into the next pop sensation.

Linda Martin, with whom Louis always maintained a personal friendship, unexpectedly discovered a new act for Louis in the summer of 1996. Martin and a friend were partying in the POD, the nightclub owned by John Reynolds, when she saw twin brothers singing one of Johnny Logan’s songs. She was impressed. The brothers were Tony and Steven Carter. Martin called Louis at once with news of the discovery.

“She said, ‘You have to see these guys. They’re great’,” recalls Louis. The twin’s telephone numbers were passed to Louis who arranged to meet the brothers and watch them perform. Louis agreed with Martin’s analysis and decided to manage the twins, who at the time called themselves Brother 2 Brother. Louis immediately changed the pair’s name to the Carter Twins and began touting them as “a young Righteous Brothers”. He also decided to bring the 19-year-old Keating on board as co-manager.

“I thought they had great potential for middle of the road pop,” says Louis of the Carter Twins.

Louis had always held out great hopes for Keating. He looked upon the young singer as his prodigy. Keating was the first person in Boyzone to start making plans for his future career. He had shown an interest in manage-ment, with a particular emphasis on learning to select and write songs. It was clear there was something else behind Keating’s apparently innocent foray into music management. Keating was preparing for a solo career but if anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything.

As Boyzone were already internationally successful, Louis had little difficulty in persuading A&R rep-resentatives in the UK to take a look at his latest pop offering. The Carter Twins were promptly signed to RCA in London, and given a support slot touring with Boyzone.

Louis also succeeded in getting the brothers onto the 1996
Smash Hits
Roadshow. The twins later won the
Best Newcomer
award, just as Boyzone had two years previously. Unfortunately global stardom never came their way.

The single was a cover of the old classic,
Twelfth of Never
. The single failed to achieve any notable success, peaking at a distinctly unimpressive No. 61 in the UK charts, although it did make the top 10 in Ireland.

RCA decided to be patient. Louis explored every possible avenue to success. In an effort to boost the Twins profile, RCA paid £20,000 for a support role on Peter André’s UK tour, but it didn’t pay off. The Carters next single failed to chart.

Louis and RCA were nonplussed by this lack of success and persisted in pushing the Carters. The twins toured Ireland in the summer of 1997 with the 2FM Beat on the Street. They were back on the
Smash Hits
Roadshow in the autumn of 1997, and they continued to support Boyzone whenever possible. All these performances failed to boost the Carter Twins public profile in any significant way.

RCA persevered and released a Carter Twins album called
Number One
, possibly one of the most unfortunately titled records of all time. It didn’t perform well and failed to achieve sales forecasts.

Louis nor RCA could understand what happened. The Carters were well received whenever they toured. They were also good performers. Furthermore, their album had been produced by the respected pair of Phil Harding and Ian Curnow. Harding had produced hits for Kylie Minogue and the Pet Shop Boys among others and, along with Curnow, had written memorable pop singles such as East 17’s
Stay Another Day
.

It was during this time that Louis persuaded the Carters to enter the Irish National Song Contest, the qualifying competition for the Eurovision. Louis was enthusiastic about their prospects right up until the Contest.

Paul Harrington, who played guitar with the Carters that night, remembers Louis watching over the brothers protectively. “When we were rehearsing,” says Harrington, “Louis would always be there. He would always call in, even though it was at the height of Boy-zone. He’s always professional.”

Although he maintained vociferously he “didn’t care” who won, he cared enough to ensure that Keating hosted the competition, and that Boyzone performed in the interval. Keating also wrote
Make The Change
for the Carters to perform. Louis was confident that the Carter Twins would win but they didn’t. They came fourth. Louis took it as a personal insult. He couldn’t hide his emotions and exploded. The rock journalist George Byrne distinctly remembers hearing a lot about the injustice of it all. “He went nuts! That was the only time I’ve ever really seen him go baloobas,” Byrne smiles. “The Eurovision kind of meant something to him. He absolutely lost the rag as a result of that. He really went mad.”

Louis was particularly disgusted because the winning song didn’t become an international hit, something one of his acts would probably have managed. He blamed RTE, saying that it had a great chance to create a hit record but had blown it. He offered to revamp the National Song Contest for RTE the next year, and promised that if the broadcaster went about selecting a Eurovision entrant his way, it would have a hit single on their hands in 1999. RTE chose not to rise to the challenge.

“I didn’t lose my temper. If they had sent them [the Carters], they would have had a big hit record in the UK. It was always a great platform every year for somebody to get a hit record. It’s all about getting somebody with star quality, a great songwriter, a big record company behind them and a manager that was prepared to work at it. I was annoyed because I thought they should have won it,” he says.

RTE may be culpable in terms of failing to make Eurovision hits, but Louis made some mistakes himself where the Carter Twins were concerned. He put them into two successive pantomimes in Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre. Observers say he failed to realise that when audiences see pop stars in a pantomime, they auto-matically think of failed pop stars. Audiences know that pantomimes are the retirement homes of showbusiness. Louis says he had no other choice and wanted the Carters to earn money.

“I was prepared to keep them going,” he says. “The odd thing about me and the Carter Twins was I never put them under contract, and the oddest thing of all, is that they left me! That’s the real story that nobody knows. That’s exactly what happened.

“They were really nice guys, Steve and Tony, and I could have got them another record contract. I wanted to make them into another Robson and Jerome. They were great kids and they were really nice. They had great voices. A lot of people didn’t like them, but I don’t listen to that. I was going to keep at it with them. I was going to get them another record deal.

“Virgin were interested in them at that stage. There was a market for middle of the road. Tom Jones, Cliff Richard, Julio Iglesias,” says Louis. “Iglesias sells millions of records worldwide. Middle of the road is great. It’s hard to market sometimes and it’s hard to get radio. But it’s a huge market.” RCA dropped the brothers in September 1998.

Months before Steve and Tony Carter left Louis’ management company, he received a telephone call from Mae Filan. The woman wanted to talk about her son Shane and a boyband he’d put together called IOYou. Mrs. Filan came from Kiltimagh and had already called Louis’ brother about her son. She wanted a favour.

“I thought ‘here we go’ because I get calls like this every single day,” says Louis. “I distinctly remember her telling me he was like Michael Jackson, he was great and all the rest. So I said, ‘Listen, I’ll meet them’ so I met Shane, Kian and, I think one of the other guys from IOYou, in Dublin.”

Shane Filan says now that IOYou could scarcely believe their luck. “I didn’t actually believe that she had got through to him. I wouldn’t believe her. She had to ring me back three times, honestly, before I would actually believe her. When I found out we were meeting him, I thought ‘Oh my God, imagine if this guy actually managed us or if he got one of his assistants to manage us.’ That’s how much we felt about him.”

While the young band members were starstruck at the prospect of meeting Louis, he was impressed by their vocal ability.

“They came to Ronan’s 21st birthday party in the Red Box and the thing I liked about them was their personalities. They were really nice country guys. I mean, they looked like culchies, but when they sang, my God, it was just amazing. You just can’t get voices like that anywhere. It was the voices and the attitude. They were so hungry for any kind of fame and that was the best thing about them.” Louis felt sure the band had potential.

IOYou was made up of six boys who had all attended Summerhill College in Sligo: Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan, Micheal Garrett, Derek Lacey and Graham Keighron. They came together after performing in a school production of
Grease
and called themselves Six as One, but changed the name to IOYou. They achieved some success in Co. Sligo and performed a couple of gigs locally. Their determination and ambition was evident from the beginning. They decided to release a single,
Together Girl Forever
, on an indie label in their hometown. The cover of the single featured the six band members staring sulkily into the camera and sporting bad haircuts and ill-fitting black suits. The single was relatively successful, however, and drew some media attention, including an invitation to appear on RTE’s Nationwide programme.

This moderate acclaim was thrilling for IOYou but they were aware that further success was likely to evade them without the backing of a manager who knew the business.

When Louis got involved in the project, things immediately took a turn for the better. Before he became the group’s manager, he secured them a slot supporting the Backstreet Boys at a concert in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day.

“It was like a dream come true,” Kian Egan told
Hot Press
three months later. “One minute we’re all sitting in a room in Sligo, and the next night we’re performing to over 9,000 people. We’re really just five culchies coming into a pop scene in Dublin.”