Baby You're a Star (14 page)

Cowell says he has his doubts about the group’s prospects in the lucrative but cut-throat world of British pop, admitting that he was not at all happy with the final line up of Six. “I didn’t agree with the people he put into the band and I told him that and we still agree to disagree at this point. The name was OK but I just wanted other people put in the band but Louis was the one picking so we disagreed on that.” Though Cowell says Six still has “a chance” of making it in the UK.

Louis stirred the group to relative success in Ireland. In July the act’s second single,
Let Me Be The One
also made No. 1 in the Irish charts, outselling Elvis by three to one. Six followed this No. 1 with another nation-wide tour of Ireland. In many respects, his managerial approach to Six mirrored Boyzone. He went back to basics, instructing the band to perform in small venues throughout Ireland. At least in his own mind, Louis made the decision that Six were at the most going to release records in Europe. He decided against bringing the band to America from the outset. Midway through the summer, he secured a film deal for Six. Filming is due to start in January 2003 and the film is scheduled for release around Christmas 2003.

“The people that are making it, 20th Century Fox, came to Louis wanting him to find actors from Ireland. They didn’t want a band. They wanted actors who could sing and they came to Louis because he would be the best one to find them,” says McKenna, who is adamant that this film will differ from other pop star vehicles.

“There’s no point in the film where we play a band. We’re just friends. The three boys know each other, and the three girls know each other and we all head off on holidays together. But even at the end of a film, we never become a band. So it’s not
Six: The Movie
. The woman who is making it is very adamant that she doesn’t want it to turn into
Six: The Movie
because it’s got an American release date and everything already and we’re never going to be going to America as far as the band goes.”

Few onlookers really believed that Six was going to be Louis’ last foray into pop, as he had promised it would be. When Louis was approached by the UK producers of Popstars and asked to be a judge on their second series,
Popstars: The Rivals
, he was too flattered to turn them down, describing it as a “big, big chance”. His fee for the project was rumoured to be as high as £500,000.

“Pete Waterman put me up for the show. Colin Barlow asked me would I be interested and I was like – maybe. I wasn’t pushing myself. I wasn’t chasing it at all. I met Nicholas Steinberg and Duncan Gray from Granada on an afternoon in the Sanderson Hotel and I said ‘Make me an offer I can’t refuse financially’ and they did,” says Louis.

“They wouldn’t give me all the gen because they were afraid I’d tell somebody about it because there’s a lot of rivalry between
Popstars: The Rivals
and
Fame Academy
on BBC. They just told me that Waterman would be involved and possibly Geri Halliwell. I said ‘I’ll do it but I won’t have any time to manage the band because I’ve too much on.’ I don’t want to be taking on too many bands or acts because I have to give them all time. There’s only so many hours in the day. They told me the plot and I said ‘give me 24 hours’. They faxed me a contract and I said ‘absolutely. Let’s do it’.“

The new series had a slightly different format to the original UK
Popstars
, in order to keep the viewing public interested. This time the judges would choose two acts, a girlband and a boyband. The girlband would be signed to Polydor and managed by Louis while Waterman would manage the boyband and sign them to his own label, PWL. The series would run from September to December 2002 and climax with the two bands fighting it out for the No. 1 position in the UK singles charts. A Big Brother-style element was also incorporated into the show, whereby the public would choose the final composition of the bands by voting out some of the contestants, having watched them living together in the run-up to the finale.

As a member of the judging panel on the
Pop Idol
series, Pete Waterman had already developed a reputa-tion as an impatient and brutally honest judge and there was no hint that he would soften his tactics for the new series. Louis, who had largely been restrained in his criticism of auditionees on Irish
Popstars
, was going to have to toughen up his act. A kindly middle-aged man doling out compliments does not make good television. He was more than capable of rising to the challenge. Eurovision winner Paul Harrington has joined Louis on judging panels in the past and says he isn’t always kind to auditionees: “I have sat in with him on selection panels at auditions and he can be brutally honest. He shatters the occasional dream, but maybe he’s saving them from something worse. This is a vicious business.”

Louis was suitably caustic on early rounds of
Popstars: The Rivals
and UK tabloids began calling him the sobriquet “Louis the Lip”, a title that made him sound like some sort of New York mafia mobster. About the worst of Louis’ insults was uttered when one girl was warbling her way through
I Will Survive
. She found herself interrupted by Louis when she got to the line “Now go, walk out the door”. He completed the line for her and indicated towards the exit.

Louis says he agreed to take part in the UK Popstars for the experience. “It hasn’t taken up a lot of my time. It means I go to London every Saturday. Come on, who wouldn’t love to do that? And be in first class hotels and you’re meeting Geri Halliwell and Waterman. Honestly.”

Louis insists he is not taking part in
Popstars: The Rivals
to increase his own public profile. “At the end of the day, my day job is I’m a band manager and I want to go back to that. I just want to manage my office and enjoy myself. I do not want to be a public figure. I do not want to be a celebrity like Simon Cowell at all.”

14

LOUIS

Louis Walsh has grown from being one of the most well-connected people in Irish show-business to one of the most well-connected people in global showbusiness. The wealthy circles in which he socialises are far removed from the poor rural town of Kiltimagh.

He doesn’t look like a successful and powerful man. He looks like an unprepossessing man; he usually wears a simple leather jacket, a pale blue or striped shirt over a white t-shirt, and a pair of jeans or chinos turned up at the ends.

His appearance masks his true wealth. He owes several properties. The most ostentatious being a cottage on his own island, Inishdaskey, 15 acres of land in Clew Bay, five minutes off the coast of Newport, Co. Mayo. He maintains he doesn’t visit the island too often. He bought the island with his brother Joseph, who lives in the US. He also owns an apartment in Co. Galway, and two others in Dublin, one on the exclusive Clyde Road in Dublin 4 and another on the even more exclusive Coliemore Road in the coastal village of Dalkey.

He is currently considering purchasing another home in London. In total, his personal property port-folio is worth about €2 million.

Louis is a shrewd investor. With John Reynolds, he owns a company called Postale, which has invested €1.14 million in a UK property consortium. This consortium has been actively trading properties since 1999, including a number of office blocks in London and a housing development in Co. Offaly. “It’s nothing extravagant. It’s very low key” says Louis.

He also owns Louis Walsh Management and is a director of five other limited companies including War Management (Boyzone), Rolo Management (Westlife), Give Me A Break Films, Tone Deaf Management and Brill Management.

With his manager’s commission and his business investments, Louis has become a very rich man. His personal wealth is certainly in excess of €20 million. He has earned at least 20 percent of all his artist’s royalties [excluding any songwriting royalties they have picked up], although his take from Boyzone was limited to 10 percent because of the early agreement with John Reynolds. Louis also enjoys other streams of income, such as his fee for participating in
Popstars
and other paid personal appearances. He has also endorsed products in television commercials, most notably the
Irish Times
.

Louis says he is unfazed by his riches. “It’s not important now because I have it. Years ago it would have been all-important. I don’t know how much money I have. I haven’t a clue. Would you believe that? I don’t know. My brother looks after all that for me, Frankie. He’s the foxy one in the family. ‘Every penny a prisoner’ we call him. He’s an accountant and he knows what to do with money and he respects money whereas I don’t really respect it that much. It’s not the most important thing in the world to me. My friends and my family, my life and my health are, believe it or not!”

He is not religious although he says he would like to be. “I think being brought up a strict Catholic didn’t help me. I don’t look on the Church like everybody else in Ireland. I’m very suspicious of the Church and power and all that.”

He was never interested in becoming a priest, as his mother would have liked. In the rare moments when he is not working or listening to music, he likes to relax at home, watching television or one of his extensive collection of DVDs, or reading magazines. He says he chooses the décor in his apartments himself and enjoys buying furniture and art. He rarely settles down for long enough to read a book. He also likes to go for walks on the beach or meeting up with friends for dinner in city centre restaurants. He never cooks for himself. He drinks socially but has no interest in drugs.

“Drugs is a no-no with me totally, totally, because it fucks up people’s heads and they just can’t keep it together. Drugs, I’m totally against drugs, all kinds of drugs, even alcohol, which is the worst drug in the world especially for Irish people.” He admits he tried marijuana and cocaine in the 1980s but hasn’t touched them since. “I’m crazy enough. I don’t need drugs,” he laughs.

Louis has better things to spend his money on. He particularly likes spending time in the US. “I love going there. I might buy a place in Miami longterm to live. I’d like to. I’m going to Miami for Christmas. I’m going to go to South Beach, definitely. I love South Beach and I love LA. I love so many places around the world. On a good day, there’s nowhere like Dalkey or I love going down to Connemara. I love the west of Ireland, on a good day. Wouldn’t want to live there full-time but it’s great to visit.”

His other passion is classic cars and his prized possession is a 1962 Silver Cloud III he bought in Christies of London in July 2001 for £86,350. The previous owner of the car was Elton John, who installed a top of the range sound system in it. The car is known as Miss Daisy because it appeared in Driving Miss Daisy before Elton John bought it.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful car,” says Louis excitedly. “It’s an absolutely amazing car. It’s got red leather and all that. I don’t drive it because I wouldn’t drive around Dublin in a fucking Rolls Royce. I’d look like a pools winner. I’d look like some kind of plonker. So I can’t drive it but I love it.”

For day-to-day business, he drives an old left-hand drive red Jeep.

Music is the overarching passion in his life. His love of music goes far beyond the commercial pop with which his name is associated. In the space of a minute, he can namecheck David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, Lee Hazlewood, Connie Francis, José Felicianos, Creed, Savage Garden, Dolores Keane and Mary Coughlan. All of his friends mention his huge music collection. “He has more records than Tower Records,” says Ronan Keating.

How many CDs does he own? “About five, six thousand. Easy, easy, easy, and that’s albums. Maybe a lot more. Sometimes I buy them twice if I really like them, to have them in each place. There are certain albums I would certainly buy twice.
Broken English
[Marianne Faithfull] is one of them. Lou Reed
Transformer
, David Bowie
Ziggy Stardust
, Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield. I always want to have two copies, just in case. I’ve loads of old albums. I keep all my albums. I’ve loads of old 12 inch disco records. I’ve a jukebox at home. I’ve a real Wurlitzer with all the original 45s in it like Brenda Lee and Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison and Gene Pitney. I think that was the golden age of music for me, the 45s.”

Pop music, however, is his overriding obsession. He checks the charts religiously and always watches music shows on TV to see both how his acts are performing and how the competition is shaping up. “He loves songs, he loves music and he feels quite young and he lives his life through music. You can call Louis at three in the morning and he’s still up watching MTV, reading magazines. In that respect, he lives it,” says Keating.

His love of music is mentioned by almost everyone. Colin Barlow of Polydor summed it up well. “My impressions of Louis have never changed really. He’s a complete and utter music lover and has the enthusiasm of an 11-year-old for what he does. I mean he’s just one of those people who’s not jaded by the music industry. He absolutely loves music. And I think he’s one of those great people who’s a fan of music and loves doing the job he does. There’s so few people like that. He’s not jaded, he’s not cynical, and I think that’s what makes him such a joy to work with. His know-ledge of music is phenomenal. He’s the encyclopedia of British pop music and country and western music.”

He remains close to his family, particularly his mother, whom he “adores”, according to his sister Evelyn. His mother in turn is “extremely proud” of her son, goes to Dublin regularly to see his acts in concert and hates reading anything negative about him. The relationship has become deeper since his father Frank died seven years ago. Maureen Walsh still lives in the family home on Chapel Street in Kiltimagh.

“There’s three in Dublin, one in the States and five in Kiltimagh,” explains Frank Walsh. “Are we close? Some would be closer than others, I would think, but that’s just the nature of big families. Do we get together? Not that often, maybe once or twice a year we’d all get together.”

Louis is closer to some of his siblings than others. His mother and siblings are his only family because he has never married and has no children. He acknowledges that he is, however, a sort of surrogate parent to his acts, all of whom have referred to him in interviews as a “father-figure”.

In person, Louis is warm and talkative. He speaks rapidly and excitedly, particularly on any topics close to his heart. He occasionally gets carried away and rants on topics or people who irritate him. Then, conscious he is talking to a journalist, he says, “I’m just trying to give you good quotes.” He is largely self-deprecating although given to the odd self-important comment. He is effusive in his praise of friends and those he admires and dismissive of those he doesn’t particularly care for.

Friends say he is great company when he is relaxed. Both Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell say Louis is one of the funniest people they have ever met and both describe him as “a breath of fresh air”.

The journalist Michael Ross says that he likes Louis “enormously”. Why? Because “he’s open, he’s smart and he’s a man of his word. Those are rare qualities. Rare in Ireland. Rare in the music business. Rare in people one comes across in journalism. If Louis says he will do something, he does it. He’s not the most organised person I’ve met, he’s not the most punctual, but he’s among the most truthful and honourable.”

He is largely an honest and honourable person but his catchphrase is “good scam, good scam”. Paul Keogh may have had a rocky relationship with Louis at times but remembers that he was always in good humour. “That was the great thing about him. He was still always laughing. He used to come in even when he was earning a fortune and steal half the records off the record desks. He’d come in and all the new releases he’d pop in his bag and he’d be gone with about fifty records and nobody minded. They’d just say ‘That’s Louis’.

“He was, in the nicest way, a complete chancer. Not in a dishonest way. Everybody loved him even though they knew he was a rogue but yet he was very loyal to them. They didn’t stick by him for any monetary gain, because they stuck by him when he hadn’t a penny. Everybody’s very loyal to Louis. He rings me the odd time here now, and he always says, ‘Can you put me through to God please’ and he still keeps the same sense of humour.”

Loyal is a word often used to describe Louis by those who know him. Once a friend or an act has won his trust, it is rarely withdrawn. “Louis either trusts you totally or he doesn’t trust you. There’s no in-between. And I think that’s the nature of that business because there are so many people knifing you in the back and it’s real bitchy and all that, from what I can see. He either trusts you or he doesn’t you and if he trusts you, you’ve got carte blanche to do anything,” says his brother Frank.

His friends say his personality hasn’t changed over the course of his career, other than becoming more self-confident in recent years. Louis himself agrees: “I don’t think I’ve changed at all. I still go to Luigi’s chipper in Ranelagh for my chips. I queue up with everyone else. Why shouldn’t I? I don’t think I’ve changed. Maybe a little bit more outspoken.”

In truth, no one can undergo the transition from being an ordinary nobody to a wealthy and successful person without changing in some respects. The friends he made in 1970 are still his friends today.

Carol Hanna, is perhaps one of Louis’ closest and longest-standing friends. “People might think ‘Oh God, that guy’. He’s maybe a bit arrogant but Louis was always like that and can be very abrupt at times. I haven’t seen him change as such. He was always like that, but people didn’t know him then. I’d hear him talking to the ballroom owners and that years ago and he did have that sharpness. But other people probably didn’t see that. It has just come out now much more so because people see,” she says.

Virtually everyone who knows him personally or professionally says he maintains an almost religious devotion to professionalism.

Something Pete Waterman said while chatting about Louis gives weight to this . “Louis is . . . Louis is . . . Louis is . . . I’ll tell you what Louis is, he’s in total control of Louis, which means that he does what he wants to do. If Louis doesn’t call me, it’s not because he’s forgot, it’s because Louis doesn’t think he should speak to me at that particular point in time. That’s the way he is. Like all managers, he doesn’t like confron-tation. That’s a part of a manager’s job, to know when to confront and when not to. I would say he is absolutely superb at that.”

Louis has opted to run his business himself for the most part, with only one personal assistant in his Dublin office. Those who know him are divided on whether or not maintaining the one-man-band oper-ation is a good idea.

“What has happened Louis,” says Paul Keogh, “is the same thing that has happened others; how to handle the fame of it and how to manage the influence. If I had one criticism, he’s tried for too long to manage off a mobile phone and it has been to his detriment. He had all these acts, and everybody had his mobile number.’”

Other observers believe this is the key to his success. The editor of
Heat
, Mark Frith, thinks Louis’ way of doing things is admirable, even if it’s not the norm for pop managers. “If you had the energy to do that, then do it. Not many people do, and he certainly has energy in spades and good for him. He’s got very strong people around him, like press officers, so he does have an extended family around him, a wider team around him. That’s the way he chooses to be and he’s a networker and he’s very good at it. The only thing that would ever stop you working like that is if it got too much as it does for most people.”

The fact that Louis never moved his business operation to London is also notable. Jim Aiken feels particularly strongly about this. “The place for him to have based his pop music empire was to get to London as quickly as possible, maybe get to LA as quickly as possible. Just as U2 became the dominant rock band in the business from a Dublin base, Louis was able to do the same with pop. Is that of benefit to the country? I think it’s of huge benefit that we do have our own pop stars walking around. He helped to develop their careers, and more than anything else, he sold them. He’s kept Dublin vibrant. He’s kept us working over the last lot of years. He definitely has given more than he’s got.”