Baby You're a Star (7 page)

The deal was straightforward. For his initial invest-ment, Reynolds would receive half of any manage-ment commission earned by Boyzone. Although Reynolds realised he had everything to lose, he consoled himself with the thought that he could also have everything to gain. Louis had his full confidence.

Louis and Boyzone travelled to London to record their first single. Louis was jubilant because he was finally on his way to London to cut a single. But his mood changed when he arrived.

“Levine told me the boys couldn’t sing,” says Louis. “We all went over and I remember the boys had never been in London before. Most of them had never been in studios before, and most of them haven’t been in studios since either!

“I wanted this Detroit Spinners record
Working My Way Back To You
because I thought it was a great fun record. So Ian Levine had the backing track made before we went over. We had to pay him the £10,000 in advance.”

Louis was still unsure of his product and Levine’s remarks didn’t help. The producer wasn’t acting out of malice or stupidity, but he left an indelible impression on the teenagers, who burned with rage at his remarks about their singing capabilities.

“We recorded the song,” says Louis. “But it just didn’t suit the boys, the way he had recorded it; it was too high. So he put Mikey Graham and Stephen singing on it, and he called me out of the studio and said ‘The little blonde fella can’t sing.’ That was Ronan.”

Louis stood motionless, not really knowing what to do. Driven by his commitment to make his idea work, he took the producer’s advice. He dropped Keating; Gately and Graham sang instead. It was not an easy decision to make because Louis already admired Keating and had faith in his talent.

“He [Levine] was somebody I looked up to because he had made some great disco tracks before. It was a bad start for me in England,” recalls Louis.

One episode in London helped to restore the band’s shaken confidence. “We went into this local restaurant somewhere in London, and the girl in the restaurant said ‘Oh, are ye the new Take That?’ So we kind of knew they had something going for them,” says Louis. The waitresses throwaway comment was a fine piece of good fortune. It was exactly what the teenagers needed to hear.

Even at 16, Ronan Keating had an unbreakable self-belief, which some observers could have mistaken for arrogance. He persuaded Louis to let him record another song, the B-side to the single. They chose the Cat Stevens song
Father and Son
, Keating’s party piece and a song he’d performed at the Boyzone auditions. Louis agreed and paid £600 to record it in the STS recording studio in Dublin. The band then made a video for the single. The video cost £4000 to make and looked every penny of it.

Despite the amateurish feel to the whole enterprise, the song quickly rose to No. 3 in the charts when it was released in Ireland in March 1994.

“Riverdance was really hot at the time and Wet Wet Wet had
Love is All Around
so our record only went to No. 3 but it was fantastic at the time,” says Louis. “We did our first PA down in HMV in Henry St. There was like a thousand kids and that’s when it all started. It was absolutely huge in Dublin. When we went down the country, there would be 100 or 150 people there some nights. It was great training for the boys. They got paid £60 a night each for the gigs. That got them ready for the big time, I suppose.”

The music critics howled in derision, particularly as the song hadn’t merited a UK release, but Louis didn’t care. He was vindicated. The band had a top three hit in Ireland and they were on their way.

7

FROM BOYZ TO MEN

In the early days of Boyzone, the group trusted Louis implicitly. Whatever he said went. The band had complete faith in him. They trusted him emphatically and never doubted his judgment. It really was necessary for Louis to push Boyzone as hard as possible. He believed the best way to break the band and recoup the time and money invested in it was to tour Ireland extensively.

Touring would serve to raise Boyzone’s profile and, just as importantly, to teach the fledgling pop stars that succeeding in showbusiness is hard work.

He told them in no uncertain terms that they had to go out and work. He wanted them to play in any venue that would accommodate a crowd, no matter how small. He used his contacts across Ireland to secure gigs for Boyzone and sent the group off in a white transit van.

“It was hard work but I was loving it,” says Keating. “I was happy to be doing something and I loved music. I was just glad to be getting up on stage every night and singing. We got a couple of quid into our pocket, more money than I was earning. It was some of the best years in the band for me. It was fantastic. It was brilliant.”

Boyzone worked harder than they ever imagined they could. They played everywhere. They would perform
Working My Way Back To You
at least twice every night, sometimes more, because their repertoire was so limited. They played in innumerable venues – village halls, pubs, and nightclubs, where they would come on in the middle of the disco. They played at the annual Rose of Tralee festival. For most of the gigs, the band members earned £60.

Although his detractors found Louis’ latest venture laughable, he persevered. He often accompanied the band on their travels, not just to ensure that they were working as hard as he wanted them to, but to support them and buoy their spirits.

“I’ll always remember Louis sitting in the back of the white transit van with the five of us, and I remember that people would be calling him on the phone; journalists and famous people. We’d be amazed at his mobile phone ringing and all these people calling him,” says Keating.

“I’ve always had this image of him sitting in the corner of the van. We used to come back at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. in the morning, freezing cold in the back of this van and Louis with a kind of an old blanket over his head and he looked like Peig Sayers. It was hilarious.”

The singer has fond memories of the time, which he describes in his autobiography as some of the best of his life. “We were drinking cans in the back of the van, returning home early in the morning; the other lads had parked their cars outside my house. Then we’d meet at the Royal Dublin Hotel in O’Connell Street the next day after work and off we’d go again to another gig, maybe in Galway, or Cork or Donegal. We did it because we loved it.”

Boyzone travelled to virtually every provincial town in Ireland. On one occasion, they even played in Kiltimagh.

“I’ll never forget going down to Kiltimagh for the first time,” recalls Keating. “We all went down when we were on the Boyzone tour, the five of us. We went to Kiltimagh and we went to Louis’ house. His Mam made us tea and we all sat around. We were all wrecked and we slept in the beds in the house. His Mam let us sleep in the beds. Louis arrived down a few hours later and he just couldn’t deal with it. It was hilarious.

“Louis always built this wall around him, and we never really got to see the emotional side of Louis, or his family life. It was always Louis the businessman, our manager, to us. When we actually got to meet his family, we got to see another side of Louis, his mother giving out to him and saying ‘Sit down there. Shut up. Eat your dinner’.”

Incidentally, Louis’ brother Frank says their mother was also given credit locally for her role in the success of Boyzone.

“When Boyzone were at their peak, she was walking down Castlebar, which would be the nearest kind of biggish town to us and somebody pointed to her and said ‘There’s the mother of Boyzone’.”

As hard as Boyzone worked, Louis worked harder. He spent endless hours trying to secure media coverage in pop magazines. He also took care of the early marketing, which was aimed at young girls and women. At Boyzone’s gigs, the female half of the audience usually reacted enthusiastically, although the men weren’t always so welcoming. Bottles and cans of beer, coins, and lit cigarettes were often flung at the band.

Furthermore, Louis often found it difficult to extract an agreed fee from promoters, particularly if he personally wasn’t there and Keating was left to collect the money owed to the band.

Although Boyzone had limited musical talent, the members of the group showed themselves to be com-pletely dedicated to achieving success. This prompted Paul Keogh of Polygram Records to offer them an album deal.

Louis maintains he persuaded Keogh to make the deal, but Keogh himself says he offered it because the record company had already spent so much money on Boyzone. He says they needed to improve their chances of recouping it. With an album deal signed, Louis came up with the idea of recording
Love Me for a Reason
, an Osmonds song.

“Unquestionably Louis’ greatest strength is that he can hear a song and know if that song would be a hit. He can hear a cover version and know what artist of his could sing it best,” says Reynolds.

“Louis is notorious for staying up all night listening to music and I remember once he rang me in the middle of the night and said ‘I’ve got the song for Boyzone. I’ve got the one that’s going to be a smash hit’ and I was like ‘Yeah?’ I was half asleep! I was like ‘That’s wonderful, Louis. Can I ring you in the morning?’ He said, ‘I’ll play it to you. I’ll play it to you’ and it was
Love Me For A Reason
and I have to be honest, I wasn’t convinced.”

Reynolds says Louis became far more confident as the weeks passed by. In the early stages, he had not been aware of his own importance in the Irish music industry until Polygram offered Boyzone an album deal. A short while later, he was dictating the types of songs Boyzone should record, despite objections from the company.

“I was in a record company at the time when they slagged it off,” recalls Reynolds. “But Louis kept saying, ‘This is going to be a smash hit. This is going to break the band in England.’ I have to say that I don’t know anybody else close to it that had that belief in it. We were all taken along with this, including the record company in the UK and everywhere.

“I know that they were not sure about the record and it became a massive record.
Love Me For A Reason
in my view, was the song that not only broke Boyzone, but actually broke Louis.”

Having chosen a song, Louis sought the services of well-known British producer Ray Hedges, who had often worked with Take That and was experienced in producing for the pop market.

“I got a phone call and someone said ‘I’ve got another boy act for you’. I thought ‘Oh no, what could this be?’ you know, because I got sent a lot of projects after Take That. Some were really, really naff, but this guy was so full of enthusiasm,” says Hedges of Louis.

“His enthusiasm won me over and I said ‘What’s the name?’ and he said ‘Boyzone’, and I thought ‘Oh my God, my God, what a bizarre name.’

“He sent me a demo, which was horrendous.
Working My Way Back To You
– awful. He then told me to watch the
Late Late Show
. It was that horrendous performance that they did and I thought ‘Oh my God, what am I getting myself into?’ but he just won me over somehow. He was very enthusiastic and I liked that.”

Louis travelled to London with Keating and Gately to record the song. The other three band members, in what would become the normal way of doing things, didn’t go to the studio.

Louis also thought Boyzone should record a version of the Monkeys
Daydream Believer.

“Hedges’ just made a magic record,” says Louis. “I had the original Osmonds 45 at home and I chose
Daydream Believer
because I thought it would be a good cover and that was it.”

Love Me for a Reason
was released in Ireland in October 1994 and went to No. 1. Polygram in Ireland had signed the band for the world but they couldn’t persuade Polydor in the UK to pick up the band and release
Love Me For A Reason
in the UK. It was extremely frustrating for the band and for Louis.

Their luck changed when Boyzone were offered a place on the
Smash Hits Roadshow
in the UK, which was a travelling showcase for new bands, along with prominent acts to pull in the crowds.

“We got on
Smash Hits Best Newcomer
and we did the seven or eight gigs around the UK and there was just a great reaction,” says Louis. “They had black suits and red shirts and when they went on stage, there was just such a brilliant vibe. We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for, in the big bad world of pop music in the UK. That was the start of it. That was the turning point.”

How Boyzone ended up on the
Smash Hits
tour is unclear. Ronan Keating in his autobiography, stated that Michelle Hockley, who organised the tour, “loved” their single and called Louis. Paul Keogh says Louis met and got to know Hockley and the band somehow ended up on the tour. Mark Frith, the former editor of
Smash Hits
, says he received a plastic package with a photo of the band, a copy of the single and video and “decided that day to put them on the
Smash Hits
show”.

Whatever happened, Boyzone went on tour and suddenly found themselves playing to audiences of up to 25,000 around the UK, rather than the few-dozen strong audiences they had been used to in Ireland.

Boyzone’s participation in the
Smash Hits Roadshow
was a huge boost for Louis. Boyzone’s inclusion on the tour silenced many of his detractors in the Irish music industry.

Shortly afterwards, the band won the
Best Newcomer
award. The winners of the
Best Newcomer
award got to appear on the
Smash Hits
Poll Winners’ Party, which was televised to an audience of over 11 million on the BBC.

The Boyzone members, most likely unaware of the backroom maneouvers that Louis was engaging in to secure success, were elated. Duffy waved at the camera and said, “Everybody at home, we made it.” When
Hot Press
asked why he said this, he explained: “For two reasons. One was like two fingers to all the critics and begrudgers who put us down and said we’d never do it. So, I was saying ‘fuck it, we did bleedin’ make it’. And I was saying to me mates and family too, ‘isn’t this great?’”

For Louis, it was great. There was an added bonus; the band’s appearance on the show, along with the
Best Newcomer
award, drove
Love Me For A Reason
to No. 2 in the UK charts. It sold over 700,000 copies and also made the top 10 in most European countries. Boyzone was officially a success.

“I had no idea how big it was going to be. I just thought it was great. We might get a top 20 record in the UK. Fantastic. It went to No. 2. East 17 were at No. 1 with
Stay Another Day
,” says Louis.

Although Mark Frith may not have been the person who engineered Boyzone’s acceptance onto the
Smash Hits
Roadshow, he was the person who decided to put them on the cover of the magazine. He says he had been rooting for Louis and the band for some time, after reading about them in
Hot Press
.

“Before I met him, I kind of noticed that
Hot Press
was so pro-rock, and the cooler side of music, that they had, not an anti-Louis campaign, but they were kind of disparaging of the guy at times,” says Frith.

“He got a lot of criticism because Ireland is home-grown rock music, or home-grown roots influenced music, and really this guy was seen as someone who was bringing these English or American boyband ways into the culture and had a lot of stick. I always love the under-dog, so I immediately became a fan because the poor guy was trying to do this thing in the face of adversity,” adds Frith.

While Boyzone performed at the
Smash Hits
Awards, Frith and his team were putting the finishing touches to the magazine’s awards issue. They had decided that Boyzone should feature on the cover, with the headline “
The Six Days That Made Them Famous!
” When the design work was completed, Frith decided to take a photocopy of the cover with him to the aftershow party.

“This was a real breakthrough for a band that had been slagged off back in Ireland,” he says. “Given the incredible false start on the
Late Late Show
. I remember taking down this photocopy of the cover to show Ronan and the band, and to show Louis. They formed around me and they wanted to keep the photocopy of the cover. Louis was all bear hugs and was so, so proud that they had done it. For him,
Smash Hits
was all.
Smash Hits
meant everything.
Smash Hits
represented British music so it was a real symbol for him of having made it in Britain, and having shown people that he could do it, the fact they got on the cover of
Smash Hits
. And that was quite an amazing moment and it was great to be there at that moment.”

Ensuring the band kept their feet firmly on the ground had worked. Making the front page of
Smash Hits
and winning the award reaffirmed his commitment to music. This was a different type of success to that Louis had experienced with Logan, Martin and the Eurovision. It reinforced his own belief that he was making all the right decisions and that he was right not to be swayed by criticism.

“We didn’t get anything for nothing,” says Keating. “We worked hard and we reaped the rewards. He always said be nice to everyone on the way up because you meet them on the way down. These were some of Louis’ phrases and feelings about how Boyzone would make it. And it was down to hard work, it really was. Louis definitely pushed us and helped us to realise that.”

Having his charges appear on the cover of the UK’s leading pop magazine undoubtedly meant a huge amount to Louis. As a pop fanatic, he had read
Smash Hits
for years. This was the turning point in his career.