Free Baby You're a Star by Kathy Foley Page A

lot. They were one of the best bands. And I thought they could have gone a lot more. I thought Brendan Wade was a real talent. There was so much talent around the country, but they didn’t get any record deals. It was all about getting record deals and that was the most important thing. You were at the mercy of A&R people in London, who just came over here and signed everything that moved because it was Irish; they were looking for the next U2,” he adds.
    Louis found working with rock bands tedious, tiresome and frustrating. At times he wondered if he would have better off to take a steady nine to five job. As it was, he ran into financial difficulties on a monthly basis.
    “He went through dodgy periods, where as far as I know his rent was in jeopardy,” recalls Tommy Hayden.
    Carol Hanna, who was by far Louis’ closest ally both professionally and personally, helped him any way she could.
    “When Louis was financially very, very low, he was my friend, and I looked after everything for him, and that was it,” she says.
    He persevered with the business, organising concerts in small venues like the Rock Garden in Dublin’s Temple Bar and the Baggot Inn on Dublin’s southside.
    “I had bands playing in every toilet in the country, I worked all the college circuit as well. It was very hard to make money. By the time you paid for your office and overheads, you had nothing left.”
    He acknowledges that life on the gig circuit was also difficult for the artists he booked out. “Especially the girls, because there were no dressing rooms,” he says. “I used to hate going to the gigs with them because they were treated so badly. You really were treated as if you were a second-class citizen.
    “You would never, ever know with some promoters in Ireland because they would always have back doors. They were never honest. They never paid what they were supposed to pay and that’s why they made all the money.”
    The media gave him equally short shrift. He couldn’t develop any reliable newspaper or television connect-ions. No one would take his calls; messages went unanswered and the national broadcaster, in par-ticular, would ignore him.
    “The media was totally sown up by people in RTE. You know, you’d never get on RTE. The Late Late Show wouldn’t even take your phone calls. The media gener-ally think ‘Oh, Irish bands, they’re only Irish bands, they don’t matter’.”
    Louis’ confidence was at an all-time low during this time. He considered giving up on more than one occasion, disillusioned by the reality of a career in Irish showbusiness. With the exception of a few close friends, he had a keen distrust of everyone else in the business. He saw his adversaries constantly putting him down and treating him poorly. In time, he learned to ignore them and trust his own instincts.
    “It was hard but a valuable learning experience. You have to believe in yourself and you just have to keep going. You can’t listen to other people like Irish promoters. If I had listened to them, I would still be booking bands out in pubs and they would think they were doing me the favour, giving me the gig for £600.
    “I used to book out Brush Shiels and acts like that. That was soul-destroying, going into Bad Bobs and then see all these drunk people dancing to the Fields of Athenry and Thin Lizzy again, the same old stuff,” he says, quickly adding that “Brush was great.”
    “But I used to hate the Irish culture, getting drunk, singing diddly-aye songs and then going home and fighting. I wasn’t into it. There was no entertainment in it for me at all. It was just a job.
    “I didn’t know anything else and I didn’t want to work in a nine-to-five job. I would hate a normal routine. I don’t like any kind of normality. People in boxes, doing routine nine-to-five and going to Mass on Sundays and going to Croke Park. I hate all that thing with Irish people. I do not like the routine they have. I have to be myself and do