A little about delta in bold down the bottom. What does chanteuse mean? My brain is switched off tonight. I cant be stuffed reading it all. if you make anything out of the article post and tell me. i cant read tonight my eyes are so sore. im just over tired

 

If I was watching me on TV I would probably think, 'He's a little bollix'

 

 

LOUIS WALSH: 'I believe that anybody can do anything they want, at a price.' Photo: David Conachy

 

 

 

LOUIS WALSH is the Truman Capote of his generation - relentlessly observant, murderously witty and shamelessly catty. Often in thesame sentence . . .

 

The Mouth of Kiltimagh persona isn't an act. Sometimes Louis can't help himself. His lacerating bon mots send irresistible signals to the regions of the brain located somewhere between the comedy cortex and and the cortex that controls cruelty.

 

"Daniel O'Donnell," he declares, "is the greatest pile of $h!te." This is just the start of a four-hour breathless bitchathon. "It is nothing to do with him; he just cannot sing. He cannot dance. I saw him doing a rock 'n' roll thing on TV and it was, unintentionally, the funniest thing I've ever seen. He had a pink jacket on. He was dressed like Liberace. He is very successful, but you don't have to be that talented to be successful. I meet him all the time. He knows that I think he's c**p. I call him Danielle."

 

How would you change him if you managed him?

 

"I'd stop him singing. Or dancing. Especially thedancing," the original popbitch barks.

 

He is not a fan of Bob Geldof either. "I think the 45 people who went to see him in Rome recently were very, very brave," Louis laughs, referring to poor Geldof's disastrous concert in Italy. "We have that many people in the loo at a Westlife gig. I don't like Geldof's music at all. He is a Mick Jagger impersonator."

 

Dazzlingly scandalous, Louis casually reveals conversations that were possibly never meant for public consumption. However, since he does so with a wit worthy of Dorothy Parker or Tallulah Bankhead, you have to adore him. When Louis said on Celebrity X Factor that contestant Gillian McKeith "looks like she was hit by a bus", he was merely saying what most of us were thinking. (Gillian later told the Sun that Walsh needed "a super-charged enema".) Likewise the notorious comment about rotund Green Party TD Dan Boyle on Celebrity You're a Star . . .

 

"I couldn't understand the uproar when I said, 'Get rid of the fat one'," he smiles now. "I thought he would have taken it in fun. It wasn't meant to be a personal thing. And the fat one took it personally and threw a wobbler. Wobbly threw a wobbler! I was just trying to be funny and he had absolutely no sense of humour. I think all politicians are the same. I don't believe any of them. I don't trust any of them. Generally Irish politicians are the oddest-looking shower of people I have ever seen."

 

Even Nicky Byrne from Westlife's father-in-law?

 

"I think they are all awful," he reiterates. "Absolutely no star quality, the lot of them."

 

Mr Star Quality, Louis Walsh is never boring. Up close and personal, he isn't the passive-aggressive control freak you might have expected. On the contrary, sometimes he can be rather fragile and gentle and vulnerable, like the rest of us. He has certainly mellowed over the years, and with it comes a more human side.

 

His identity has emerged slowly. And there is something of the little boy who can't quite believe how successful he has become by picking pop songs for his bands to turn into international hits for him.

 

He isn't one for convoluted Jungian psychobabble or cosmic hogwash, as a rule. But that is not to say Louis Walsh doesn't know his inner self . . .

 

"I suppose we are all insecure in our own little way," he says. "I'm kind of shy underneath it all, but people don't know that. The real me is not the person in the papers. I'm not as insecure now, because I have been so successful. I just think people didn't know me years ago. It was probably a confidence thing with me," he adds, softly. "I don't care any more what people think of me. I don't want to be Mr Nice Guy, because being Mr Nice Guy is boring anyway."

 

I hate to be rude, Louis, but you are a nice guy.

 

We have a weekly late lunch in Expresso Bar or the Four Seasons in Dublin and Mr Walsh is always the personification of charming niceness . . . even when he is mercilessly ripping the dunderheads off all and sundry in the music business.

 

"Deep down, I am nice," he grimaces, like I was personally administering a super-charged enema. "The people who really know me know that I am, yeah. But sometimes I portray something else. If I was watching me on TV I would probably think: 'He's a little bollix. Who does he think he is?'"

 

Does your mother ever say to you to be nicer on TV?

 

"No. My mother doesn't care as long as I don't slag Kiltimagh. She doesn't mind what I say."

 

Maureen Walsh at 75 is, he says, young at heart. "She doesn't care as long as we're all happy and in good health," he adds. "I am only one of her nine kids. She loves life."

 

Maureen Walsh wanted her eldest child Louis to join the priesthood. The greatest pop manager in Irish history was an altar boy in Kiltimagh. He couldn't hack the early mornings (often mass would start and he'd be running out of the house with Maureen roaring after him) and the kneeling on the cold marble.

 

Clearly, the Irish priesthood's loss is popular music's gain. "I am just a man," he claims, "who understands pop." This is something of an understatement. He has had more number one records than any Irish manager in popular history. He created bands like Boyzone, Westlife and Girls Aloud and made them into global phenomena. He made Shayne Ward an international star.

 

His father Frank died 10 years ago. Louis shakes his head when I ask him does he ever get sad that he wasn't around to see his son become so successful. "No, my mother does," he answers.

 

"I don't think about things like that. I am not really reflective. I just enjoy every day. Life is so short that I really think you should enjoy it. I went through a lot of bad times with bands and I was worried about money then," he adds.

 

"I don't need a lot of money now because I don't drink, I don't smoke and I don't take drugs. I have never taken drugs in my life."

 

A firm believer in loyalty, Louis went to support his old friend (and co-manager of Boyzone) John Reynolds at his Midlands Festival recently in Co Meath. He delighted in how well Shane Lynch did on the recent Love Island reality show. He keeps in regular contact with Brian McFadden.

 

He hasn't lost touch with the ex-Westlife star, nor with himself. Louis has the emotional intelligence to admit that he is more proud of his friendship with Joan Rivers than of any other celebrity contacts he has. He laughs. "She is 73 and she is brilliant. She is a great woman and a very nice woman off camera and off stage. She is a one-off."

 

You could say the same about Louis Walsh. The shy kid from the country has made himself a superstar. He is arguably the first Irish band manager to cultivate celebrity status internationally. His reputation has even secured him his own song - Louis Walsh by Irish band the Revs.

 

He has been making hay while the sun shines. "I put the money in the bank and I buy property because I know this is not going to last forever," he says. He also spends his hard-earned dosh on his art and photography (Donald Teskey and Herb Ritts) collection. He admits, modestly, to not knowing that much about art. Yet he can talk freely and eloquently about it for hours. "I like Andy Warhol," he says. He had a purple Mao and a red Jagger delivered to his apartment in the Yoo Building in London the day I met him.

 

"There are Irish art collectors who have millions and millions of pounds' worth of art," Louis adds. "I have a very small collection. It is what I like. I don't buy for money or for investment." Ask his opinion on Irish art, however, and, inevitably, he doesn't disappoint . . .

 

"Graham Knuttel is good," he begins. "I think he is like the Stock Aitken & Waterman of the Irish art business: quick, fast, get them out. He is not Louis le Brocquy or [Tony] O'Malley, who are the Neil Young or the Van Morrison of Irish art. I think Guggi is good but I just don't want to spend my life looking at bowls on the wall."

 

There are loads of new Irish artists who just need a break and need a new gallery behind them, he continues, adding that the Taylor Gallery is fantastic in Dublin because it nurtures the artists. He has no intention of managing Irish artists. "I know nothing about it," he laughs. "It would be like an art gallery trying to manage a boy band."

 

His incomparable success at the latter has meant that he has been able to buy substantial investment properties around the world. Louis has homes in Dublin, London and Miami. He is a regular visitor to his bolthole in the States.

 

What has Miami got that Kiltimagh hasn't? "Sunshine. I'm anonymous there. I can do anything I want. I can walk down the beach."

 

So are you lying out on the beach lathered in Factor 50?

 

"I don't do beaches," he laughs. "I just sit in the shade." His milk-white complexion corroborates this statement. "I just like the vibe in Miami. I love looking out at the ocean. I don't know why. I'd hate to live in Kiltimagh. All they do down there is drink and watch GAA and talk about politics."

 

Has big money changed you?

 

"I do it for the fun and because I love it," he answers without blinking. "I don't do it for the money. Money hasn't changed me at all. I am coming to this restaurant for the last 20 years," he says, looking around Expresso in St Mary's Road, Ballsbridge.

 

"I used to come here with Johnny Logan when it was Cora's. I do the same things and I have the same friends for years. You know that. What else! What else! Ask me anything you want to ask me."

 

What age did you lose your virginity at?

 

"I don't know. I'd say early 20s. I forget." Ah, c'mon.

 

"I am not telling you. I forget!" Was it that memorable?

 

"I forget!"

 

Unforgettably, Louis gained additional renown by making up the odd story or two about his bands to keep them in the papers: sensational falsehoods like Westlife in near-fatal plane crashes and Stephen Gately getting engaged to Baby Spice Emma Bunton.

 

That fecker Walsh knows nothing and he thinks he knows everything, say his enemies, but in reality he is actually a thoroughly likeable and charming culchie with a pop brain bigger than most record companies put together.

 

He has the status of grand fromage but without the cheesiness of limo-riding and private jet-hopping self-importance that comes with it. He never acts like a big-shot designer-clad asshole. He never even dresses like one. Louis Walsh is the least narcissistic multimillionaire you could meet.

 

"I don't have any look," he laughs. "My image is having no image. I don't want or need a stylist. I am not trying to be anybody else."

 

He has the attention span of a lightning bolt. His Blackberry bleeps with text messages, and stars like Tara Palmer-Tomkinson ringing 24/7. The X Factor with Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne just started again.

 

"There were always talent shows, like Opportunity Knocks," he muses. "I watched it as a kid and I knew it was rigged. I had a band Chips on it." The X Factor was watched by 8.5 million viewers last weekend and the English papers can't get enough of Walsh.

 

As he pushes a salad around his plate (The X Factor bosses want him, he says, to lose some weight) he fields calls like a seasoned polymath/media whore. He is almost Swiftian in his satirical wit.

 

He laughs, saying that his former You're a Star co-judgeLinda Martin thinks the Arctic Monkeys "are up in the zoo and they're freezing. And she is worried about them."

 

Despite the fact that his fortunes have soared and his stock has never been higher, perhaps typically, Louis has not forgotten the hard times. Those dark moments in the past when record companies wouldn't take his calls and nobody seemed particularly bothered with his acts.

 

"I had showbands who played to nobody," he recalls. "I remember I had Johnny Logan and he had just won the Eurovision," he says, referring to Logan winning the 25th Eurovision Song Contest, in 1980, in front of 500 million TV viewers. "And he wasn't playing to big crowds around the country - I just couldn't understand it. I thought he was absolutely great at thetime. I think Joe Dolan was our first Irish pop star ever, and one of the greatest."

 

What do you sing in the shower?

 

"I don't do showers. I sing in the bath in the evening. Suds up to here!" the king of pop froth demonstrates. "I usually put on my favourite album, Ziggy Stardust by Bowie, and relax."

 

Louis is a pop tart with the golden touch. He knows what makes a star and what will sell. And record companies will sign up a homeless cat to a five-album deal if Louis Walsh said the moggy could sing. But enough about Nadine. He knows his pop, obviously, and is a font of all knowledge when it comes to music. He adores Lou Reed, David Bowie, Van Morrison, Marianne Faithfull, Connie Francis and Frank Sinatra.

 

He acknowledges that the best boy band ever were the Beatles. He muses on how pop history could have been changed had he managed the Fab Four.

 

"Well I tell you, I wouldn't have commited suicide," he says, referring to Brian Epstein, who died of a drug overdose on August 27, 1967. I would be still out there hanging out with them. I'd still be alive. Abbey Road was one of my favourite albums. You cannot stop creative people being what they are. I like outspoken people."

 

Was Kerry Katona the Yoko Ono influence of Westlife?

 

"No. I just think Kerry and Brian were too young to get married. They wouldn't listen to anybody. They wouldn't listen to me. They shouldn't have got married." There is a pause and then a knowing wink. " . . . to each other". He laughs. "But who am I to tell them? Brian is really happy. We are best friends. We are probably closer and more honest than we ever were. I don't know any band that gets on as well as me and Westlife and Brian."

 

His friend, producer Bill Hughes, once said of Louis: "He hates earnestness. He hates the tortured artist syndrome. He hates anything that smacks of negativity or obession with credibility."

 

"Robbie Williams is someone who is craving credibility," Louis says - and it's worth pointing out that our interview took place before Williams told The Sun that he reckoned Louis wanted to sleep with him; comments, Walsh told me over the phone, that the pop impresario is just laughing off. "I know exactly who Robbie is. He is a good showman but he is not overly talented." I recall being with Louis in 2002 late one night in a hotel foyer in London when an agitated Robbie Williams came over intent on a row with Mr Walsh. "I know what he is about. He has not got great talent. He has got great songwriters and great people around him. He is just part of that whole machine. Whereas George Michael or Elton John are genuinely real, real talent. George Michael is probably smoking too much dope. He is a bit lazy and a bit insecure but he is a major talent. That's why his tour sold out."

 

How would you explain yourself to a Martian?

 

"I'm not this person who puts bands together to make money," Louis says. "I don't do it for money. We're doing a movie now, for example. Me and Simon [Cowell] and some people not a million miles from your paper. And while the money will potentially be bigger than anything I've done to date, I'm just loving the buzz of doing it and putting it together."

 

"I like to find someone with talent who I can sell," he continues. "And they're happy doing it and I'm happy doing it. It's very hard to get people with talent who work hard and keep their feet on the ground. There's so much bull$h!t in the whole music and entertainment business."

 

And it is the people "around the artists who change them - the stylists and the tour manager and the businesses. Then they all want to be credible."

 

Shedloads of money and gargantuan success haven't blunted his ambition. "I do want to do one more boy band by the way," he admits. "And I'm going to do it next year. It will be five boys. That's allI know."

 

Does that mean you are making the funeral arrangements for Westlife? "Oh no. Westlife have crossed over. Their audience is not young kids any more. Westlife can go on as long as they want because their audience are mammies and daddies now.

 

"Westlife are like the Bee Gees," he says. "And they are happier as a four-piece, even though I am still really good friends with Brian McFadden. Honestly! Honestly! Honestly!" he roars like his mum getting him up for altar boy duties at mass.

 

"There is absolutely no bull$h!t there. Westlife are even doing a duet with Delta," he says referring to Brian's chanteuse girlfriend Delta Goodrem.

 

His trusty Blackberry whirrs again. It is Simon Cowell. And then Rebecca Loos. And then Shane Filan from Westlife. Louis blows the froth off yet another cappuccino and looks out the window of this famously trendy Dublin cafe.

 

He has not forgotten his youth in Kiltimagh. Nor, I suspect, will he ever. He recalls reading about the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, Dusty Springfield and the Beach Boys and, he says, "wanting to be involved. I wanted a taste of it. That's what drove me and excited me when I was young: pop music".

 

It is still exciting him all these years later. What age are you?

 

"I'm whatever age you want me to be!" he whoops. "Say I'm 50 if you want."

 

Fifty going on 15, popbitch Louis Walsh will regale you with how the local newsagent in Kiltimagh would order a single copy of New Musical Express specially from London for him when he was 13. And how on Saturdays, Louis and his li'l sister Evelyn would take the magic bus to buy the new releases from the Beach Boys or Abba.

 

He also remembers being a boarder at St Nathy's College in Co Roscommon, as like being in prison. He was equally unenthusiastic about following his father Frank into working in a bakery and on their farm. "I hated all that. My father was a farmer and he worked at the bakery. I just wanted to get out of there."

 

How would you have felt if you had ended up working in the bakery in Kiltimagh? "I believe anybody can do anything they want," he smiles, "at a price. You have to give up your personal life sometimes. But anybody can do anything they want if they really try."

 

Barry Egan

 

in all of that there is a little about delta

Edited August 28, 200618 yr by Rob

I can't believe it, if delta does release that duet of so called music with westlife her career is definetley over! I don't understand how delta can't see any of this as a goodbye to music! It sadens me cause i love delta so much and i just think she's the best and now she does a duet with them, she needs to screw her head back on and get Lea as her manager again!

Oh DEAR :( Hopefully it won't get a single release (I could settle for an album track)...

I can't believe it, if delta does release that duet of so called music with westlife her career is definetley over! I don't understand how delta can't see any of this as a goodbye to music! It sadens me cause i love delta so much and i just think she's the best and now she does a duet with them, she needs to screw her head back on and get Lea as her manager again!

 

so true! bring back lea and we need to lure delta away from brian. maybe if she meets nick again...*ponders*

so true! bring back lea and we need to lure delta away from brian. maybe if she meets nick again...*ponders*

 

It seems odd that the new management who know the state she's in would let her do this :wacko:

What happened to Delta, like, look at perfection in the innocent eyes era, then inspirational delta with mistaken identity, but now she has no direction, she has no future as been a singer if she carries on like this! She needs to really count what she has before she goes throwing it away!

I go on holiday and return to this ... WTF?!!!!! I hope this is not true ... I don't think I could bear listening to Westlife just for the sake of Delta!! Oh and chanteuse means a female singer!! :)

 

Love,

Kirsty xx

Edited August 29, 200618 yr by Miss Analyst

if it is released it could give delta her first uk number 1,and if it gets released she should release her own material straight after to keep things going

good point. she must be doing it to be noticed in the UK again and then will release her own stuff. your such a smart boy lol :rolleyes:

It might turn a lot of WL fans into Delta fans which could be good for her own sales as they seem to have a huge fanbase!

Hopefully :(

Why is she doing this, whens her new album out btw?

No doubt if its westlife it will be a cover.

Albums out early next year!

I don't think the sales would make up for having to listen to delta singing with westlife!

I think the Westlife is out in November or so...

 

I'd hate to have some lousy song be her highest charting single, in a way I'm glad AH wasn't as it meant it matched BTT as her biggest hit :lol: