“Dickie Rock is a legend in his own head … He lives in a fantasy world”

It’s been 40 years since Ireland, and all of Europe fell in love with Logan and his white suit. TALKS ABOUT MUSIC, RELIGION AND FAMILY … AND THEN THINGS HAVE A LITTLE UNKNOWN

When Irish author John Boyne won the Celebrity House of the Year a couple of years ago, viewers were able to see his so-called “ego room,” the place where he keeps copies of his many novels.

When I telephoned Eurovision musician and legend Johnny Logan at his home in Ashbourne, Co Meath, it was clear that he was sitting in a large room that was equally good for the ego. It was filled with Eurovision Awards, gold records, photographs, and various mementos from an extraordinary career that spanned over four decades.

Silver-haired Logan, who fans say has a Patrick Swayze look on him and can still swing a pair of leather pants, got one of his three grown children to help him with the call: “The family didn’t even Leave near the TV remote controls, I am very bad with technology, “says the singer who will celebrate his 66th birthday on May 13.

He is “spoiled” in the running of the bulls with his wife, Ailis Sherrard, and two of their children. “I cannot cook. I am useless. I am very good with the credit card. That is my frying pan”, he says.

Social distancing is not part of my character … But I know that I am in a privileged position, I have money, all my appointments carry over to next year.

Maybe you could take this opportunity and the forced time of your hectic touring schedule to learn some cooking? Grab a nearby acoustic guitar and start playing it to drown out this quirky suggestion.

“Sorry? Singer and songwriter here,” he laughs. “I’m the only person I know who can burn tea, Róisín. . . my efforts went in different directions throughout my life. “

Above her head, hanging on a purple painted wall, is an example of a path that changed her life. The striking black-and-white photo shows him returning to Dublin airport after his first Eurovision win in 1980, with Shay Healy’s What’s Another Year. Exactly 40 years ago last month since Ireland, and all of Europe, fell in love with Logan and his white suit.

He is the only person to win the trophy three times, once with the Healy song, then singing his own composition Hold Me Now in 1987 and in 1992 when Linda Martin won the contest with the Logan song Why Me? (Not forgetting the Terminal 3 pop banger, which he also wrote, taking second place for Ireland in 1984. We were robbed, etc.)

In the photo, Logan, with a fresh face and sunglasses, is surrounded on all sides by frenzied fans trying to reach the uniformed gardaí to touch the newly minted star. Logan had entered through the wrong door, so the police had to rescue him and help him wait for a limo.

The truth is, I ask Johnny Logan about the story behind the photo to change the subject after our conversation becomes awkward. But we’ll get to that later.

Up to this point, the interview is going well. We chatted about Logan’s thoughts on the pandemic and how he’s dealing with the blockade. It is not the best, it turns out. “I am a hugger… Social distancing is not part of my character.” Their tours have been canceled. “But I know I am in a privileged position, I have money, all my dates carry over to next year.” He would love nothing more than to get in the car and drive to Howth, relax and enjoy the sea air, “It would be good for my head, but we are all in this together, people on the front line need us to do it.” this”.

He is trying to maintain his exercise regimen. “When I am not working, I have to do something to stay strong. The last show I did was 3½ hours in Denmark and I was still jumping at the end. ” So you do physical exercise every day, watch what you eat. “Because you’re locked up in the house, you don’t move around as much and your body starts to tell you… I feel like an accordion in the morning,” he says of his crisp limbs.

Logan’s warmth shines, even with screens between us. He doesn’t speak to many journalists and has often complained about a difficult relationship with the Irish media over the years. He says he wants to “lift people’s spirits,” which is why he has conducted a few interviews, including one on YouTube with far-right commentator Rowan Croft, also known as Grand Torino. He was widely criticized by some for giving the interview.

He says it happened because a friend asked him for a favor. It was agreed in advance that politics was “off the table.” . . I have my own views that have nothing to do with yours. I am totally non-racist and not bigoted. . . Just because you talk to someone doesn’t mean you share their political views. “

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In the hour that we spend together, Logan is fun, attentive, self-aware, open and generous. He says he looks forward to May 16 when he will appear on a Eurovision show scheduled for the night the final would have taken place. He will sing a prerecorded version of What’s Another Year and there will be “some surprises”. He also appears on the Lockdown song with the song Stay At Home Stay Alive along with other Irish singers such as Brian Kennedy and Nathan Carter. He is proud, when we speak, that he is number one on the Irish country charts.

He talks a lot about his Derry-born “gentle and very religious” father, Charles Sherrard, who, as a tenor, had the stage name of Patrick O’Hagan. Her father spent a lot of time on tour while her mother, an ardent Kilkenny woman, Eily, held the fort at home with the children.

Baptized as Seán Patrick Michael Sherrard, Logan’s parents moved from Ireland to Australia, where he was born, and back to Howth and then to Drogheda, before his parents later settled in Surfer’s Paradise, Australia, where his father enjoyed from a singing career. Logan says he was a “really shit” electrician before the music called. “He wouldn’t leave me alone,” he says so.

Her mother, “a stunning-looking woman,” he says, was engaged 11 times before meeting her father, who at one point had studied to become a priest. “My father obviously found the love of his life in my mother.”

At age 28, his father had rheumatoid arthritis in his hand, which meant he couldn’t make a living by making an exchange. “My dad believed in his life that God would do everything right,” he says. “You know, whatever happens right and wrong, everything would be fine ultimately. And I grew up with that attitude. Academically it was very bad, but I married a school teacher, so my children received a wonderful education, she took care of that. And I did what my mother basically did, I watched the kids and I went out and made the money and we came back and then we educate and raise our children to be the wonderful human beings that they are now. They are really stable because they have a solid record. ”

Logan’s own attitude toward religion was colored, he says, by experiences at school. In Drogheda, at a Christian Brothers school, where a lay teacher beat him up one day and thought Logan had laughed at him (he hadn’t been). And at Chanel College in Coolock, Dublin when he was younger. He remembers the Marist parents, putting strange ideas in the head of his classmates. “It didn’t leave me in a nice place,” he says. “When listening to a Marist father tell us children, 11 or 12 years old:‘ I see these young women and know how you look at them. But you did see the state of her underwear. “As I got older, I understand how sick I was, but those things have an effect on your growth.”

He believes in God and in a future life, but “humans have distorted the word of Christ and it is very difficult for me to believe the word of the church. At the same time, I’m a hypocrite because I’m still going to church and when this is all over, when the church doors open, I’ll be lighting candles for my parents and praying, you know. “

Logan says he never wanted to be in the music industry, it just happened. “When I was an electrician, I brought a guitar and a toolbox to work. And it would entertain installers and welders and everyone on the construction site. In the evenings, at work all over the country, he played the guitar in the pubs … he integrated us into the community. “

What would Dickie Rock know about being a musician? My life was very different from Dickie’s.

I blame Dickie Rock (okay, and my hot line of questions) for the awkward moment of the conversation. When I He interviewed Rock, the star of the show, a few years ago, admitted to being unfaithful to his wife during her heyday. I used Rock as a starting point to ask Logan about the challenges of maintaining family life when you spend a lot of time away from home. In addition to performing at a number of lucrative Schlager festivals across Europe, Logan and his band’s career base is in Germany.

My first mistake is mentioning Dickie Rock. Just hearing his name seems to deter Johnny Logan.

“What would Dickie Rock know about being a musician?” he asks, without waiting for an answer. “My life was very different from Dickie’s,” he continues, in what becomes a lengthy evaluation of his own career versus Rock’s. “Dickie’s idea of ​​an international tour was to have a concert in England. He bought a pub in Spain so he could play there. That’s the reality. We know Dickie in Ireland, but get out of here and say” Dickie Rock “and the people He will think that you are talking about some kind of stone that you will find in a museum.

“I love Dickie, but he is a legend in his own head … He lives in a fantasy world. You know, I have sung for Pope John Paul, for the Queen of England, for Prince Charles, for Lady Diana, when I was alive, for the Irish government, for every head of state in Europe … I was on tour with the Royal Symphony Orchestra I’ve done the London Palladium about 20 times Top of the Pops about 14 times Make Dickie match with one of those, you know? I’m still on tour. And now I’m busier than ever. “

When I’m on stage I don’t tell people that I’ve played for the Queen of England … I know who I am and I know what I can do.

I interrupt to explain that I am not comparing Logan to Dickie Rock regarding his career. That I’m more interested in the challenges for family life of being so far away from home.

“Yes, of course. It was very, very difficult,” he says. “I was an electrician, you know, and then I was a singer, and then I was a really successful singer. It’s still difficult sometimes… But now it’s not that difficult Something happened when my mother died. When my father died, I made my way through it. But when my mother died, I sang at her funeral and talked about her.

“I stopped trying to be someone else,” he says. “I just became myself. When I’m on stage I don’t tell people that I’ve played for the Queen of England. . . I know who I am and I know what I can do. “

He mentions that, in 2005, he made an album of “Irish Drinking Songs”, ironically, when he had just been sober. (When I express admiration for his strength to quit alcohol, he says, “It is not a case of strength of character; either you do it or you die.”) The album went double platinum in Norway and brought Coldplay down from number one in Denmark. The album’s success opened a massive touring market for the singer.

“I didn’t have my family’s concern when I was away from it,” he says. “You learn during that period to be two different people. One who was on the road and one who came home and that was never difficult for me because it really was two different people. “

I tell him that what I mean by my question is the fact that Dickie Rock said that his life as a star meant he was not a very good husband, although Rock also said that his wife had forgiven him. “That’s none of your business, Róisín,” says Logan. “The short answer about whether he was a good husband is none of your business. Dickie is Dickie, I’m still here. “

I apologize for offending you. “You didn’t,” he replies. “I find that many journalists use side doors in interviews.” I am concerned that our conversation will be derailed, but Logan is friendly and we continue to talk about that stunning photograph, his appreciation for the reception he receives from the public in Ireland, his pride in his Eurovision legacy and his love for Shay Healy.

“I sent him an email on What’s Another Year’s 40th anniversary just to tell him I loved him. I am an emotional person,” he says. “The fact that 40 years after What’s Another Year, people still want me to sing that song is huge to me.”

He has on hand a note from the musician Bill Whelan, with whom he worked at Eurovision. He reads it: “Our times working together have been the best times, working with that voice of yours and your songs has never been less than a privilege and a joyous experience.”

I ask him if he has experienced that familiar phenomenon, Irish shame, over the years. “Not from the Irish people,” he says. “In Ireland there is a terrible clique. There are certain people who are fashionable and cool, and certain people who are not … I have never doubted my relationship with the Irish, but I have never been popular with the media and the media has never been popular with me.
“I don’t have a problem anymore … I don’t need the media here. I do interviews because right now I think it’s really important that people have something to read and interest them.

“The life that I have led, the success that I have had, will not be measured by the people who judge in Ireland on what I do with my career. You will be judged in history by the people with whom I have worked, whom I have influenced and with whom I have been fortunate to share parts of my life. “

With all reservations rescheduled, he has a very complete journal for next year. “When this is all over, I can’t wait to go out and sing and make people happy again. Including myself.”

Before ending the call, I ask you if, with all your achievements and even a movie about him, the tentative title, Mr. Eurovision, in the works, do you have any outstanding ambitions?

“To keep my hair. And to survive Dickie Rock, “he says impassively.

A two-hour live show Europe Shine a Light will air on Saturday, May 16.