Culture
27 Sep 17

IN THE NEW HOT PRESS: One of Ireland’s greatest songwriters, Brendan Graham, hits out at RTE’s approach to Eurovision

In an exclusive and forthright Hot Press Interview, Brendan Graham – who famously won Eurovision twice with his songs ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ (1994) & ‘The Voice’ (1996) – explains why he doesn’t believe our national broadcaster is taking the hugely iconic show seriously anymore.

He's also highly critical of how non-Irish nationals are now writing our songs and believes that there should be an outright ban on foreigners penning any of our entries in the future.

Brendan also lambasts our entry last year as being nothing short of an embarrassment - claiming it's a song that wouldn’t have been even deemed worthy of a Westlife B-side...

But it’s not all doom and gloom. In forthright interview with Hot Press’ writer Jackie Hayden, Brendan – who debunks the notion that favouritism between the Eastern Bloc countries has the contest all sown up – reckons Ireland can hit the high notes again if RTE get its act together. He puts forward his views on how we can go about revisiting our glory days again….

On RTE’s approach to Eurovision, he says, “I don’t think the national broadcaster is taking it seriously."

On RTE’s decision to use non-Irish songwriters, he says, “The whole notion that we have to have outside songwriters writing our songs is absolute rubbish.”

On last year’s entry, Brendan has this to say: “The song that was in last year was a disaster. It wasn’t even a Westlife b-side. There are loads of youngsters writing songs that are better than that. To re-establish some level of integrity, RTE should say it’s for Irish songwriters only, and if the songs are of a certain quality we’ll help you get them to the next level .”

On how we can recapture Ireland’s glory days, he has a simple piece of advise for RTE: “There is a huge emphasis on the visuals, but ultimately over the last few years the best songs won. The song that won last year was very quiet in Portuguese and the singer just stood there and sang a beautiful song. If the song is right you don’t need penny-farthing bicycles.

In a highly engaging and thoroughly fascinating interview that everyone who is interested in the music and entertainment business, and the huge impact that tech companies have had on it, should read, Brendan Graham also talks about how songwriters are being screwed via the Internet, “shocking” artists’ contracts – and his own great artistic memories…

The new Hot Press is available in stores now (September 28)– or you can order it now direct from hotpress.com. or via download in the iOS app .