Turning down a million squids

“At one point John Peel was going to put out our demo tapes on his own label and we had several interested parties sniffing around.

“After a gig at Moran’s Hotel we went to a pool room off Stephen’s Green with the Virgin mob, Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nick Powell. That night, Branson offered us a million quid and slipped the signed cheque for that amount across the table to me! It was a ten-year deal for an album a year. I didn’t tell the guys about this offer straight away, but I put the cheque in my back pocket.

“Four of us were on the dole at the time, one was working and one in college, and Fachtna was involved on an equal divvy. Back home in Seapoint I was trembling while I sat down to break down the figures. I still have the diary where I wrote it all down. I told myself to be calm and I worked it out that the deal was worth £100,000 per year, and we’d have to pay for the album costs, probably £80,000 per album. That would leave £3,000 each per year! We’d all have to buy gear and live and pay our rent from that. Plus Branson would get all the publishing. But Deke O’Brien had always told me to hang on to the publishing, before I even know what publishing was.

“So I met the band and told them about the cheque and went through the figures and they agreed with me. So when we turned it down it wasn’t because of some innate knowledge of the business. It was common sense.

“We went with Nigel Grainge and Chris O’Donnell at Ensign because they kept talking about the music. They talked about this or that producer when I didn’t even know what a producer was, and I trusted them because Nigel had signed Lizzy. They were starting their own label and I reckoned they needed us more than we needed them because if we’re not a hit they were fucked. Their deal wasn’t for ten years, but for about £140,000 for the first album which at least left us with some decent wage.

“I then announced that The Rats had signed for more than The Beatles and The Stones put together, and the press loathed me for it! Of course the truth was that The Beatles and The Stones had signed for virtually nothing!

“But Richard is still a great friend and when we moved to England he arranged for us to stay with his uncle in Chessington.”