The music man

Tony Clayton-Lea speaks with Larry Gogan about his career in Radio and his passion for music.

Larry Gogan says he always wanted to be a DJ, from the very first time he started listening to Radio Luxembourg in the early 1960s, when he would listen to the likes of Alan Freeman, Jimmy Saville and Pete Murray. The Gogans owned a newsagent shop in Dublin's Fairview, and one day he asked a woman who he knew worked on RTE's radio programmes could he go for an audition. "The family thought I was mad," says Larry. "My mother asked me would I not get a proper job?!"

But young Larry Gogan passed the audition. "There were lots of sponsored radio programmes back then, and I was given a part in a soap called The District Nurse - I played a young lover, or something like that. But I didn't want to be an actor, I really wanted to be a DJ, and so eventually I went to see an important RTÉ radio producer. He sent me off to get a tape recorder - which I bought on Hire Purchase - to practise and practise over and over again.

"The first thing I did was a commercial, on a Craven A programme - imagine they had cigarette companies sponsoring programmes! And then in RTÉ the spot advertising thing was starting to happen, and they put me up for a programme called Morning Melody. I auditioned for that and got it. They phoned to tell me, but I thought it was some of my pals winding me up. That was the first live music programme I ever did. God, even the commercials were live. Does it seem a long time ago? It does all right. In another way, though, it just flashes past."

Larry Gogan looks well for a man in his late 60s (or is it early 70s? No one knows for sure - Larry isn't admitting to anything), still healthy, hale and hearty. He was recently on the receiving end of a Meteor Award, and from March his 2fm show will be shifting from week days to the weekend. The Meteor Industry Award was for his significant contribution to Irish music and also his unwavering support to up and coming acts. It is, he says, "lovely to get it." He received an IRMA award in 2005 (again for his contribution to Irish music) and thought that would be the end of the awards. But no, when he heard that another one was in the offing, he "was amazed and delighted."

The shift from week days to weekend work might indicate that 2fm have more or less signed off on the end of an era, but Larry isn't saying anything about it, which highlights a facet of his personality that has endeared him to many generations of radio listeners - the music man is wholly affable and non-confrontational. Does it upset some people that he is not the argumentative type? "It does, I think, but I never had anything like that in my life. People say to me that I must have had terrible rows in RTÉ, but I never had any rows at all. I never fight with people at all. To be honest, I couldn't be bothered."

He also couldn't be bothered with leading a high profile life. Living in the same house in Templeogue, Dublin, for the past 40-odd years, Gogan is the consummate modest and down to earth figure in an industry renowned for its high quotient of ego and blather. Whatever showbiz pals or stories he has he keeps to himself. It was different in the 60s, he says, when his star status meant that he was besieged by fans wherever he went.

"The 1960s very much consolidated my career. I was lucky enough that RTÉ television started around the same time, in the early 60s. I did a ballroom dancing programme called Shall We Dance. I did Pick of the Pops in, I think, 1965, and then I took over from Gay Byrne, who went off to Granada Television in England. I also did the Top 10 on radio, so those things consolidated me as a pop DJ in the minds of the Irish public.

"It was incredible - you couldn't go anywhere. Television was new - Ireland was effectively one channel land then - and the places would always be packed. We really would be the stars. Outside Dublin in particular was amazing. You'd go down the country to open a supermarket and there'd be hundreds of people pulling out of you. It was a novelty, and something completely new to me. That kind of attention is not to be taken seriously, though. I was never driven by ego - I just thought it was great craic."

He was never, he says, one of those people who'd be clubbing it around town, aching to get their face and name into the gossip columns. "Ah, no, you wouldn't be reading about me being seen in Lillies Bordello or Renards. I was never really into them, to be honest. Myself and Florrie [his wife, who sadly passed away several years ago] just liked to spend time with the family and maybe going out for a meal or on holidays. We had five kids, remember, and that grounds you."

Apart from music, Larry says he has no other passions. He says he never had any other hobbies. "I was never into sport, and I can't stand gardening. It really is music. I mean, there's the family as well, I'm very much a family man, but mostly it's music and being a DJ."

So what does one of Ireland's most popular radio presenters listen to when he's at home? "I'm not a huge fan of Irish'n'country, but I like Garth Brooks. I wouldn't be into hip-hop - I like some of Eminem, but some of the music is just too crude. My grandson, who is nine, wanted a 50 Cent CD, but I couldn't give it to him - I just couldn't be responsible for the outcome!"

He reckons music and sport are two things many people would be lost without it. "I listen to music all the time, on my iPod, my computer, all the equipment. Some people might think that a man of my age might not be aware of the technological issues, but once I was shown what to do I took to it like a duck to water."

"When I first started in RTÉ," he recalls, "you didn't even play your own records - some other fella did. And another fella opened the microphone channel for you. Then it changed to the DJ playing their own records, putting the needle down on the vinyl, then CDs. What we have now is something called Radio Man, which is a computer - it's got all the music, the jingles, the commercials.

"It's possible I'm unusual for my age group in being familiar with such supposedly intricate equipment, but then a lot of people my age wouldn't be into pop music, or indeed, in the environment where music is pretty much everything."

Looking back over his life, does he have any regrets at all? "I've had a very happy life," he admits. "I had a happy childhood, a very happy marriage for 39 years, and am having a happy time on the radio, so I can't complain." EM