Life

Hazel O'Connor to play in Belfast's Black Box

Hazel O’Connor was a huge name in the 80s, forging a pop career after starring in the film Breaking Glass. Ahead of a festival gig in Belfast this week, she talks to Brian Campbell about her run-ins with the music business, her Irish dad in the British army and being on stage with Bono

Hazel O'Connor comes to Belfast on Thursday
Hazel O'Connor comes to Belfast on Thursday Hazel O'Connor comes to Belfast on Thursday

HER performance of Will You is one of the greatest songs ever recorded, and now 80s punk icon is bound for Belfast.

HAZEL O’Connor grew up wishing she hadn’t got such an Irish surname. Born in England to an English mother and a father from Co Galway, she admits that she got picked on in primary school because of her name.

“My dad was brought up Catholic and my mum was brought up Church of England,” she says. “I went to a Church of England school, so when I told people my name was Hazel O’Connor I got `'Go back to the Paddy school’. That comes from some people having bigoted parents. You don’t know anything when you’re four, so you just go 'What does that mean?’ So at the time I didn’t want to be an O’Connor.”

O’Connor hit the big-time in 1980 at the age of 25, when she was chosen to play the lead role of a young singer-songwriter in the film Breaking Glass, which also starred Phil Daniels and Jonathan Pryce.

She recorded a soundtrack album of the same name and it became a bestseller.

“When Breaking Glass came out, I thought it would be funny if the name 'O’Connor’ could become famous,” she laughs. “I used to get letters from people saying, 'It's an amazing name. How did you think of it?’”

O’Connor was surprised to get the acting gig in Breaking Glass when she realised that singer/actor Toyah Wilcox was up for the role.

“She came to audition on the same day as me. As soon as I saw her come in I thought, 'Well, that’s that, I might as well go home’.

“I was a fan of hers and she was a great actress already. But I just said to myself, 'I want something that would change my life; I want them to ask me to be the lead in this film and to write all the songs’. And I said I would ask for Tony Visconti, David Bowie’s producer, to do the record. And I wanted them to change the script. I knew that things were possible.”

And all of these things did indeed happen. Yet after the success of the film and her music, O’Connor says she soon realised that her record company wouldn’t pay her royalties and the dispute ended up in court.

“My first record company very much benefited from the whole Breaking Glass thing – benefitting from work that they didn’t put in. They just sat by and thought, 'Now she’s got famous and we can reap the benefits’.

“The Breaking Glass film people never caused me any harm. I had a brilliant time with them and making the record with Tony Visconti was perfect, but I was basically leased out for a year and had to go back to the original record company.”

The singer wrote a show based around her life story in the mid-90s – Beyond Breaking Glass – and toured it with Irish harpist Cormac de Barra. It was a hit in Edinburgh and even made it to Canada and Australia.

She says it was cathartic to talk about her bitter experiences at the hands of the music industry.

“There’s some kind of fun in being able to moan with humour. We knew there had to be black humour in there and we were happy that the show got great reviews.”

O’Connor still works with de Barra but when she plays Belfast this Thursday she’ll be joined by her bandmates Clare Hirst (who also worked with Bowie) and Sarah Fisher (who worked with Eurythmics).

“We’ve written a lot of songs together in the last few years, so we’ll do those and songs from Breaking Glass. I’ve been dying to bring the girls to Ireland for a long time.”

While she was born and brought up in Coventry, O’Connor divides her time these days between her pied-a-terre in the south of France and her house outside Arklow in Co Wicklow, which she has owned since 1992.

She explains how her father ended up leaving Galway for England.

“He ran away when he was 16 to join the British army to fight in the Second World War – and a lot of lads from Ireland did that. He ended up becoming more Anglicised than the English. After the war, he came to Coventry and met my mum and they married.”

While O’Connor’s parents split up when she was eight, she says she still got to see her dad.

“When mum and dad split up my mum said, 'Do not lose contact with your father because it’s a very important relationship, no matter what’s happened between us in our marriage’.

“I used to hang out with him every Sunday. Dad was a cheery chap and a great singer and dancer but he ended up becoming one of those Irishmen who got stuck in England and could never go back home.”

So did she get to visit Ireland much in her youth?

“Yeah, before I got famous I used to go over to Galway a lot, because I wanted to rediscover my dad’s side of the family. Then when I got famous it was a bit more difficult. I did Slane Castle when Thin Lizzy headlined and U2 were on the bill too. I remember Bono pulling me on the stage to do a song with him.

“After Slane, I couldn’t go anywhere. Everywhere I went in Ireland, people recognized me and they would follow me everywhere. Kids really watched Top of the Pops in those days.”

The singer's best known song is perhaps Will You, the single taken from the Breaking Glass soundtrack album.

“Breaking Glass also gave me the opportunity to write a whole set of songs that I really believed in. Some of them are as valid now as they ever were, because sometimes I think the world hasn’t moved forward at all.

“I was being listened to for once, because I was working class and came from Coventry and nobody really gave a s**t. All of a sudden, people were going, 'What do you think, Hazel?’ So to be given that opportunity was golden and it changed my life.”

She admits that her peers made more money than her and says she’s “not the multi-millionaire pop star that I might have been if I hadn’t been ripped off”.

In her early days, O’Connor even had a little band called Duran Duran supporting her on tour.

“That was on my first big tour after the Breaking Glass film came out. I was actually invited to a party in London recently and one of people I met was Shirlie, from [80s pop duo] Pepsi & Shirlie. We used to be great pals but we lost touch.

“After all the record company business, I didn’t go and see friends and became a bit reclusive and moved to America and moved on again. I had always thought about Shirlie.

“So there she was at the party with a fully grown daughter. It was lovely to get to see her and we’ll stay in touch now. Those are the things life is about. Life’s not about having number one hits or being the bee’s knees.”

:: Hazel O’Connor plays The Black Box in Belfast on Thursday at 8pm, as part of the Out to Lunch festival (www.cqaf.com).

DJ Simon Bates introducing Hazel O'Connor's performance of Will You on Top Of The Pops in 1981