by WHEN music journalist Geoff Barton coined the term ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ (NWOBHM) he foresaw a denim and leather-clad movement of bands and followers that mirrored the social unrest and depression of 1980s Britain.
Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Def Leppard, UFO, Rainbow, and Judas Priest are just some NWOBHM’s household names that conquered shores far beyond their homesteads.
Among the extensive list of bands – some surviving and thriving to this day – was its only Northern Ireland outfit, Mama’s Boys. A unique three-piece band of brothers, Pat (guitar, violin, vocals), John (Bass, vocals), and the late Tommy (drums) McManus took their Thin Lizzy and Horslips influenced sound to the very top of the industry.
If anything, the Co Fermanagh boys who grew up playing traditional Irish music were arguably among the most innovative of all NWOBHM bands.
Before they had signed a deal with Jive Records, Mama’s Boys had already committed two albums to vinyl, bypassing the demo-to-DJ channel and going straight to the retailer. It may have been a risk at the time but the McManus clan, financing their albums from the takings of relentless gigging and touring, never saw their approach as anything out of the ordinary.
The band’s songwriter, Pat ‘The Professor’ McManus could do no wrong. Mama’s Boys songs were gaining airplay. DJs and record store owners like the Irish music cult-hero Terry Hooley were pushing the ‘next big thing’ to their longhaired customers who looked and dressed just like Pat, Tommy, and John. It wasn’t long before Mama’s Boys were supporting acts such as Hawkwind and Thin Lizzy and performing to 90,000 at Reading Rock Festival. The future was only to get bigger and better.
With a record deal, Mama’s Boys would share the stage at Knebworth where 120,000 fans gathered to witness Deep Purple’s 1985 reunion.
As a child, Tommy McManus, a young drummer full of energy and zest for life, was diagnosed with leukemia. He wasn’t supposed to live as long he did before finally succumbing to the disease in 1994.
“It was the drums and the band that kept Tommy going,” says Pat.
Tommy, Pat, and John were, put simply, Mama’s Boys. Any deviating from that line-up only served to dilute the magic – something the band’s record industry ‘mentors’ succeeding in doing with the enforced change of musical direction and the addition of a fourth member heralding a new voice coming through fans’ hi-fi speakers.
Ultimately, it was not the 1992 sugar-sweet AOR album Relativity that brought about the end for Mama’s Boys but Tommy’s sad passing at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast two years later.
Mama’s Boys headline appearance at the Ulster Hall in December 1985 was my very first rock concert. I was 15 years of age. They were rock gods.
This week, 32 years later, I had the pleasure and honour of spending time with Pat McManus, reflecting on a magical period for heavy rock music and one of Ireland’s finest purveyors of it, Mama’s Boys.
During the course of our conversation, it was sad to learn that all of the rights of the band’s wonderful material do not belong to the McManus family and that the Master recordings once held by the now-dissolved Jive Records may be lost forever.
Alex McGreevy (AMG): It’s almost like a novel, the Mama’s Boys story. In reality, you were actually living the dream during the best-ever era for heavy rock music.
Pat McManus (PMM): We were in a good place at a good time for heavy rock music, yes. The New wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) had exploded and lots of bands were landing record deals and we were the only band from Northern Ireland to get signed to a major label. We didn’t think anything of it at the time but looking back on it now, it was a major achievement. It was not as easy to get discovered in the 1970s and ‘80s as it is today with the help of social media.
We were just bashing around in the wilds of Ireland, from Donegal to Cork to Belfast and we were lucky in many respects that the right people with connections came across us. Most musicians in Ireland back then might have thrown the towel in if they were hoping to get signed because we were so far removed from the spotlight.
I suppose the sheer determination of the band, touring, playing, and writing our own songs got us noticed. We never aspired to be in the spotlight or be rock stars. What we were trying to do was emulate our heroes, Thin Lizzy, Gary Moore, Rory Gallagher, and Horslips. To end up on stage working alongside some of those guys, well, to us, that was it, job done. It was really all we wanted to achieve because we were simply rock fans ourselves. 
AMG: Going against the grain, you put out two albums before you even had a record deal. How did you get away with that in an era when record companies largely dictated who got promotion and airplay?
PMM: We self-financed our first album and second album (The Bootleg and Plug It In) from funds we gathered up from gigs. We did think at the time how we could bypass the process of getting our stuff out there. Rather than doing what everyone else was doing, sending demo tapes to DJs and record companies we thought to ourselves, if we can put out the vinyl it will give the impression we had already been signed – and it worked. There were people asking ‘who is this band, how did they get a record out and why have I not heard this before?’ We were basically a cottage industry, which is how many bands make it in today’s music scene. Making our own vinyl record give us that little jump forward, it created the impression we were ahead of the game and it made it easier for others to listen to our music.
AMG: So how do three young brothers from the countryside find out how to record an album, press the vinyl and distribute it to market?
PMM: It’s funny to think about it now but I guess that was an achievement in itself. We were friendly with the boys in Horslips because we had been to see them so many times and had gotten to know them. Barry Devlin (Horslips bassist and frontman) had many talents and quite happily volunteered information and guidance to us – in fact, he produced some of our early stuff as well. Barry helped open doors for us and so we set off to a studio to record our songs and have them pressed. Then all of a sudden we had all these records to sell! Between Barry (Devlin) and friends, we were introduced to people like Terry Hooley (Publisher, record store, and record label owner). Poor Terry, we turned up at Good Vibrations in Belfast and said, ‘Terry, any chance you could take 25 of these and sell them.’ Terry just looked at us and said, ‘who the hell are you guys?’ But he took the stuff and he got it out there for us.
AMG: So with a growing fan base across Ireland and the UK, how did you eventually get ‘spotted’ by industry influencers?
PMM: One thing I will say is that we did have our fair share of good luck, which I always believed was gained from our investment in our work and our determination to be working musicians – and it was with a touch of good fortune that we did get spotted. We were playing a gig in Tipperary and there was simply nobody at it. When I say there was nobody there, I really am telling the truth! But this guy – who turned out to be Michael Deeney (Music Promoter – Bruce Springsteen, U2, Pavarotti) – came into the place we were playing because he was hungry. He was on his way to meet with U2 who were playing in Cork and he stopped off at the hotel. He heard our unmerciful racket and came in simply out of curiosity. He was blown away by what he heard and that’s how we got a management deal – he helped structure our introduction to the wider world, through Arista, Jive, and CBS records. It was just pure luck on our behalf that he was hungry and on his way to see this young up-and-coming band called U2.
AMG: You eventually got the record deal and produced some memorable material. But today lots of NWOBHM bands are mixing their old stuff and bringing it back to vinyl. Why have Mama’s Boys not done that?
PMM: To be honest, that was my mistake. I signed everything away at the back of the Marquee Club in London. I saw a contract shoved into my hand and I signed it thinking the people providing it had the best interests of Mama’s Boys at heart. I don’t own any of the Mama’s Boys stuff now, which is a shame because we cannot do anything with it.
They will always be my songs but I have no right to do anything with them. It is my understanding that some of the Masters have also disappeared. John and I did try to find them a while back because we thought it might be a good idea to re-master the material. But I’m afraid there are so many scavengers out there that the stuff is most likely gone for good, either sold on and sold on again or perhaps even dumped. The Turn It Up album, for example, no one was able to tell us where the Masters were or who was last to have them in their possession.
We were very much victims of how the record industry worked in those days – when you put that together with three very naïve Irish kids who just wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll, that’s what becomes of you. We took no interest in the business side of music but we opened the doors and trusted people and handed over the controls convinced that we were being looked after. We were most definitely taken advantage of. We know we weren’t alone in that.
Muff Winwood (record producer, musician, and brother of Stevie) once told me that when the record company was pressing and distributing Mama’s Boys records in Holland, they were telling us they were making 100,000 copies when really they were putting out another 150,000 that we knew nothing about.
They owned the pressing plant, so it was easy to do that. How were we ever to know that at the time, or even to this day, without someone coming and telling us face to face? I was appalled when he told me that. We weren’t like Ronnie James Dio who was meticulous about his material and knew what was going out – we took people at face value and paid a price for it.
Muff, as a musician, was messed around during his career. He later signed a record deal with Celtus (an Irish rock fusion band John and Pat formed post-Mama’s Boys) but after a while, John and I agreed that we didn’t want to be contracted in the industry any longer and so we brought an end to Celtus and I moved back to Ireland.
We have exhausted ourselves trying to locate the Masters and gain the rights to our music and we have been in touch with people who should know how to help us but it got to a stage where we had to fire a warning shot across with a threat to do an audit and the response was basically, ‘bring it on, we hope you have a lot of money to do this…’ and as a musician, you tend to shy away from that sort of battle because you don’t have the money or clout to take on the big players in the industry.
Nothing and I mean nothing, was ever shown to us while we were signed with Jive Records. I was never told how many records we had sold; we never saw any accounts for Mama’s Boys. As soon as we started asking questions back then, we were banged out on another tour.
I have resigned in this battle. I gave up a long time ago because of the hurt and the stress. I had to say to myself, your life has moved on and this will consume you if you don’t stop. It’s not in my nature to dwell on things … it is what it is and I have learned from it. I am much happier now being in control of my music and what I put out. People still listen and still want to hear more but even if they didn’t I would still be making music because that’s my hobby.
AMG: If Tommy was still alive today, would Mama’s Boys still be performing and making music?
PMM: I have often thought about where we might be with Mama’s Boys if Tommy was alive today. I guess it’s natural to think where we might have been because Tommy’s passing was the reason why we stopped making music and touring as Mama’s Boys. We were very young men, unmarried, with no children, and we were tight as siblings. We had a lot of growing up to do back then, so who knows what might have become of us as grown men … it’s a very hard one to call.
I know at the time when Tommy started to get ill again we really were riding the crest of a wave but during his spell in the hospital we lost a bit of momentum and however short the period might have been, the music industry does not take long to forget you and move on. It’s fair to say when Tommy took ill that it was about to happen big time for us. Ronnie James Dio had called us and said he wanted to take Mama’s Boys on tour with Dio, that’s how big the picture was for us at that time.
We told Tommy that we would go back on the road and all would be fine when he recovered from leukemia but sadly it wasn’t to be. He would not have wanted us to stop but we just couldn’t go on as Mama’s Boys; Tommy simply could not be replaced.
When Jimmy DeGrasso (Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Black Star Riders) came in to tour with us – while Tommy was unwell – he was amazing but it just wasn’t the same and we knew that the chapter was closed on Mama’s Boys. We were three brothers who lived in each other’s pockets. You know, very little needed to be said. We just knew that was it.
We have always shied away from a reunion because it still wouldn’t be the same without Tommy. We have had offers and we have even had promoters using our name to sell shows, thinking we would jump on board.
You should never say never in life but hand on heart I can never see Mama’s Boys performing again.
If Tommy were alive, we would definitely be playing as Mama’s Boys but more than likely on a sporadic basis. If he was with us today he’d be drumming behind me, make no mistake about it.
AMG: I recall Tommy being a full-throttle performer, everything you would expect from a rock star drummer. How good a drummer was he?
PMM: Tommy was an awesome drummer and that’s not a bias comment, he really was a top drummer. At the time we were recording Power and Passion (circa 1984/85) Tommy came to me and said he had got a phone call to audition for Ozzy Osbourne’s band and that he would like to try it. But he was very clear from the start, telling me that he did not want to join Ozzy’s band but wanted to take the audition just to see if he was good enough – it was just to satisfy him. So, he headed off to the audition and totally smashed it – he got the gig there and then. I knew he would get it but I think Tommy just wanted someone else to reassure him that he was a good drummer.
Apparently, Ozzy told Tommy the position was his, so you can imagine his shock when Tommy said he didn’t want it. Tommy told Ozzy he was “only codding” but Ozzy didn’t understand what that meant. “It means I’m only joking, I don’t want the gig,” Tommy told him.
Ozzy didn’t know what to say to that and asked Tommy why he bothered to come to London to try out. Tommy said ‘I’m recording an album in London with my band and I thought I would see if I could do this but I was never going to leave my band”.
“What band is that?” Ozzy asked.
“Mama’s Boys…”
Tommy said Ozzy almost imploded and said, “that fucking band, Mama’s Boys, they are always played on our tour bus over and over again. Jake E Lee (Ozzy’s guitarist) never stops playing that fucking band…”
Ozzy took it all in good humor thankfully.
AMG: The launch of Growing Up The Hard Way in 1987 saw Mama’s Boys become a four-piece with Keith Murrell taking over as lead vocalist. The sound was different too. How did this impact the dynamic of the band?
PMM: We were under a lot of pressure from the record company to change our sound to match what was happening in the US. The focus was so intense on getting a big hit, getting radio play, and reaping the rewards. They basically told us we had to evolve and that’s when we became a four-piece. While I am happy with the songs I wrote, it was a difficult departure from what we were happy doing and what we were used to doing.
At the same time, we had a crew of people working for Mama’s Boys and naturally, we felt we were responsible for their livelihoods too, so we just got on with it.
Yes, people said we had sold out and had gone down the commercial route but that’s what we were being ordered to do and we would have done anything to keep making music and performing. Our hands were tied. They were sending us Robert Palmer records and telling us ‘write something like this, it’s big in America’. It was a case of ‘do this or else’ and so many bands saw their careers end because of demands put upon their creativity.
AMG: I have to ask, what was the deal with you, John and a Tommy and the Lee Jeans, jackets and shirts – was that some kind of sponsorship deal back then?
PMG: That’s a funny story. Our roadie Peter Kerr was hitching a lift from his home in Magherafelt to one of our shows and he was picked up by a guy who, of course, asked Peter what he did for a living. When the driver found out he worked with Mama’s Boys, he got excited and told Peter he was a director of the Lee Jeans in Northern Ireland and was keen to get involved with us. It was pure chance. It was a good arrangement for us because we were getting all these free jeans and jackets and shirts and believe it or not, our fans were turning up to our shows in Lee denim.
But in true Mama’s Boys fashion, that deal ended after about two years when the same Director came to see us and John walked into the meeting wearing Levis! John tried to tell him our mum was washing all his Lee jeans. That was the end of that great deal! 
AMG: Who is your favorite artist of all time?
PMM: It would have to be Thin Lizzy. They were something else to see on stage. Phil Lynott was one of the finest artists of all time, an absolute all-rounder. I could never separate Gary Moore and Rory Gallagher but I would opt for a band and, for me, there was none better than Thin Lizzy.
AMG: Who are you currently listening to?
PMM: Government Mule, an American jam band … totally gifted. They can play a five-minute song one night and reinvent the same song and play it for 15 minutes the next night. They are on top of their game and a joy to listen to. I also listen to Airbourne a lot. I watched them perform at the Ramblin’ Man festival last year and they were brilliant. I love their energy and sound. People say they try too hard to sound like AC/DC but so what, what’s so wrong with sounding like another band?
AMG: The Pat McManus Band has been very proactive in recent years, churning out excellent Blues/Rock albums. What can a fan expect at a Pat McManus gig?
PMM: They can expect to hear a variety of stuff. I appreciate people come to hear the early stuff as well as the new songs. A lot of what I do when playing live really depends on how I am feeling at the time. I could turn to the guys and say ‘let’s do this one…’ and off we go.
So, yes, anyone coming to see the band can expect to hear some Mama’s Boys, some Gary Moore, some Thin Lizzy, some Rory Gallagher, some new stuff. I don’t shy away from Mama’s Boys because they are my songs and I am very proud of them and I appreciate that they also make other people happy too. People who followed Mama’s Boys have grown with me, so I am always going to respect their expectations.
Mama’s Boys Discography
Albums: Official Bootleg (1980) Plug It In (1982) Turn It Up (1983) Mama’s Boys (1984) Power and Passion (1985) Growing Up the Hard Way (1987) Live Tonite (1991) Relativity (1992)
Singles “Belfast City Blues” (1982) “In the Heat of the Night” (1982) “Needle in the Groove” (1982) “Too Little of You to Love” (1983) “Midnight Promises” (1984) “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” (1984) “Needle in the Groove” (1985) “Higher Ground” (1987) “Waiting for a Miracle” (1987)
Notable Tours:
- 1983 – Thin Lizzy – Ireland, UK, Scandinavia. Mama’s Boys – Reading festival
- 1984 – Scorpions – France, UK. Ratt & Rush – USA. Mama’s Boys headline – Canada.
- 1985 – Ratt & Bon Jovi – USA & Canada. Foreigner & Dio – Japan.
- 1986 – Gary Moore – Germany & Scandinavia. Marillion, Jethro Tull, Status Quo, at various festivals. Mama’s Boys headline – Ireland, UK, France, Switzerland, Holland, Scandinavia.
- 1988 – Mama’s Boys headline – Ireland, UK, Germany, Switzerland, France.
- 1989 – Mama’s Boys headline – Ireland, UK.
- 1990 – Mama’s Boys headline – Austria, Switzerland, UK.
- 1991 – Mama’s Boys headline – UK, France, Switzerland, Germany.
- 1992 – Mama’s Boys headline – Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Greece.
Thank you to Belfast Guitar Festival co-ordinator Paul McMordie for helping make this interview with Pat McManus possible.
