For most singers in bands, their dreams are forged staring at the posters on their walls and by the music blaring out of their speakers. But not for The 1975’s leader Matty Healy. Nope, the charismatic and controversial Matty had an upbringing that was not like yours or mine, unless yours includes having a parent who starred in one of the biggest TV hits of the 80s and juggled having his rock star pals over with the tradie mates he'd made in the pub. Speaking to this writer back in 2014 about his famous parents (his dad is actor Tim Healy and his mother is Loose Women and Coronation Street star Denise Welch), Healy looked back on his childhood home with a little incredulity.
“I grew up around rock stars,” he recalled. “In the 80s, when my dad was in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, it was like a political figurehead for a movement in Thatcher Britain, the whole going overseas to get work. At that time my dad was a political presence and he was cool and he was from the north-east and his mates were Mark Knopfler and Thin Lizzy, I was a kid and they were my dad’s mates.”
