‘What’ve I done? Made an eejit of myself?” Terri Hooley snaps when I praise his myriad achievements. “I’m fed up being called The Godfather of Punk – I’m not. I’m just an old hippy and punk was hippies’ revenge, cos you didn’t listen to us first time round!”
I had been warned Hooley might be cranky due to the dialysis he undergoes thrice weekly, combined with a busy schedule that involved DJing at recent gigs by the Northern Irish punk bands he brought to light – the Undertones and the Outcasts – and promoting the just-published biography Terri Hooley: Seventy-Five Revolutions, by Stuart Bailie. Turning to this biography makes Hooley perk up. “I think it’s wonderful,” says the man whose championing of punk during the Troubles gave the region’s youth hope. “When Stuart first told me about it, I thought he was mad!” Hooley’s now all charm, happy to relive his extraordinary life.
