Singer Nik Kershaw has vowed to stick to music after being badly stung in an Irish property deal.
The '80s pin-up lost close to €200,000 when he and his business partners sold Dunowen House in West Cork for a fraction of what they paid for it.
They got stung when the Celtic Tiger bubble burst and the property – which they spent well over €2 million on – sold for €690,000.
Read More: Pop star Nik Kershaw made millions from hits but was a victim of Irish property collapse
But Nik, 64, said it hasn’t put him off gigging here as he returns to Ireland next week for the Forever Young Festival in Co Kildare.
He told Irish Sunday Mirror: “It was a bit of a sickener at the time alright.
“Me and my partners managed to buy at completely the wrong time, at the height of the boom.
“We borrowed a lot of money to do it up because it was in a bit of a state, and we ended up selling it for probably a quarter of what we paid for it.”
The Bristol-born musician, who now lives in the countryside in Suffolk, England, admitted: “I’ve never been great with property to be honest.
“I’m OK with the house I live in, but any sort of ventures into the property portfolio market has been a massive failure.
“I just haven’t got that knack. I’ll stick to music now. It’s pretty much what I know and what I’m good at.”
Nik shot to fame with Wouldn’t It Be Good in 1984 and set a new record spending more than 60 weeks in the charts in 1984 and 1985.
And though he’s continued to write new material, releasing an album in 2020, he says he has no problem revisiting his big hits of the 80s.
He said: “The 80s revival thing has been going on for nearly two decades now.
“I don’t understand it myself but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“I was booked to do it [Forever Young] twice but Covid got in the way and other commitments.
“With me the set list depends on the festival.
“This is quite blatantly an 80s festival so I’m not going to go on and say ‘this is a song from my new album’ as that would go down like a lead balloon.
“We all know why we’re there and I’ll be playing all the hits. I won’t know exactly how it’s shaping up til I get to rehearsals next week.
“The Irish audience I find are lovely and incredibly generous and warm and welcoming. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Nik joins a stellar line-up for the three-day nostalgia festival at Palmerstown House Estate near Naas from July 15 to 17.
Headliners Marti Pellow, Holly Johnson and OMD will be joined by Tony Hadley, Heather Small, Bananarama, T’Pau singer Carol Decker, Paul Young, Tiffany and Haircut 100.
Electro pioneer Andy McCluskey is also eager to get back on stage after the pandemic put everything on hold for two years.
The Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark frontman said: “It was a hell of a two-years-plus for everybody.
“The thing with festivals is they are making up for two years of missed festivals.
“We are glad that we are finally getting over to Ireland and doing Forever Young.”
Andy, who had his first No 1 hit as a songwriter and producer with Atomic Kitten, lived in Dublin for a while and is keen to catch up with old pals.
He revealed: “I’m really good friends with a guy called Tony O’Donoghue who is the sports correspondent for RTE.
“We have known each other for some time, almost 30 years. I spent a lot of time with him when I lived over in Dublin.
“In fact I played football against him and the football journalists, and I broke my collar bone. That was only a small downside!
“I might come over a day or two earlier to catch a vibe around the country again as it’s some time since I have been there for nothing other than a concert.
“I might treat myself.”
The If You Leave singer added: “There are a lot of Irish in my family, McCluskey is Irish, not Scottish.
“My mother was a Mangan which is a Cork name and then all the people who I knew when I was in Dublin were from Cork.
“I have a soft spot for Cork as well as Dublin.”
Of the Irish audience, Andy, 63, said: “Once you have them on your side there is a great energy. It’s all about the rapport between the band and the audience, it’s not one way traffic.
“We feel the audience coming back at us and when the audience are vibing on it then it gets us off even more so we start giving 110%.
“It’s a real buzz when you can feel the audience there with you.
“When we are playing festivals basically it’s the hits full stop.”
OMD embarked on a Souvenir 40 Years Greatest Hits tour in America earlier this year and the band has just released a new album, The Punishment of Luxury.
Andy said: “I think that after all these years there is a definitive OMD sound, whether we like it or not, but we like it to be honest.
“It’s going to sound like us. There is no point making a fourteenth studio album if it’s just some kind of sad pastiche of yourselves.
“We wouldn’t release anything if we didn’t actually think it was good work.
“The problem is that as you get older it gets harder and harder to recognise and come up with a new sound or a new melody, lyrics or idea.
“So it takes a long time. It’s like anything, you have got to invest the energy and time in it or otherwise it’s not going to be good enough.
Of the current scene he added: “I think it is a totally different music industry nowadays.
“I think it’s a lot more conservative and also record companies won’t put any money in to an artist unless they are definitely going to get something out.
“They won’t invest and they won’t take chances. I don’t think anyone nowadays would take a chance on two kids from Liverpool called Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark playing songs that even their own mates didn’t like.
“So we wouldn’t get a career now and we certainly wouldn’t be on the X Factor or The Voice.
“We are very thankful that we got a break when we did.”
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