Anthony Kavanagh, once known as pop star Kavana, told David Hennessy about his memoir Pop Scars which deals with the highs and lows of fame and his battle with addiction.
Kavana, real name Anthony Kavanagh, scored a number of hit singles in the mid to late 90s with tracks such as I Can Make You Feel Good and MFEO (Made For Each Other).
He toured with Boyzone and shared stages with The Spice Girls before they were well known.
In 1997 he took Best Male at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party beating competition from Ronan Keating and Gary Barlow.
However, behind the success he was struggling with his sexuality and a drinking problem that was growing out of control.
Dropped from his label at 21, the dream was over.
He moved to LA to try for another chance at stardom but the demons of alcohol and drug addiction would really take hold.
Now sober, he has told all in his candid memoir, Pop Scars. It gives an insight into overnight stardom and the pop world but also what happens after the dream is over.
Anthony Kavanagh told The Irish World: “The best thing about the book is now getting the feedback because you don’t know how these things are going to go.
“It’s one thing writing it but another then it going out there for everyone to see.
“But so far, it’s been good.
“I suppose it was therapeutic.”
I bet the best review or response you could get is that the book has helped someone struggling with the kind of things you were writing about?
“Yeah, absolutely.
“I think I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a pity party because suddenly people go, ‘Oh he’s complaining’, and I’m not.
“I’m just writing about my experience and I see this more as an addiction story.
“I’m under no illusion that I’m worthy of writing a big autobiography but then I realised that anyone can write a memoir.
“I’ve read a lot of addiction memoirs.
“I remember reading Dry by Augusten Burroughs years ago and I think that planted a little seed.
“This is before I realised I was a full blown alcoholic myself.
“But there’s something about writing your truth that allows somebody else to then connect and tell theirs as well.”
It must have been difficult to be catapulted into stardom at such a young age and then dropped from a height at the age of 21..
“Yeah, and I think also we don’t always hear what happens to people after it.
“Had I just written a book about my time as a pop star, it would be a very short book and no one would probably be interested but I did a writing course just to help me to figure out if I had something.
“I remember the tutor saying, ‘Lean into the kitchen sink stuff. Lean into the stuff afterwards because that’s more relatable’.
“So although it is a 90s pop memoir, it doesn’t really get started until we see what happens after and I chased the feeling of fame for so long.
“I moved to America.
“I had this slight delusion but at the same time, I think you can have a lot of ambition but be naive at the same time.”
I think you’re hard on yourself calling it a delusion because you had incredible success. You beat Ronan Keating and Gary Barlow to an award voted for by the public at one time. However I was wondering reading the book if you were really able to enjoy these moments? You do mention often going straight from the stage to a hotel room where you’re all alone..
“Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I dreamed of being on the cover of Smash Hits and then it happened.
“I would watch the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party and dream of being in the audience, never mind being winning an award so there were moments of absolute amazing times but I don’t think I did appreciate it.
“That’s the wrong word actually, I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as I could have done because I had a lot of fear about my sexuality and being found out.
“There was a lot of ups and there was a lot of downs.
“I think there was a lot of lonely times too.
“But this is what I’d wished for, I couldn’t be ungrateful.”
You mention your sexuality there. Of course it was a different time in the 90s, do you think it would be easier now to come out?
“Oh God, yeah.
“There was nobody my age that was out.
“We had our big trailblazers like Boy George, Jimmy Somerville, Marc Almond but there was nobody my age.
“I write about the connection I made with Steven Gately but that was before he came out or was outed, we know he was outed.
“He was always playing this role and a little bit in fear but I put that to one side because, like I said, my dreams had come true so I had to be grateful.”
You write about becoming close with Stephen Gately. You were going through very similar things at that time..
“Yeah, I think at that point I was maybe a little tired and working lots and just going through the motions but still lucky to be doing it.
“And then to meet somebody that was like me, that I was also attracted to but we were both secret…
“Like I say in the book, I wish people wore a badge so I knew who was who.
“I was a young lad, I wanted to have a bit of attraction to people but it was a guessing game.”
Someone else who features in the book, and has also sadly left us, is Amy Winehouse. You were fans and you write about a side of Amy that we saw very little of..
“We were kind of like the odd couple.
“We weren’t best friends but we connected.
“I was never part of the cool Camden set but we just hit it off and she didn’t care where you come from.
“When I did the panto, she had made three new friends in Kentucky Fried Chicken and brought them along.
“She had no airs and graces and I wanted to write about that side of her rather than what people might expect because my experience of her was quite homely and comforting.
“She was cooking meatballs and, of course, we had a few drinks together but I wasn’t part of that other scene.
“She was very, very kind.
“Again just sad, very sad.”
Do you remember where you were when you heard about her sad passing at the young age of 27?
“Yeah, I remember.
“I was actually at Euston train station and I slipped and fell.
“I think I might have had a few drinks but I slipped and fell and banged my head.
“I heard it smash and I bounced back up and as I bounced back up it said on the screen, ‘Amy Winehouse dead’.
“I felt like she was giving me a sign saying, ‘Get your act together’.
“She used to say to me, ‘You need to sort your drinking out’.
“That’s how much she cared for other people regardless of what she was going through but, of course, you’re not ready until you’re ready, until you’ve had enough.”
That was the case, wasn’t it? You were in the grips of addiction for decades..
“Yeah, absolutely.
“And for a long time you can blame it on, ‘Oh, well, my career finished’.
“Or, ‘My father died, my sister got sick, she passed away, my mother that has (dementia)’.
“But regardless of that, I still would have had this ism of addiction, the alcoholism.
“But it worked for me for so long that it becomes almost like medicinal and then, of course, it gets a grip and it just kept me going.
“It did get me through some things as well.
“It got me through my father’s death.
“It got me through some really dark times but then it turned.
“I’m just very lucky that I had that last window of hope that I managed to get help and kind of think, ‘Right, okay, I’ve not got many rock bottoms left’.
“Well, we know what the last rock bottom is, don’t we?
“So something had to go, it was either the alcohol or me and thank God, once I put that down and did a bit of work, the world starts to open up more and you get more peace of mind.”
I don’t have to ask what the hardest chapters to write were. You write about your father’s passing, your mother developing dementia and your sister also getting sick with cancer. The story also has a lot of humour and it is often you laughing at yourself..
“You know what? I’ve always had a sense of humour.
“I’m half Irish.
“My dad’s from Dublin.
“I’ve got an Irish side of the family.
“They love the craic, as we say and my mum’s working class from Manchester so you’ve got that real Coronation Street side, rough and ready.
“I wanted to inject some of that into the writing.
“People have been saying, ‘One minute I’m laughing and then the next minute I’m teary’.
“But that’s life, isn’t it? Life is like that.
“Life can be extremely sad but then the next minute you can be laughing at the absurdity of stuff so I hope I kind of got that across.
“And hopefully, without being corny, it’s a story of hope.”
Your father was from Crumlin in Dublin and you have spoken about your Irish roots. Do you feel Iris? When you go there, does it feel like home?
“Yes, it does and I’m not just saying that.
“I do love Ireland and I would love to come back.
“I must admit I spent a lot of time in pubs in Ireland so I think it might be a case of if I do come back to have a few zero Guinnesses.
“I love it there.
“I’ve not been for a long time but I do feel very Irish.”
Your Irish background and Catholic upbringing come through in the book..
“Yeah, definitely.
“I was an altar boy and the thing I didn’t put in the book but I only realised, funnily enough, in my second rehab and I hope last rehab.
“You had to write when you first had a drink.
“And my first drink was the holy communion wine.
“They put me on the wine duty to prepare the blood of Christ and I had a little taste of it.
“I used to look forward to that every week.”
You connected with Boyzone so well because they were all Dublin lads a bit like your father, isn’t that right?
“It was great and straight away they were calling me ‘Anto’.
“I’d never been called Anto before, ‘Ya alright, Anto?’
“And then we would be having a few drinks after and stuff and they were just great.
“They were brilliant.
“It did feel more like a bit of a family on tour with them, you know.”
Someone else you write about are the Spice Girls. You met them before they were huge but you describe them in your journal at the time as the exact five girls we would get to know..
“Yeah, that was them.
“They were like that when they weren’t famous so it wasn’t an act.
“I kept hearing everywhere I went, ‘Spice this, Spice that’. ‘Have you met Spice yet? Have you met Spice?’
“Because they were called Spice before Spice Girls.
“And then I met them and they were quite the force of nature but they were brilliant.
“And then it was great to bump into them from time to time over the years.”
You write about how having a few drinks took the edge off your imposter syndrome and other discomfort so were the roots of your problems there from the very beginning?
“Yeah, I think so.
“I wasn’t aware of it.
“I didn’t realise that alcohol affected me differently to the normal drinker meaning it took me years to realise that when I take a drink, it immediately starts this kind of craving for another one so the craving begins when I have the first one, it’s not before.
“That’s what baffled me for years.
“But when you’re on tour and you’re feeling a bit lonely, I would look forward to the mini bar and I would stop the worrying about the sexuality and stopped worrying about being a bit lonely.”
I asked you before if you were able to enjoy the highs as they were happening. I wonder are you able to enjoy them as you look back on them now?
“Yeah.
“Look, I have dined out on that (Smash Hits) bloody award for years.
“I still watch it sometimes because it’s just so surreal.
“That was just brilliant.
“I have made peace with that stuff now.
“Actually, you’ve made me realise something in this interview, I’m actually really enjoying it again.
“It’s almost like doing this book, it’s come full circle and just for me personally, I can look back now and go, ‘Yeah, you know what? That was brilliant’.”
Another Irish person who features in the book is Bono. He gave you some good but random advice..
“He did but these things, you just never forget.
“Maybe I was 18. I ended up in this swanky nightclub, VIP.
“He really chatted to me and was quite protective.
“And like I said, he looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t do cocaine’.
“And I said, ‘Okay’, but it was a bit too late in the evening for that.
“But I never forget it.
“He must have saw something in me, this young guy in this world of pop and fame and just thought, ‘He needs maybe looking after’ or something.
“Yeah, never seen him since but I’ll thank him if I do one day, but I didn’t listen.”
If you could go back, what would you do differently?
“On a personal level, I probably would have opened up to my dad about my sexuality because I know he was worried and I knew he knew.
“I wish I could have confided in him before he died that I was gay.
“I think he sensed my loneliness and that I was hiding it.
“He always made it very clear that he would have been fine with it but I just couldn’t tell him.
“My mum, maybe, was happy to turn a blind eye and my mum’s the only one left now so I get to spend time with her and be present at the care home.
“She don’t recognise me but it doesn’t matter because we have this communication through the way we look at each other or talk in our own way.”
And now the future looks bright..
“This book has been the first thing I’ve done in years and there’s opportunities coming from that.
“There’s talk of a possible stage show at the minute and what that could look like.
“There’s quite a big producer that I’m talking to who read the book, you don’t know who’s going to read these.
“I’ve got hope and without that, we haven’t got anything so as long as I just keep on the straight and narrow and keep connecting to people.
“But I might do more music again, I’m feeling more creative than I have in years.
“Life is full of possibilities, isn’t it?
“And I am excited about the future.
“I know that how I could make it all go wrong is if I drank so I have to put that first.
“It sounds corny but I am grateful just for today.”
Pop Scars: A memoir on fame, addiction and the dark side of 90s pop by Anthony Kavanagh, is out now (Blink Publishing), also available in eBook and Audio.
