Louis: Still looking for the next Westlife

HE is synonymous with the chart-topping successes of Boyzone, Westlife, and Girls Aloud.

And Louis Walsh has also made a household name for himself through The X Factor, to such an extent that he gets mobbed as much as the stars he helped create.

But if you think the 65year-old Mayo-born pop Svengali is for resting on his laurels and sticking to the TV work, you would be wrong.

Louis, pictured, wants to manage a singer or band that has the talent to stack up a string of No.1s, maybe even better the phenomenal No.1 successes of Westlife.

But above all, he wants an act to believe in.

Louis, who man- ages ex-Westlife singer Shane Filan, told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘I would manage somebody if I got the right act. ‘If they were knocking and I believed in them. ‘I have to believe in them. ‘If I think I can make them famous, it is everything.’ Asked whether he thought the sound or the look is more important, he replied: ‘It is everything.’

And he referenced one of his favourite band managers.

‘I have to think about Paul McGuinness,’ he said.

‘He believed in U2 and I remember them when nobody cared about them but Paul believed in them from day one.

‘That is what you have got to have – you have you got to believe in them yourself.’

Louis, whose acts have also included Samantha Mumba and Shayne Ward, added: ‘I am not looking but if I found them, I would take them on – singer-songwriter, it could be anything.

‘It is such a tough business now with record labels.

‘They don’t have the money like they had when I started off, so you need to be on a TV show to get the kind of platform.’

He shouldn’t have long to wait for the sort of talent he would take under his wing.

More than 1,500 wannabes have got in touch with TV3 for their new series, Ireland’s Got Talent.

However, not all of them might be the sort of acts he will want to manage into the future.

‘We want dogs, cows, animals, country singers – everything,’ Louis said of the guests he is looking for on the show when interviewed by the Mail at the Ploughing Championships last week.

He will be in the chief judge role Simon Cowell plays in shows like The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent.

Auditions will start around the country in November, with the show being broadcast on Saturday nights from the end of January until St Patrick’s weekend. Comment – Page 12 neil.michael@dailymail.ie