Following on from our interview with Ang here's the second in a series of interviews with some of the people we believe helped make the Haçienda Again Leroy should need no introduction. We hope you enjoy it.
Whilst obviously a handsome man you'd think that given Leroy's longstanding involvement with Manchesters nightlife there would be a better photograph than this. If anyone has one please send it over.
Leroy, you’re one of the longest running survivors of The Haçienda, Dry and Factory records, how did you first become involved with it all?
“I first became involved with it all when I was around 16, 17. I used to the flyposting for Tosh Ryan’s record label, which was one of the independent record labels back then and we used to put posters up for gigs and this was where Rob used to put on most of his band nights. I couldn't tell you what type of bands were on, I think most of them were Ska Bands and stuff like that. Because Rob lived in the area and knew the work we were doing we had always got on really well.”
Hooky always said that the Haçienda was built to give you all somewhere to go. Where did you go before The Haçienda?
“Well myself and friends, the guys who used to do the postering with, we were able to get into a lot of the clubs in Manchester but generally a lot of clubs in Manchester were names like Cloisters, Genevieves, The Piccadilly Club and musically these were like funk and soul places but the problem was if you had an afro haircut you found it very hard to get in. We always used to ask the taxi to wait ‘cos we never knew whether we were going to get in or not.
What were your first impressions of the club when you saw it?
“Oh it was a very different club to anywhere anyone else had ever seen. Not just how it looked or the design, but the whole mentality behind it as well. For me to go in there on the first night and see punks, goths, trendies, well dressed people for the time and no hassle to get in, no issues, no nothing I just thought this is fantastic.
“When I walked in, the size, I still knew it as the yacht showroom but it was the size and the colours, the theatrics of it. It looked like a film set of a club, not a club per se and I just thought it was absolutely fantastic. All the other clubs at the time were smaller, low ceiling places, velvet seated, carpeted floor and this place, having worked in the engineering industry I knew what factory’s ought to look like and this was the funkiest factory I’d ever seen.
You were living in Spain but began working at the club as a glass collector when back in Manchester. How did this come about?
“I’d obviously known what was going on with The Haçienda through Donald Johnson who was the drummer with A Certain Ratio, ‘cos we were good friends and I used to go round with him to Tony Wilson’s house and Tony had the plans there for The Hac and we were all looking at them. I went over to Spain for a while and worked out there and came back the month that the Haçienda was opening but then had to go back to Spain again. I was only back in Spain for a few months but then came over for a quick holiday, went in one night with Donald Johnson and was offered a job that night collecting glasses.”
Then sometime in 1984, Rob Gretton offered you a full time position, how did you feel when that happened?
“Rob managed through Donald to get hold of me in Spain and say there was a full time position, ‘cos while I had been working over here at The Hac I hadn’t just been doing the glasses I’d basically been doing everything that anybody needed to be done ‘cos I loved the place and wanted to do it. And I think, and what I got told was that Rob noticed the difference as to when I was there and when I wasn’t so he got in touch with me. It was perfect timing as I was wondering what I was going to do as I wanted to leave Spain.
According to legend, initially the club was empty and hampered by poor management decisions, such as two people taking the drinks orders and the mountain of unaccounted free drinks that went out, how badly was it being run at first
“Well I wouldn't say it was being run badly, it was being run, I presumed at the time that the people involved had done this business before. It seemed that people weren’t really concerned with the bar and how it was running. It always struck me that as I’d done engineering, a lot of things are done logically, according to time and motion and I thought it looks really good and there’s logistical reasons why one person was serving and one was taking money and that was simply because of where the tills were placed. I put a stop to that right aways so instead of having six people where only three are doing anything, we can have six people where six people are doing it. It seemed to that for some people working there it was kind of a fashion statement to work there, it seemed that for some people they liked other people to be doing part of their job, and I just thought if it needs doing do it, and that’s what I think Rob noticed.”
The club began to sort out the management problems and you became licensee until Paul Mason arrived, how did you pull together the situation at the club?
“It was obvious that people were needed, like I was winging it most of the time and asking people what should be done. My mum had worked in the licensed trade so I asked how certain things were done in the industry and then sought to adapt them to the Haçienda which was an entirely different place. Obviously the drinks thing, it wasn't free drinks to customers. There was a lot of people and riders, like if any of the bands needed drinks or if anyone from Factory was in there, obviously they weren’t going to be paying for drinks but it didn’t seem to be recorded, it was just like “That’s theirs. There you go.” I just thought it made sense to record what had actually gone in and gone out and what you’d actually received money for.”
“We knew what had come in and if you didn't know what had been given away for nothing, anybody could do anything. I must say though that never seemed to be the situation. I bet the odd drink was given away to friends but nobody ever seemed to be taking the mickey wholesale ‘cos I think a lot of people needed to work there, not for the money but for the lifestyle it gave them. The way they dressed to go to work, they couldn’t dress like that to work anywhere else and the way their friends were there. It gave them a kudos to work there so I think they had a lot to lose but no doubt if there was a party at the end of the night, a bottle or two went missing,
“If anything it was grand accounting errors and just not having control over the stock so when that changed, that in itself breeds a discipline in the people who are serving or involved in the taking of cash, because they themselves will begin to behave in a certain manner because it filters all the way down to what they are doing.
Tell us about the development of the Gay Traitor and how important the cocktail bar became in the early to mid 80’s in the Hac
“As far as I remember The Gay Traitor was open at the start ‘cos Big Jerry and Brendan and Bren who worked there, although I knew gay people, it was the first time I’d been in a bar that was called the Gay Traitor, was staffed by three gay guys and everyone preferred to go down there or work down there ‘‘cos they were a scream. They put on a show as well.
“The Gay Traitor became a social club and there was a whole little scene that went on downstairs. If it wasn't busy upstairs you could guarantee that there’d be a decent turn out downstairs in the Gay Traitor. If the Gay Traitor wasn't busy then the club wasn't busy at all. It was down to the guys who worked down there, they chose the music for downstairs, it wasn't from upstairs at all and it kind of became like a club within a club.”
What do you remember about the change in the club when house music came in, initially with Mike in about 86, and then with acid house in 88?
“Musically there didn't seem to be that much of a change because everyone seems to forget we’d gone through go-go with Troublefunk and stuff like that which was kind of a stepping stone to what we did but it was more like the acid side of house, the monotone side of house which seemed to cross the Kraftwerk type of thing with the Troublefunk type of thing which became this mesh that came together. You’d notice the kind of subtle differences going into that but once you noticed certain other outside influences coming into it, it all seemed to be going somewhere you’d never been before.
What are your favourite memories of this period?
“ Oh wet at Hathersage baths, the whole concept of having a mad club night surrounded by water with alcohol and other stimulants is absolutely suicidal. It was a fantastic idea, it was a great night, I’m just sorry that more people didn't go to it though the ones that did, it was really good vibe. I suppose it’s something that if it were to be done now, it would be one of the events of the year but for me it was perfect. I love alcohol, I love water, I love other things and to be there with a swimming pool and being able to just float away and listen to really good music with friends was sublime. You couldn't get a drink into the bath without it sinking so that was the only downer”
“Also The Temperance Club events in Paris did really well and we used to go over once a month. I always really enjoyed that, being able to see the bands and not being in a full on work mode and I had some really good memories of travelling over but the most amazing event has to be the seventh birthday at the Roxy in Amsterdam. To actually get two, three coach loads of people over there and come back minus one person that was an achievement but there were more than that who made their way over themselves. We took about 150 on the coaches but there must have been around five, six hundred of our lot there which was fantastic.
When Acid House came in, is it a bit of a fallacy that it affected the bar takings?
“I don't believe that it affected things that much because there was never great amounts of drink being sold anyway. It was only when it kicked in, it had been different on gig nights but it was only when the house thing kicked in that we started getting the numbers in. We used to do very well, we might not have sold much draught beer but we sold lots of spirits and obviously when the water thing kicked off, who would have thought you could have charged people to drink water in a club? Who would have thought that people would have asked for water in a club? Also so many variants came out and so many companies got into it, they knew there was a lot of money to be made on these soft drinks. We could make just as much GP if not more on those drinks than we would on anything that was alcoholic.
The flip side of the acid house scene is that it eventually affected safety in the club and led to the growth of gangs and drugs culture in the club. As licensee how did you address it?
“One of the problems was that the co-operation from the police was virtually nil. The licensing were okay, they knew that it wasn't us that was involved in things but the general consensus was that if you close a club down you don't have the problem. We were fighting that for a start and with that attitude you cant go to them and say “we have this problem, can you help us?” because their attitude at that time was that if you can’t sort it out then you shouldn't be in the business. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with trying things like different security companies which in itself was a bag of spanners but the main thing was that we had to convince the police and the authorities that we weren’t part of anything that was going on.
“The upshot was that we could deal with the situation given a free hand but we were told “obviously not, you can’t have a free hand.” On several occasions, the police were using The Haçienda as this icon to scare most of the other clubs away. What they failed to understand was that every major club in every major city was going through precisely the same thing, and the only things that The Haçienda was doing wrong was that we weren’t controlling it. I don't mean controlling the situation, I mean controlling the drugs situation.
“We were persistently fighting the mentality of the police before we were able to sort out any of the problems that were going on.”
You left The Haçienda in May 1989 to open Dry? Was that a relief to you?
“Although I left the club it was still a major part of what I was doing. At Dry I loved being involved with it at the beginning, ‘cos I’d missed the beginning of The Haçienda, the build up to it and I could also impart my knowledge that I’d gained into the physicality of running the bar. For example it had a wide bar because the doors on the fridges opened out so you needed space for two people wide, just those kinds of things then impact on how many people were allowed in the building and issues like that. But I was still heavily involved with the management side of the Haçienda by that I don't mean the running of it, I was at every hacienda management meeting because we used to discuss both Dry and The Hac there. Dry had one type of problem that was going on, like getting people in, what do we do with them afterwards and how do we get them down to the club and The Haçienda had its ongoing situation.
“However I have to say I think Ang Matthews was absolutely perfect for the job. I absolutely love Ang. I think when I knew I was going to be leaving I suggested Ang who was at The Boardwalk at the time where I’d seen her working and realised that this was the person. When she came to do it I really felt a lot more comfortable in being able to walk away from that side of The Haçienda. I wasn't just there for the job, it was the people there, I wanted to do as much as I could for them and I was glad that I could still have that involvement without Ang thinking I was stepping on her toes. We worked really well together; no-one was the boss if you know what I mean.”
Dry foreshadowed the development of the Northern Quarter in Manchester and along with Afflecks Palace and Eastern Bloc was a pivotal part of the Madchester scene. Did you foresee the influence that it would have at the time?
“Dry was a major instrument in all of it. When I say Dry I don't mean the bar per se but Tony, Rob, Alan Erasmus, Paul Mason, they talked with the council quite a lot and it was all about giving the area a focus. There was absolutely nothing there, The Northern was an old boozer, and most of the places were old shops or things like that. There wasn't a single bar in that area apart from Dry and it was going to be moving that way but it needed to be an independent style run area, they didn't want any big national chains going into it and when Tony used to have meetings with the council, it was very important that the identity that was created was one of independence. It needed to be known as something, you had The Village, Chinatown and it was so obvious, it was in the Northern part of the city, The Northern Quarter. I think it was looking on the map when that came out and the name stuck. Tony became involved in putting on street festivals in the area to give it a focus and then the council did a great job promoting it, speaking with landlords about what kind of businesses to let go in there. You can see the variety of businesses and people that run them have given the Northern Quarter its identity and the name the Northern Quarter has given them their identity.”
Are you disappointed that they never did the upstairs floors at Dry and that you never got your penthouse apartment?
“Well, the top floor was absolutely fantastic, half the roof was glass and that was going to be my penthouse apartment. At first I was doing cartwheels, thinking great and then I began to think “Hang on, what do I do on my day off?” Have you got to leave it? When would I appreciate it? Would they all be up the stairs saying this has happened, that’s happened? The fact that we didn't even get a floorboard done on the first floor kind of sums the situation up but what they said at the time they truly believed they could do and achieve. It wasn't pie in the sky, it just never happened but it didn't mean it wasn't going to happen. They never said anything was a “maybe”, nothing was ever maybe it was always “we are” but the “we are” didn't mean “it would be.”
You were then to return to managing the Hac in its dying days when Ang Matthews grew tired of it. You swapped jobs, her coming to Dry, you returning to the Hac, how had the club changed?
"The club had changed, when I say the joy had gone, I don't mean it was a miserable place to be in. There was just the potential for trouble. I think most people in there would have been unlucky to have been involved in any physical trouble, they may have heard about it, or seen it, but they were unlikely to have been involved in it themselves. The fact that it could happen and also the financial situation in the industry was changing at that time.
“You have to bear in mind bars were being given late licenses and doing kind of the same things. It was always “where do we go from here”, having to put bigger names on for more money and not getting as many people in. I think the press that it was getting didn't help. It wasn't bad all the time but I think people thought I can always go next week. People thought that The Haçienda would always be there and I don't think people realised how difficult it is to open somewhere and given how long it had been open, how much it ‘cost to keep it going. It wasn't a shock but it just wasn't the same vibe. It hit the right spot on some occasions but it had always used to hit the spot all the time.”
The incident with the licensing committee in 97, was that the end really?
“That was the end and what kind of really disappointed me about that was that the people who were causing the trouble all over the place, not just with us, it was almost as if they were saying we can do what we want, when we want, where we want and the whole thing for me was where are you actually going to go when we’re not here. You just don’t have the intelligence to work things like that out for yourselves. We’re not gonna spell it out for you ‘‘cos it’s not going to make any difference. It was just an unfortunate time when this happened when the Haçienda and everybody involved weren't in the financial position to fight any problem legally we might get on that front. It was bad timing but also about time.
“We would have struggled on if we had to but I think to close then was the best thing that could have happened, maybe not for the people who went there or worked there but I think for the name of The Haçienda. If it had died a horrible, slow, nobody coming in, let’s put on a pound a drink nights, I think it would have lost what it was really about.”
The Hac closed in 1997 and Dry was sold to Hale Leisure shortly afterwards. What do you think Manchester lost without these two institutions being under Factory control?
“I actually think, that despite one of them still being open, albeit under different management, it was always going to be a different place, physically the same place but always gonna be different in there. A place is sums of its contents, including the people who work there, drink there, go there, not just what it looks like. I do think it lost a sense of excitement, not that there weren’t exciting things to do but that sense of going somewhere that you were glad you were going to, where you were grateful if the queue was that big and you got recognised and let in.
“That little tingle you can get, I think that’s what it lost, you can still go out and drink in places, listen to the same music, listen to the same DJ’s even but that little tingle that even i used to get going to work or looking out from the DJ booth and seeing it all, you don't seem to get that now. I’ve seen it at gigs now and again, just that feeling of everything between the people. Even with total strangers instantly getting in on what it’s all about and they just can’t help but become part of it. To have people in clubs, cheering, demanding one more, it set a standard that other clubs couldn't match.”
What have you gained personally from your involvement with Factory, The Haçienda and Dry? Hooky says in his book that you get treated like a hero when you go abroad.
“I find it amazing, particularly in New York, probably because of all the Mancs who are over there bigging me up, I don't have a problem at any of the clubs. I’m always ushered into places and when I try to pay for my drink, they won’t have it and I begin to think “is this what it really meant?” If I’d realised that when I was working there, I might have capitalised on it a bit more.
“Besides earning a decent living and working with some fantastic people, The Haçienda actually gave me a insight into the fact that there was a life doing things most people had to pay to be part of and the life that you could make for yourself that these guys have actually shown you. They live it themselves and they quite innocently allowed me to be part of it. I just think of people I grew up with and went to school or college with and to see how different my life has become from what I thought it would be and thank god for that.”
Did you realise at the time how renowned the club was and had you any idea that its fame would last for so long?
“I have to say absolutely none otherwise I would have tried to keep a better account of what was going on or what was needed. Half the time I have people telling me about things that I was there doing and I don't recount it until somewhere in the subconscious there’s a little spark that goes “oh yeah, that”. You wont be seeing any memoirs from me because I haven't got a clue about anything that people might find interesting.
“However to think it would still be here and I would have 20 year old kids saying “I wish I could have gone, I never did but my mother / brother / cousins used to go” and for people still to have that respect, a whole new generation, I think it’s amazing. Looking back it’s the people who were involved, people like Hooky. After all you’re not going to meet too many people like Hooky in your lifetime but what they do sticks.
“It doesn't surprise me know but if you’d asked me when the Hac closed I would have said in a months time, nobody will be talking about it.”
If you could go back and do anything differently, would you.
“If I could go back I think I would have tried to become more involved in the planning side of things. I got involved a bit too late with not enough time to really appreciate it. I would have liked to have been involved more in putting the actual event on, as opposed to being the one running that event and doing everything to try and make it happen. I’d have liked to have been a bit more rounded in what I did.”
Any regrets or is life too short?
“Life is far too short. The only regret I do have is that I haven't got a better memory, even for my own personal satisfaction, to be able to remember and not stare vacantly at people when they’re telling me something I should know.”
