Johnnie "Fingers", Susan and Regine Moylett are the youngest of a family of seven.
Johnnie "Fingers", Susan and Regine Moylett are the youngest of a family of seven. Their father died when they were young; Regine was nine. Johnnie is the other Boomtown Rat, the pyjama-clad Fingers who supplied the piano-fuelled backdrop to Ireland's be-knighted latter-day saint. He has been living in Tokyo for 12 years with his wife Yoko and two children, and works in the music industry, promoting international acts and writing for Japanese artists. Susan is the owner of Susan Hunter, the Dublin lingerie emporium. She began her retail career in the 1980s with her punk clothes shop No Romance, whichwas a meeting place for luminaries of the day, even boasting a fashion shoot featuring a young Bono. She lives in Dublin with her husband and three children. Regine worked for London's NME before joining the Island Records press office in 1983, just in time to handle the flak from Frankie Goes To Hollywood's hit, Relax. She publicised records by great names of the time, including Robert Palmer, Grace Jones, Tom Waits and, of course, U2. She left Island in 1990, working independently with a roster which now includes U2, Blur, Gorillaz, PJ Harvey, Dido, The Corrs, Norah Jones and Avril Lavigne. She lives in London with her husband and two children.
JOHNNIE:
I bridged the generation gap in the family. Once I became famous, Susan and Regine were under pressure to do something to make their mark.
We keep in touch through the wonders of e-mail, and I go back to London for work and meet them. They all come over to see me. Susan has been in Tokyo recently with her chef husband, and he always wants to buy knives; Japan is famous for knives, apparently.
The whole family is very tight and has been since my father died. Susan came to lodge with me when I was with the Rats in London and she lived in the same house. The house had 14 bedrooms and it used to be owned by Henry the 8th - he used to keep his mistresses there. We weren't slumming it at all!
She was always a home bird and not attracted to that pop star's life. There were a couple of pop stars who were very attracted to her but she didn't want anything to do with it. Nick Lowe came up to me one night and said "Who is she? She's a stunner." And I said, "well actually that's my sister." "Could you introduce me to her?" he says. I think he was a bit of a ladies' man. Anyway, she wasn't interested.
Regine came later and lived with me in Osterly when I bought a house there. They are very different. Susan is very flighty and Regine is very practical, a very wood-from-the-trees sort of person. She came to Tokyo with U2 during the Europa tour. She came over to see us. She thought Tokyo was strange: There was a press conference for U2 - normally photographers are battling to get through, but they all politely queued up and took pictures. It wasn't like home at all.
SUSAN
We thought we were royal family. That’s how our mother raised us. Like a tribe. When you look back you realise how extraordinary it was ... seven children to raise!
My mother was an amazing woman. There are many stories; one was that she sold the dining table and chairs to pay for our school fees. We weren’t even vaguely aware of it, she would never have mentioned it. No one had money in those days; you just did your best.
Johnnie and I always hung out together, and when Regine finished school she had the idea of opening a shop. It was a lovely time. The glamour of it! Johnnie started touring but he never got too starry. He was very kind and generous and would always include us. Regine and I shared a flat. We had such a laugh. I seem to remember laughing all the time, even on buying trips to Boy in London. We were young things on the town and we had a blast.
We went to Tokyo for Johnnie’s 50th two years ago. There is nothing to compare it to. “What if” doesn’t exist there – it happens or it doesn’t. Johnnie even looks Japanese now. He comes to what we call “The Vans” in Wicklow in summer. I should be going to a villa cantilevered over a fjord or something, but I got a van a mobile home that doesn’t go anywhere. It was the best decision. We make great meals and we talk and the kids are endlessly busy. I wonder why we can’t always live like that.
We united as Mum went deeper into Alzheimer’s. She had looked after us and then we looked after her. It gets easier on the patient but harder on the family. She looked like herself but her personality had vanished. You wanted to ask questions but you couldn’t; the information just wasn’t there. Every once in a while she would say something ... you could never quite believe that she wasn’t in charge.
So we got close all over again. We all had different childhoods and we like to go over things. Your siblings are your best witnesses, the ones you can ask “And what happened then?”
REGINE
There was an older and younger crew, and Johnnie, Susan and I came at the tail-end. Our father died when we were still in school and to this day, when we get together, we still discuss the how and why of it. Our mother was 46 and my older brother Patrick taught her how to drive and she took a course at the Grafton Academy. The three of us went to boarding school; Johnnie in Limerick, Susan was four years older than me at Roscrea. She would always loan me her clothes.
When we started No Romance it wasn't a quest for fame; we were just never able to find the stuff we wanted. We had a band called The New Versions - I played keyboards - but I realised I might be better off writing about music instead of playing it. I started writing for NME but soon ran up a debt - I was inclined to do too much research, so it didn't pay! I stayed with Johnnie for a while, probably at my mother's suggestion. She made sure we kept in touch. My niece is staying with me now.
Susan got married and started having babies. She is a really consistent person, a real rock. We would beat each other up but she was the ultimate in style and a font of knowledge. Johnnie was always fascinated by all things Oriental. He loves living in Tokyo. It's like looking at the future; where we'll all be in 20 years' time. Traffic jams at three in the morning, uniformed men waving green batons around. The city is so futuristic and the countryside so deeply traditional. He gets to London twice a year - they send him to "get the English sound".
Now our lives are split between Dublin, London and Tokyo, but we get together every August in Arklow-on- Sea. When Mum became ill we began pulling together again. We're like a three-legged milking stool - balance on an uneven surface. You wouldn't think it to look at us, but we couldn't stand alone.