He’s good mates with Bressie, he’s about to move into Laura Whitmore’s old pad and we’ll be seeing a lot more of rising star Eoghan McDermott as The Voice of Ireland settles into the live rounds. Alan Corr meets the easygoing Dubliner
I am scrolling down Eoghan McDermott’s Twitter feed when this beautifully constructed entry catches my eye: “Radiate positive energy. Eat a bat. Riverdance. Lick your elbow. Build a chicken coop. Use Power-tools. Slap your sister. Cha-cha. Repeat.”
Now Twitter, despite what Twitterers may say, is not the best way to get the measure of a man but in person, Eoghan McDermott is as free-speaking and fun as his 140-character (or less) updates. He’s sitting in the offices of hipper-than-thou London radio station XFM when he takes my call. “Just opening the post and wondering what to play on my show tonight”, he says as he tears open a pile of padded envelopes.
The Knocklyon-born DJ and television presenter has been hosting the station’s drivetime slot for a while now. Recently, he interviewed Lana Del Rey (“Wow”, is his well-considered judgement) but McDermott is best-known in Ireland as co-host of The Voice of Ireland, the marathon (and there’s two months to go, pop pickers!) search for a new star based on their vocal skills and not their heart-rending back story, music biz contacts, or good/bad looks.
Eoghan took a roundabout way into entertainment. After he completed a degree in politics and Irish in UCD, he became a dancer and landed a place in New York’s Broadway Dance Center, going on to perform all over the world supporting the likes of Rihanna, The Pussycat Dolls and er, Chris Brown.
After a year, he returned to Ireland to teach dance classes and choreograph before starring in TG4/BBC Northern Ireland teen drama Seacht in which he played DJ Pete. Next up was presenting POP4, RTÉ game show Frenemies, Imeal Geall, and Cúla 4.
Then came The Voice. Eoghan was in the running with Nicky Byrne, Aidan Power and Brian Ormond to land the presenter role, and he only met his co-host Kathryn Thomas on the very first day of auditions for the show. “She is hilarious. Fair play to her – she said we should do some team bonding so we went to see Bressie play in Dublin before The Voice started”, he says.
“We got there and oh my! Nobody was safe – teenagers were thrust asunder as she made a little circle in the dancefloor. She doesn’t mess around, that girl. She’s brilliant fun. She is very vocal and she puts her opinions about The Voice up on Twitter as do I and we have clashed several times.”
To date, the happy-go-lucky Eoghan has been filming those behind the scenes, pre-audition inserts where we get to know the contestants before they face, or don’t face, the vocal coaches. “So far I’ve had a humble cameo on the show”, he says.
However, starting this week we’ll be seeing a lot more of lanky dude McDermott as The Voice enters the all-important live rounds.
He’ll be the man waiting in the wings to console or congratulate the contestants in a bit of post-match analysis. “It’ll be a bit like The Xtra Factor and The X Factor meshing in one show, that’s kind of what I’ll be doing”, he says. “There will be a post-performance analysis and the show is big into social media so there will be interaction with the people watching at home.”
How is he going to handle people crying into his manly shoulder? “I got a tutorial from one of the greats – I’m lucky enough that Dermot O’Leary used to work for XFM and he came on my show a while back and gave me a tutorial in good hug-giving. So I’ve learned from the master. Dermot is the worldwide renowned master of hug-giving and people snotting on his shoulder so I’m relatively well prepared.”
With only 16 auditionees left, Eoghan does of course have his own favourites. It’s just that he won’t tell me who they are – something to do with making life hard for himself apparently. “I have two favourites, a boy and a girl . . . however, on pain of death I can’t tell you”, he says.
“The Twitter feed for The Voice poised the question ‘who is your favourite to win at this stage?’ And I tweeted ‘hey can I take part in this?’ And they said ‘actually Eoghan we think it would make things highly uncomfortable for you so please don’t answer that question!’ If I said who I liked, I’d then have to share the studio with all the contestants but in the knowledge that I have favoured one of them. So maybe I should take a step back and shut my mouth!”
Now that we are down to the final 16, the prize (a recording contract with Universal Music) is tantalizingly close. Maybe we don’t expect blood on the studio floor but you can expect tears and maybe even some flying fur. “I’m sure everybody’s looking for a bit of scandal and a bit of a bust-up but I suppose you can only conduct yourself with appropriate decorum and do your best”, Eoghan says. “But I find, from watching other shows, that it’s always the people who make the most noise that ultimately don’t go the whole hog, it’s the people who keep their heads down and battle through.”
As for the judges on The Voice, well Eoghan is a tad biased as he’s been mates with Bressie for years and in fact lives around the corner from him in London. “I know him the best out of all of the judges. I met Sharon Corr for the first time on The Voice, I’ve interviewed Kian a good few times and he’s a good dude, and I crossed paths with Brian Kennedy on TG4 back in the day.”
So Eoghan and Bressie are the swaggering Irish lads around London town, eh? “Well I’m flying the flag for young, free and single”, he says. “Tongue firmly in cheek but I was devastated when they announced Bressie as a coach on The Voice because I was thinking the show would definitely give my love life a boost. Having to play second fiddle to the most handsome man in the country is terrible! But yeah, we’re having a great time and there are loads of Irish people here who are doing amazingly well and some of them are high profile and some of them aren’t. Laura Whitmore’s doing great.
"I’m actually in the process of moving into her old house. She’s bought a house and her and Danny from The Coronas are shacking up so I’m moving into her old place.”
So the new media Murphia is doing well and considering that XFM’s former DJs include Ricky Gervais, Russell Brand and Dermot O’Leary, Eoghan McDermott must be an ambitious young man. “I haven’t proved myself on any big platform yet but I think with The Voice there is a weight of expectation.”
Not sure about Riverdancing or licking your elbow but this guy radiates positive energy. He’ll go far.
