STEVE Albini declared him to be "a good cop". The Verve nicknamed him 'Beautiful' David Boyd. To ex-Auteurs man turned solo maverick Luke Haines he's 'The Boyd', a "true ally".
During his 30-year career in the music biz, Co Antrim-born Dave Boyd developed a rare reputation as a straight-talker, making the A&R man a firm favourite with the acts he signed to labels such as Independiente, Virgin Records and its indie-centric offshoot, Hut.
The latter imprint will be instantly familiar to music fans of a certain vintage as the launchpad for Placebo, The Verve, The Auteurs, McAlmont & Butler, Gomez, Embrace and David Gray.
It was also the British label that snagged alt-rock titans Smashing Pumpkins for the UK release of their 1992 debut LP, Gish.
Having cut his industry teeth working for indie giant Rough Trade in the late 1980s, Boyd eventually became head of A&R at Virgin, helping to recruit hot new prospects like The Chemical Brothers and Massive Attack while also securing veteran acts like The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithful and David Bowie for the roster.
The Co Antrim man regards the latter as one of his musical touchstones.
"Seeing Starman on Magpie while I was at school was just mind-blowing," recalls Boyd.
"I never thought that years later I'd actually get a chance to meet him and work with him. When he died, I cried for days."
The former Coleraine Inst pupil's transition from fandom to acolyte occurred after his family emigrated to New Zealand in 1975, where the teenaged Boyd discovered The Chills, The Verlaines, Sneaky Feelings and other NZ-based, usually Flying Nun Records affiliated indie acts of the era.
A keen photographer – his other lifelong passion, alongside motorbikes – Boyd began photographing these bands, developing relationships that would become key to his career.
A few years later, when Kiwi acts came to London, they would often stay with their favourite Ballymoney-born photographer who was by then working in the city.
"Martin Phillips wrote Submarine Bells in my Clapham Junction flat," reveals Boyd of The Chills' 1990 major label debut – the world tour for which mysteriously began in Portrush.
Boyd's connections with Flying Nun landed him a job at Rough Trade looking after their acts at the label, where he was also a label manager and ran international exports.
In 1990 he was approached to handle the distribution of Virgin's new imprint, Hut Records. By 1992, he was in charge of the entire label.
Boyd's first signing was the Luke Haines-fronted indie rockers The Auteurs, who released their Mercury Prize nominated debut New Wave in 1993.
"Luke was very funny, articulate and smart and he also had this dark, sarcastic and subversive side," he recalls.
"He saw through a lot of bulls***. That first Auteurs album is a stonking classic and Luke's books (autobiographical tomes Bad Vibes and Post Everything) are absolutely hysterical.
"I was panicking when they came out but actually he only got one thing wrong in relation to me – I've never owned a pair of denim dungarees in my life!"
By the time he was promoted to the head of Virgin's A&R department in 1999, Boyd had already helped the label land one of the biggest British pop acts of the era, The Spice Girls.
"I was involved in the 'courtship' of them," he explains. "We'd take them out for dinner and they'd be bouncing and singing on the table. They were live-wires and so talented.
"But Hut was still my main concern at that time, so on the one hand I was still working with The Verve, the Pumpkins and The Auteurs and on the other I had all this 'girl power' stuff happening."
Just to underline the absurdity of this 'double life', Boyd was soon back helping Hut charges The Auteurs make their After Murder Park album with another musical hero, Big Black's Steve Albini.
The LP sleeve features photos of 'The Boyd' himself, the newly Albini-anointed "good cop" having been cajoled into modelling a fetching gasmask and bodybag ensemble for the occasion – much to the band's amusement.
When asked about the proudest moment of his career, Boyd doesn't hesitate:
"Urban Hymns," he says of his second Hut signing The Verve's 1997 breakthrough LP.
"It has to be: 14 weeks at number one, 12 or 13 million albums sold and their first number one single with The Drugs Don't Work.
"That's not dissing any of the other bands, it's just that we had a whole journey of discovery together. It was a crazy trip – but I wouldn't want to do it again. It would probably kill me."
Indeed, you can look forward to some deluxe Verve re-issues hitting the shops in September, all curated and supervised by 'Beautiful' David Boyd himself.
As for 'ones that got away', Boyd only has a couple of regrets:
"Snow Patrol's manager came to see me just after they got dropped by their label, Jeepster – but I just didn't hear it," he admits. "I wish I had, for the Irish connection and the greatness of those songs they went on to write.
"Way before that, in 1992, I went out for dinner in London with Billy Corgan and his girlfriend Courtney Love. There was a synergy between her and I, we got on really well because we'd both grown up in New Zealand.
"Halfway through dinner she announced that she might not have just done a record deal with City Slang if she'd met me first.
"We did end up working together years later at Virgin, but that's another story involving sushi, the Reading Festival and a crocheted one-piece outfit."
After many years based in England, Boyd moved back to Northern Ireland with his wife Yvette and their children Jimi (12) and Marianne (14) in 2014.
Still maintaining a music biz 'presence' via his own label and management company Flock Music, Boyd will soon be dividing his time between building custom cafe racers for his company Petrol Punk Motorcycles and helping out his friends at the Stendhal Festival.
"The potential of that event is so great," he enthuses.
"The aim will be to get them some bigger acts in and to start building up Stendhal's reputation to the point where it's a festival that every band in the world wants to come and play."
If there's anyone with the connections to make that happen, surely it's 'The Boyd'.
:: Stendhal Festival, August 12 & 13, Ballymully Cottage Farm, Limavady. Tickets and line-up information at Stendhalfestival.com.
