Early Career
After a series of dead end jobs, Mike Nolan began performing in the mid-1970s in pubs around London, playing the guitar and singing mostly old Irish ballads. He was also auditioning for a variety of groups as a vocalist.
It was in 1976 that he successfully auditioned for his first serious band. This group went under the name Brooks and were put together by Freya Miller, who went on to manage Shakin' Stevens. The group was a four piece boyband, consisting of Nolan, Ben Ellison (who replaced Ricky Gallahad), John Humphreys and Peter Pereira. They were designed to be a 1970s version of The Monkees. Originally the group also included Chris Hamill, who went on to become famous as Limahl. Despite multiple TV appearances, magazine interviews and several singles, the group never had a hit and eventually disbanded three years later. As Nolan later reasoned, the idea of the group was 'dated'.
In 1980, Nolan was contacted by composer/manager Nichola Martin. She had a song entitled "Making Your Mind Up", which had been composed by her boyfriend, Andy Hill, and was intending to enter it for the heats to the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest. The demo was recorded by Nolan and Martin and was accepted as one of the finalists. Martin then worked on finding other singers to build a group around him.
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