They were called the Nightlife Thugs until Roberts threatened to quit if the name was not changed
Garry Roberts, who has died aged 72, was a co-founder and the lead guitarist of the Boomtown Rats, the Irish band who rode the punk wave with hits such as Rat Trap and I Don’t Like Mondays and launched the stellar career of Bob Geldof.
Garrick Roberts was born in Dublin on June 16 1950 and brought up a few miles down the road in Dún Laoghaire. At boarding school, the Quaker Newtown School in Waterford, he started a band with the future Rats drummer Simon Crowe, inspired by the likes of the Small Faces, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds.
Roberts took music lessons in piano and clarinet – he also had early aspirations to become a doctor – but was seduced by the guitar.
“At school there was a dance every term which was called the Supper Dance,” he recalled. “The first dance I went to, there were these sixth formers up there with electric guitars and I thought: ‘God, that’s amazing,’ and it was that that got me into playing.”