At 63, Terri Hooley is still charming. He is sharp as a tack and eager to chat. “My ego covers up a deep-rooted inferiority complex,” the Godfather of Belfast punk cheerfully confesses.

Hooley was first approached about having his life story turned into a film over 12 years ago. However, it took the skills of Colin Carberry and Glenn Patterson, directors Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’sa, and producer David Holmes to bring this uplifting tale to the big screen.
While Good Vibrations shows Hooley’s huge contribution to Belfast it doesn’t shy away from the price, personal and financial, he paid for his lack of business acumen. He set up his Good Vibrations store in the middle of Belfast’s most bombed street (the name referred playfully to the after-shock from all the bomb blasts). At one level the decision was, as he says, ‘bonkers’. However he was also sending a message to the paramilitaries; there were still people in Belfast determined to live a normal life.
“I was brought up a socialist by my father and a Christian by my mother, who was Methodist. Day-to-day they were very much united in their beliefs; we could never buy South African oranges or anything like that. My mother was a Christian socialist whereas my dad was a real leftie and trade unionist. Growing up, I could see no difference between socialism and Christianity.”
He came of age musically in the hippy era. Far from being frightened by punk, he saw it as a continuation.
“I felt as an old hippy it was like our revenge: You didn’t listen to us in the ‘60s, so now you’ve got punk!” he jokes. “I love the anarchy of punk, I love the energy. The first time I saw Rudi it was genuinely like a Saul on the road to Damascus moment. Punk had really something to say in Belfast. A lot of the bands didn’t want to copy Stiff Little Fingers. They didn’t want to write about the Troubles. They might have performed songs about the Troubles on stage but they didn’t want to record them. They said, ‘Well, Stiff Little Fingers have done that, we want to do songs about what’s happening in our everyday life, about falling in love with girls and sniffing glue or whatever.’”
Perhaps even more importantly than eventually bringing The Undertones, Rudi and The Outcasts to the national music scene in both Ireland and the UK, Hooley gave the youth of Belfast a focus and a safe haven.
“People come up and say, ‘If it wasn’t for you we would have joined the paramilitary, we would have shot people and ended up in jail and destroyed our lives.’ And that is very important. I never sold out to the music industry – I hate the music industry. I think it’s legalised mafia, personally. I don’t care about money. I’m a man of no property. What was important to me was to give these kids a voice, and a home.
“There was very much an attitude of us against the world, even though I was the most unlikely person looking after these kids! I still get that from people, ‘You were never a punk!’. Well, I never said I was. I just gave them a space. The people who say it to me are usually just angry because I said ‘no’ to their bands!”
Good Vibrations was destroyed in an arson attack in 2004, so to have the film as a visual history of the shop is hugely important to Hooley. He admits that watching it was an emotive experience.
“I cry every time I see it,” he says before joking, “but I cry because I didn’t realise what a dickhead I was! Seriously, I’ve no regrets. Even though I probably should have, I wouldn’t do anything differently.”

Good Vibrations is out in cinemas now.