At the height of Rollermania, Les McKeown seemed to have everything a young singer could dream of.
As the frontman of the Bay City Rollers, he stood at the center of screaming crowds, television appearances and hit records including “Saturday Night,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “Shang-a-Lang” and “You Made Me Believe in Magic.” For millions of teenage fans, Les was one of the most recognizable faces of the 1970s.
Then, in 1978, he left the band.
From the outside, it might have looked like the beginning of a new chapter. Les launched a solo career and found a surprisingly strong audience in Japan, where his records sold well and he remained a popular performer. But back in Britain and other Western markets, the transition was far more difficult. The man who had once been surrounded by hysteria suddenly discovered how quickly the music business could move on.
Years later, Les spoke openly about how deeply that change affected him.
He admitted that after being treated like a superstar, it was difficult to accept that the same level of fame might never return. He described spending years resenting the Bay City Rollers image because he felt trapped by the person he had once been. Instead of seeing the old songs as a source of joy, he sometimes saw them as reminders of a life he could not recreate.
Money made the fall even harder.
Despite the enormous success of the band, Les later said that he did not emerge from Rollermania with the fortune he expected. Former members spent decades fighting over royalties they believed had not been properly paid, and Les himself described periods of serious financial difficulty after leaving the group.
His personal life also became increasingly unstable.
Les struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for years. He later said that the deaths of both of his parents within a short period pushed him into an even darker phase, and by the early 2000s he was drinking heavily every day. He described himself as having been pulled toward a “dark side” that he could no longer control.
There were older wounds beneath the addiction as well.
Les publicly accused former Bay City Rollers manager Tam Paton of mistreatment and said Paton had introduced drugs into the band’s environment, at times giving members stimulants to keep them working. Les later described Paton in extremely harsh terms and connected some of his later struggles to what he experienced during the Rollers years.
By 2008, Les knew he was in serious trouble.
He entered a rehabilitation program in California and stayed for four months. At first, he doubted whether it could help him, but intensive therapy forced him to confront not only his addictions but also the anger, grief and memories he had carried for decades.
The experience changed him.
Instead of continuing to run from the Bay City Rollers, Les eventually began embracing the music again. He returned to touring, performed the old songs proudly and rediscovered the connection with fans who had never stopped associating him with some of the happiest memories of their youth.
In 2015, Les reunited with Alan Longmuir and Stuart “Woody” Wood for a brief Bay City Rollers comeback. The reunion did not last, but the response from fans showed that Rollermania had never completely disappeared.
Les continued performing almost until the end of his life. He died suddenly at home on April 20, 2021, at the age of 65, only days after announcing future concert plans.
His story makes the bright photographs of the Bay City Rollers feel different today.
The smiling young singer in tartan really did experience extraordinary fame, but when the crowds disappeared, Les was left trying to understand who he was without them.
For years, he fought addiction, financial disappointment and memories from the past, but eventually he found a way back to the music he had once tried to escape. In the end, the songs that had made him famous became part of what helped him reconnect with himself — and with the fans who had never forgotten him.