Mike Scott: 'I've always loved to play in Cork'
“I’ve always loved to play in Cork and, in fact, I came to Cork as a child when on holiday with my mother in 1970," recalled Mike Scott.
As much as Cork music fans love The Waterboys, the band’s lead singer and principal muse, Mike Scott, has great time and respect for us — Cork audiences, in particular — and the Irish music-loving public in general.
In advance of The Waterboys’ appearance at the Marquee on July 10, the Scottish singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and poet spoke to about the upcoming concert and his fondness for the music-loving public on Leeside. The band played Virgin Media Musgrave Park last summer, and their performance was regarded as one of the performances of the year, and this has whetted the appetite for next month’s return visit.
“I’ve always liked playing Cork,” said Mike, a 66-year-old native of Edinburgh but, as a Celtic spirit, he is as at home in Ireland as he is in his native Scotland. “We’re not one of these bands that comes to Ireland and plays Dublin and fecks off again. We’ve always toured the whole of Ireland. I live in Ireland. I’ve lived in Ireland for about one third of my life now, and I’m an Irish citizen so I like playing all the Irish towns. They’re all great audiences of northern music and no audience knows their music better than the Cork audience.
“I’ve always loved to play in Cork and, in fact, I came to Cork as a child when on holiday with my mother in 1970,” he recalled. “We spent a week in Kinsale and visited Cork city, and I’ve never forgotten the atmosphere of Co Cork.”
When I told him where I was from, the village of Cúil Aodha, he immediately made the connection to Peadar Ó Riada and Cór Chúil Aodha — “the great Peadar Ó Riada”, he interrupted.
He would have known about Cór Chúil Aodha and Peadar through Diarmuidín Maidhcí Ó Suilleabháin, a famous sean nós singer and RTÉ Ráidió na Gaeltachta broadcaster who was a member of the choir until his untimely death in a road accident back near Dún Chaoin in 1991.
The list of musicians and singers who have performed with the Waterboys over the 40 or more years they have been thrilling audiences across Ireland contains some of the most well-known names of Irish music: Bass player Trevor Hutchinson, accordion maestro Sharon Shannon, and Liam Ó Maonlaí of the Hothouse Flowers not to mention his long-time collaborator Steve Wickham. The current line-up of the band includes Mike on vocals, guitar, and piano; brothers Paul and James Hallawell on keyboards; Aongas Ralston on bass; and Eamon Ferris on drums.
Whoever is in the band at any given time, however, the spirit remains soaring at their live performances.
I reminded him of a few concerts I attended — one way back in my student days when The Waterboys played support to Simple Minds in Croke Park in 1986, a gig which was spectacularly enhanced by a thunder and lightning storm near the end. As naïve as we were, we thought it was all part of the show and left it soaked wet, elated, and a little electrified.
Another concert I remember attending was The Waterboys An Evening with WB Yeats, in which they gave the old Leaving Certificate poet the rock and roll treatment that he could have done with when I was sitting the exam!
This concept album is not unlike the latest Waterboys production, Life, Death and Dennis Hopper, which was released in April of this year, the 16th studio album from the band.
Hopper, who died at the age of 74 in 2010, was an actor and director who featured in some of the most iconic films to come out of Hollywood during his lifetime, including Blue Velvet by David Lynch and Easy Rider, the 1960s road movie which he directed and co-starred alongside Peter Fonda and which featured Jack Nicholson.
If you haven’t seen the movie, you will definitely have heard its anthemic soundtrack which includes Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild.
Though it could be said that Mike was born to be wild, it wasn’t that movie which prompted his interest in making an album dedicated to the actor — but his work as a photographer. “I stumbled on an exhibition of his photography about 10 years ago, and I loved his eye,” said the musician.
“What he chose to photograph and the way he saw people — so much about Dennis was revealed in his photography and that made me interested in Dennis the man.
“And then I discovered how many times he’s been at the crucial points in the development of popular culture, like acting with James Dean in and befriending Andy Warhol before anyone knew who Andy was. He championed Andy back in the early days and he was present at so many interesting moments in the development of popular culture.”
When Mike is asked about the upcoming Live at the Marquee performance, and what should popular music’s most discerning audience expect, he said: “Well, with the Waterboys, every show is different so there will be a lot of improvisation, there will be a lot of songs that they know, and we’ll be playing a selection from our new record, Life, Death, and Dennis Hopper, as well,” he said.
Riffing about song-writing, he had this to say: “Sometimes I will have a vision for a song as I start writing, and I will have a sense of what the finished song is going to achieve, what effect it’s going to have on the individual listener, but other times I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m just following my nose.
“One thing leads to another, a chorus leads to a verse, and a verse leads to a bridge, and then the lyrics suggest the music and the music suggests the lyrics.
Given that he’s written some of the most memorable songs of the last four or five decades – The Whole of the Moon (or as some of us sing in Cork, the Whole of Macroom), The Bang on the Ear, How Long Will I Love You, This is the Sea — too many to mention, but all are songs which lifted the listeners into a spiritual plane beyond the music, especially when you hear it live.
As we were finishing the interview, the topic of conversation turned to one which is the talk of artists and musicians globally in the context of a growing attempt by establishment politicians and media to repress what people globally are feeling and expressing about what’s happening in Gaza and, since last week, Iran.
I mentioned that he had posted earlier this week about the controversy surrounding the forthcoming appearance of Kneecap at Glastonbury and the criticism this had provoked from Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, and Kemi Badenoch, the Tory party leader.
“Politicians have no right to tell the Glastonbury Festival who should or shouldn’t play — the prime minister shouldn’t be expressing an opinion because his opinion, because of his position, carries a lot of power and threat and pressure, so the prime minister should be very, very reluctant to express personal opinions,” he said.
“We in the UK elect a prime minister, we don’t elect a king who can tell rock festivals who they can present and who they can’t.
“He’s a public servant and he’s voted for by the people.
“I’m not 100% clear on what Kneecap has said or what they haven’t said ... but I just think it’s not appropriate for a politician to tell the rock festival who they can present,” he added.
It should be an interesting night — as well as a great Waterboys musical performance — at the Marquee on July 10.
