Fisherman's Blues Lyrics And Chords by The Waterboys
The Waterboys is a British band that was formed in 1983 by Mike Scott. The band's sound is characterized by a blend of rock, folk, and Celtic influences. One of their most iconic albums is Fisherman's Blues, which was released in 1988. This album marked a significant shift in the band's sound and is often considered a masterpiece by fans and critics alike. In this thesis, we will explore the significance of Fisherman's Blues in the Waterboys' career and its impact on the music industry.
Background
Before the release of Fisherman's Blues, the Waterboys had already established a strong following with their first three albums – The Waterboys (1983), A Pagan Place (1984), and This is the Sea (1985). These albums were characterized by a more electric sound, with elements of punk and new wave. However, Mike Scott, the band's frontman and primary songwriter, had always been drawn to folk and traditional music. He was also deeply inspired by the literary works of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, which influenced his songwriting.
The Shift in Sound
Fisherman's Blues marked a significant shift in the Waterboys' sound. The album was recorded in Dublin, Ireland, and featured traditional Irish instruments such as fiddle, mandolin, and uilleann pipes. The band also incorporated elements of country and blues, creating a unique blend of styles. This change in sound was due to Scott's desire to explore his Celtic roots and create a more authentic and organic sound.
The album's title track, 'Fisherman's Blues,' set the tone for the entire record. The song features a lively fiddle and mandolin, evoking images of a traditional Irish folk tune. The lyrics also reflect Scott's love for the sea and the freedom of the open water. This theme of freedom and escape is prevalent throughout the album and is a stark contrast to the band's previous work, which often dealt with more serious and political themes.
The album also features a cover of Van Morrison's 'Sweet Thing,' which shows the band's admiration for fellow Irish musician and their willingness to pay homage to their roots. The Waterboys also collaborated with Irish folk legend Steve Wickham on this album, further solidifying their connection to traditional Irish music.
Critical Reception and Legacy
Upon its release, Fisherman's Blues received critical acclaim and is still considered one of the band's best albums. It reached number 13 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified gold in the UK, Canada, and Australia. The album's success also led to a resurgence of interest in traditional Irish and Celtic music, as many other bands started incorporating these elements into their sound.
Fisherman's Blues has also stood the test of time and continues to be celebrated by fans and critics alike. In 2006, the album was re-released as a two-disc set, featuring previously unreleased tracks and live recordings. This re-release further cemented the album's place as a classic in the Waterboys' discography.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Fisherman's Blues was a groundbreaking album for the Waterboys and had a significant impact on the music industry. It marked a shift in the band's sound and introduced elements of traditional Irish and Celtic music to a wider audience. The album's success also paved the way for other artists to explore and incorporate folk and traditional music into their sound. Fisherman's Blues remains a timeless and influential record, showcasing the Waterboys' versatility and their ability to create music that transcends genres.
Background
Before the release of Fisherman's Blues, the Waterboys had already established a strong following with their first three albums – The Waterboys (1983), A Pagan Place (1984), and This is the Sea (1985). These albums were characterized by a more electric sound, with elements of punk and new wave. However, Mike Scott, the band's frontman and primary songwriter, had always been drawn to folk and traditional music. He was also deeply inspired by the literary works of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, which influenced his songwriting.
The Shift in Sound
Fisherman's Blues marked a significant shift in the Waterboys' sound. The album was recorded in Dublin, Ireland, and featured traditional Irish instruments such as fiddle, mandolin, and uilleann pipes. The band also incorporated elements of country and blues, creating a unique blend of styles. This change in sound was due to Scott's desire to explore his Celtic roots and create a more authentic and organic sound.
The album's title track, 'Fisherman's Blues,' set the tone for the entire record. The song features a lively fiddle and mandolin, evoking images of a traditional Irish folk tune. The lyrics also reflect Scott's love for the sea and the freedom of the open water. This theme of freedom and escape is prevalent throughout the album and is a stark contrast to the band's previous work, which often dealt with more serious and political themes.
The album also features a cover of Van Morrison's 'Sweet Thing,' which shows the band's admiration for fellow Irish musician and their willingness to pay homage to their roots. The Waterboys also collaborated with Irish folk legend Steve Wickham on this album, further solidifying their connection to traditional Irish music.
Critical Reception and Legacy
Upon its release, Fisherman's Blues received critical acclaim and is still considered one of the band's best albums. It reached number 13 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified gold in the UK, Canada, and Australia. The album's success also led to a resurgence of interest in traditional Irish and Celtic music, as many other bands started incorporating these elements into their sound.
Fisherman's Blues has also stood the test of time and continues to be celebrated by fans and critics alike. In 2006, the album was re-released as a two-disc set, featuring previously unreleased tracks and live recordings. This re-release further cemented the album's place as a classic in the Waterboys' discography.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Fisherman's Blues was a groundbreaking album for the Waterboys and had a significant impact on the music industry. It marked a shift in the band's sound and introduced elements of traditional Irish and Celtic music to a wider audience. The album's success also paved the way for other artists to explore and incorporate folk and traditional music into their sound. Fisherman's Blues remains a timeless and influential record, showcasing the Waterboys' versatility and their ability to create music that transcends genres.
Fisherman's Blues Song Lyric And Guitar Chords. The ukulele chords are included. format.
[G]I wish I was a fisherman
[F]tumblin' on the seas
[Am]far away from dry land
and it's[C] bitter memories
[G]castin' out my sweet line
with a[F]bandonment and love
[Am]no ceiling bearin' down on me
save the[C] starry sky above
[C]with light in my[G] head
with[F] you in my[Am] arms... [C]
i wish i was the brakeman
on a hurtlin' fevered train
crashin' head long into the heartland
like a cannon in the rain
with the feelin' of the sleepers
and the burnin' of the coal
countin' the towns flashin' by
and a night that's full of soul
with light in my head
with you in my arms...
[G]And I know I will be loosened
[F]from the bonds that hold me fast
[Am]and the chains all around me
will[C] fall away at last
and[G] on that grand and fateful day
I will[F] take thee in my hand
I[Am] will ride on a train
I will[C] be the fisherman.
Irish lyrics and chords from C-F
[G]I wish I was a fisherman
[F]tumblin' on the seas
[Am]far away from dry land
and it's[C] bitter memories
[G]castin' out my sweet line
with a[F]bandonment and love
[Am]no ceiling bearin' down on me
save the[C] starry sky above
[C]with light in my[G] head
with[F] you in my[Am] arms... [C]
i wish i was the brakeman
on a hurtlin' fevered train
crashin' head long into the heartland
like a cannon in the rain
with the feelin' of the sleepers
and the burnin' of the coal
countin' the towns flashin' by
and a night that's full of soul
with light in my head
with you in my arms...
[G]And I know I will be loosened
[F]from the bonds that hold me fast
[Am]and the chains all around me
will[C] fall away at last
and[G] on that grand and fateful day
I will[F] take thee in my hand
I[Am] will ride on a train
I will[C] be the fisherman.
Irish lyrics and chords from C-F
Fisherman's blues lyrics by The Waterboys
The Waterboys song Fisherman's Blues
Miriam O'Callahan Interview with Mike Scott Of The Waterboys
Miriam meets on rté raidió one with Miriam O'Callahan my guests this morning are musical soul mates who first met in London in the mid-1980s and with the following five years played music together wherever they went Mike Scott was born in Edinburgh and is the driving creative force behind the Waterboys formed in the early eighties the band has had some incredibly successful albums including this is the sea and fisherman's blues and in 1991 Mike won an Ivor Novello songwriting award for his song the whole of the moon the serious published his memoir adventures of a water boy Michael Steve the fellow who fiddles Steve welcome was born in Dublin and is a professional musician and fiddling legend according to NME as a musician he's worked with u2 Sinead O'Connor Elvis Costello to name but a few he's enjoyed a really fruitful musical collaboration with Mike and the water boys but lasted until 1990 after some years of not playing together Steve and Mike have rekindled that musical relationship and joined me together this morning hello where did you first meet can you remember we first met on a telephone actually this is Dave yeah this is me I got a call I was living in Ramallah and a flat and I heard Mike Scottish voice go down the line I said would come over to London and play with them in 1985 that's and we met physically dead Michael a few days later I'd heard him on a Sinead O'Connor demo tape before anyone had ever heard of Sinead and I thought Sinead sounded pretty good but what really grabbed my ear was the fiddler behind her and I'd been looking to put fiddle into the war boy sign for a while and this was the sound I was looking for it's whoever this guy was he played a real passion and and a kind of power that I wanted to hear in the water boy so and so I phoned him up and invited him to come and play on what was the last track to be recorded for this is a C which was called the pan within and he came over to London he turned up at the door of my flat so sparkly I dragged a muffin and he came there'll be description he still a sparkly eyed ragamuffin as you can see and he came in a queue man and he lay down on the floor with his head propped on an elbow and told me his life story was it a good life story it was very entertaining yeah I have to say when I lay down on the floor there was no chairs in your flat the reasons oh yeah that's very true just to just to set the record straight although I do like lying down on floors yeah I always used to sit in the floor and when I was writing my songs I would always be in the floor of my books bread in front of me yeah but did you like each other instantly oh yeah we did oh yeah like to me me Julia what is that kind of musical respect oh you just liked each other well I liked him as a guy straightaway was just dead easy to be with and then he picked up a guitar and so I play along with me and I knew that there was a musical understanding too I'd been looking for a fiddle for about six months Miriam and I was a great fan
of Bob Dylan and I loved his Rolling Thunder revue tour that he did in the mid-70s which I heard by the miracle of bootleg records and he had this fiddler called scarlet Rivera and I loved the the Bohemian gypsy-fied sound of the fiddle behind Dylan's voice and I really wanted that in the Waterboys and when I heard Steve on this Sinead O'Connor demo tape I just knew this is the guy this is the one I've been looking for and when you do end up honestly because I'm not in a band never having you end up playing with someone I'm finding somebody that you musically gel with that well I'd ask them to both of you it's not a very special feeling it's amazing it's a it's a once or twice in a lifetime thing I've only had a couple of musical relationships that have been as as powerful or as beautiful as the one I have with Steve I know that when I met Mike and heard him writing songs he was the greatest songwriter has ever heard at that ever really I'll give you the ten quits I know that sounds maybe sounds but now it's funny on the radio but it was at that particular point the best at what stage did you join the water boys and leave into another well I think the minute I met Mike and went and recorded in in London time with in for that this is a sea record I had already committed my musical future to Mike I'd been in a two ánewá we just made a record for Island Records and we were a big corporation of a band was eight or nine people in the band and when we wrote songs we wrote them in the most I love all the people in the jail wrote them in the most awful way somebody would write a chorus and somebody would write a mid-late and somebody who else would write this and it was a it was songs by comity it was lovely friends at all up but it wasn't heart and soul it wasn't songs from the inside of your core a mic was singing songs like that and I knew the minute I heard the first song it rang resonators all you gotta do this and I asked Steve to come and guest with the water boys no up coming to her and into a newer very unwisely allowed him to go that was the end here the lovely thing for us this morning for the listeners you're going to play life yeah and the first one because I will allow you go over now and gets it up with stay for a moment the first one you're going to play for me is Savage Earth harsh was this the first one you played together you wrote this Mike I wrote this is on the first Waterboys album made a couple years before I met Steve but when he came to my flat that day the first song we played together in fact on two guitars oddly enough was savage our third and by the way he played it I knew we were gonna be musical brothers and we both go over there and play that for me let me see the savage I wanna see the
savage I love that that was so beautiful come back over to the table to me was that the first time and the first song you played together in my flight is not flying on the floor in a crouching and I love the lyrics what's what is that song about it's about seeing the it's kind of like seeing God in all creation or pan the God pan as opposed to except in a perhaps a Christian picture of the world and the universe taking an older view that might suggest that everything is alive how old were you when you wrote that song 23 so you're quite a serious young man and a punk rocker tell me a bit about your background for everyone who doesn't know my cuz you both got different backgrounds which is really interesting you grew up tell me about where you grow up in your family well I'm from Edinburgh I lived there till I was 12 I went to a fee peeing boys school in the center of it and vertical George Harriet's it was a magnificent building built in the 1600s so it was a fabulous environment to grow up in even though I just took it for granted and it was in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle incredibly dramatic topography yeah and then when I was 12 my parents had split up when I was 8 or 9 and then my mom and I moved to err on the west coast of Scotland and I was there for my teenage years it's a smaller town I went to the local comprehensive had my first girlfriends and my first bands well you're a happy teenager yeah I think so yeah but I was really only interested in music I used to buy all the weekly music papers every week and read them cover to cover I used to spend all my money on cassettes and albums and then from about the age of 15 I had my first bands you were an only child to that stage went away famous I was an only child yes there are a lot of benefits are never and being an only charge seriously because you don't got your mother's undivided love and attention yeah that's for sure yeah there are as I've grown older I realized that there are there things you miss out on you missed the company of siblings wraps the support of siblings and overtime so I was at school work could probably done with an older brother but there are a great benefits to being an only child to like the one you mentioned and also the amount of space that I had amount of personal space I had at home I never had to fight for space and my mum would often be out of work and she often taught in the evenings so I would have a lot of time on my hands and I used to play music all the time to play my guitar in front of the mirror and have concerts on my own were you ever lonely no I didn't know
how to be lonely are you incredibly close to your mother well whew I wouldn't say incredibly close well we get on great did you miss your dad growing up well it's a funny thing when parents split because kids don't know how to process the fact of that or the emotions of it and for me I remember my mom telling me when I was 8 years old that your dad is leaving because he wants his own life and I remember not being able to understand what does that mean what's his own life his life is with us and a kid just doesn't have the mental apparatus to to decipher that or to understand so being unable to process the information I buried it which I think a lot of kids do and just got on with my life but always underneath the resisting well what's happened to my dad where is he gone doesn't he love me and he left without ever taking me aside and explaining he just was kind of gone and did you ever meet him before you met him eventually did you meet him when you were growing up generally he used to come round to the house to see us maybe once every couple of weeks and then maybe once a month and then once every couple of months and gradually drew away and then when I was 12 I think was the last time I saw him he came round at Christmas probably to bring Christmas presents and then that was the last we saw of him the old boy and was music for you then bit of an escape I think not actually I was mad about music before my dad left and it would have happened anyway where did your music town come from your mom you dad well probably neither of them my mom's grandfather was the Cantor in a church on the Isle of Mull it was a very poor community and he couldn't afford an organ so he would lead the congregation and he would give them the note that was his job so Amaya come from him that's so interesting it came somewhere within Eugene yeah oh that's so absolutely meanwhile Steve Wickham yes we were born in the rotunda I was born in the rotunda yeah one of six kids one of six kids you did you'd like to have been an only child no I would not have liked to have been an only child I don't think so you know what you were talking there are just somethings learned something about you were asking about personal space you know when giving you six kids Mike is you're very good with your personal space you like your personal space and I'm terrible as you know I try come into a room like this there and put that there and I put that there and I realize just as we were talking there what that comes from if you're in a family of six kids you're clay claiming your territory all the time you don't you don't actually have the territory even though he walks into the bands dressing room the jacket goes in one chair the fiddle goes on another a bag goes another and none of the bands have anywhere to sit that's one of six I think my dad was a
fitter in the cie my mother job yeah I don't know how he managed to raise six four sons to go but he did his bet they did their best and my mother read he was a housewife and when we grew up a bit she got a job working in the bank and he paid for music lessons though your dad paid for music lessons yeah he did and they weren't cheap I went to the College of Music for about 10 years I was a slow learner and I have to say but hey it worked in the end and your dad's a fiddler too but that plays a bit bit of fiddle as well yeah he hasn't for years nobody he did play a bit so is that why he was interested in music both of the more that they wanted you to go to the College of Music and do actually my granny gave me a fiddle when I was tree my mother my mother's mother gave me a fiddle she get three of us the retreat there were lots about 40 different cousins she kept three cousins who were at the same age at the same time three of his three fiddles so I believe so she kind of was a catalyst and then and then my dad played a bit obviously yeah what happened to the other two cousins who got the fiddles one of them is a musician and he lives out in Boston Huey Percel okay and then the other fella is a butcher and he lives down in the Midlands somewhere no he took a gift give up the fiddle I think it took up the piano and he loves music but he doesn't doesn't make a living over here we Yuri makes a living over but that was a great thing your grandmother did it fantastic yeah of course there every single day since and is it true that you vent you got a very sensible job in the bank which you look shocked in but I had a band all the time even even though I was in the bank I had a band I used to book book gigs I put in the earring at the weekend and take it out in Monday morning weekend rock and roll and I was Mike yeah who liked status quo as well what was this the cattle is the final catalyst you packing in the bank job do you know it wasn't one thing or another it was lots of things happening at the same time did your parents mind your own you say were devastated absolutely never say that they were so they had me sorted they'd have to worry about me I had a pensionable job forever and I would have fair you know errant bonuses and be very very wealthy now you know and I would have got away with more skullduggery if I'd have been working in the bank than I'd have got away with being a rock and roll musician but it's interesting you both of the confidence to do that did you when did you go to college Mike what did she do VIN UNESCO I went to university briefly Marian for one year but I never did any studying I was only interested in music and punk rock so you laughed spent the whole year going to gigs doing my fanzine and filled all my exams and left yeah when did you set up your first friend well I was already in bands before I went to university and on leaving I put together my first
professional band yeah it was called another pretty face and we were based in Edinburgh and we did four or five singles on our own labels first one got a bit play from John Peel which is the most amazing thing here your record coming out on the John Peel show ISM that we thought we'd made it and then when and how did the Waterboys come about well another pretty face lasted for about three years and we got a record deal with a small London label called ensign and they asked us to move down to London so we did this 1981 and another pretty face was run by myself and my then songwriting partner who was another Scottish lad called John John Caldwell and then we split up he went back to Edinburgh and I stayed on in London and ensign kept the record deal with me as effectively as a solo artist but I didn't want to be a solo artist know what he'd have a band and I don't have any band members but I had this name the water boys where did you get the name I got it from a Lou Reed song on Lou Reed's album Berlin there is a song called the kids and at the end he's got this line I am the water boy in that strange voice that Lou has and in that voice the word water boys and he's so mysterious and I didn't know what it meant I know know that it's the guy that brings water to the chain gang or the tennis players etc but I didn't know that and it was just a mysterious wonderful word so I nicked it from my band my future band and started recording and I eventually put together the first live water boys from people who played on the recordings with me so but when you set out to say write the next song which you're going to sing for me here which is saying things as how long did it take you to write that and what what is this song about well this is a song that that was written very shortly after Steve and I met we've been working together about three months and I had just come to live in Ireland Steve invited me for a week's holiday eventually I came for six to seven years and we did a recording session in wind Mill Lane we just kind of played live all day and win Mullane and this song got made up on the spot do you remember that oh yeah I do we played all day twelve errors and might just kept on playing out these songs and new bits of pieces of songs and I plan to invite him to come and live in Ireland I remember going over to London seeing Mike you know in this place of music this stuff yeah we were making music and playing music but it was all the sort of stuff of interviews and record companies and all this stuff not only means pressure some social life yeah was he right oh definitely yeah I had a very dry life in London at that time his all work and and no fun and had you any idea about the pod Ireland would be like oh you came here yeah well I holiday here with my mom when I was 10 or 11 we
got a wait a week in concealed and a week in Slagle and I had this sense of Ireland as a a magical place as appeared to my child's eyes and then I toured here with ownerle Waterboys tours now I've been in Dublin and Galway and really liked it and I liked Steve and I thought I really fancy going to stay with him and see what we got up to and when you came here why did you decide to stay and can you remember in the moment we thought actually I think I'll stay here for six or seven years I don't remember the moment but it was very obvious very quickly that why would I leave I made friends quickly I had a wonderful time there was music everywhere we would play in pubs and cafes play on the street it was brilliant I loved being a Dublin Steve would take me around and and I remember walking into a cafe and and he saw a guy in you and he said to this guy I hear your plan chest for money these days and I thought I want to live in a place where people say things like that to each other did you miss London no not at all none of us oh no not at all no and when you eventually did discover Connemara why was it so important to you why do you love Connemara well my grandmother was a Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Mull and she moved to lowland Scotland when she was a teenager and that broke the language they spoke English from their honor and she didn't pass the language on to my mother and my uncle and so I grew up with this awareness that there was this lost heritage when I went to the West of Ireland to the Quayle tucked I found that lost heritage I didn't learn to speak Irish but uh I was thrilled to find that my granny's world was still thriving and that was part of the for me of the West of Ireland so did you get him to have a good social life when he arrives - I think old habits die hard Mike was always straight into work when he got here anybody straight into making a new plan getting a new sound getting there getting there suddenly and I think you did you did make your own friends and Vinny kaldorf and loads of people that you did kind of we did have a social life great so she's like but old habits die hard yeah always driven Miriam still driven it's still driven yeah he looks kind of Mara but you both ends up playing off the sessions in places like Claire which are in Shannon yeah there was a whole trial thing we got to enjoy as well no well I was in the triad musician we got it Mike gun into trial we got in I had a good friend it was a tribe musician still have any killed off and he was a great Irish Tin whistle player and he played with me and into a newer and then he had a big repertoire of Irish music and I started getting it being a fiddle player I started getting into Irish tradition music and I played a little bit and I think Mike had heard really me playing tunes and things like that and the years pricked up and said what's that one what someone what's that one and I remember we did I had a tune called attempted bitten it became it got incorporated into a song called when will we be married and things like that
the sort of was it was here was pricking up and I'd be playing Irish music all the time at the dressing room backstage black and Mike got into it so much he said you got to go out and learn more about this I shouldn't take it seriously he didn't reset it in those words but I got the sense that you wanted me to take it seriously yeah sois are taken seriously and I went down to live with James Begley for a weekend in dingle my friend Steve Coony was down there and he invited me don't come down James Baker Seamus was the well of the pure drop of Irish music so I had to go down to Sheamus and went down and fair play to him he put me up and invited me into his house maybe apparent to the family and I had a week of diving in the deep end of the Atlantic source of Irish music and from there I went up to Doolin or might have been the other way around but I went up to do land then where everybody said that was the heart of Irish music at the time you know must remember I grew up in Dublin playing classical music can go into the college music and not really an Irish Drive my dad played little bits of jazz and be somewhere over the rainbow a little bits of piece like that tree care coins and a fountain so I had to go and and get to the real thing and I went and met Michael Russell who was in Doolin the time just a noble yes he was like a monk an old monk that lived in the in this little house and he had these perfect honey dropped tunes that he played himself simple simple simple tunes that had gone back hundreds of years come from the Aran Islands and were still there in this last little bastion and you know the year after I left everything changed and duel and they just exploded into a tourist destination and when I got there it was just at the end of the turf smoke and yeah so that's what I did I might end up the spittle and then I followed him up the spittle where there was yet another wellspring of Irish music so how do people like say Sharon Shannon end up playing with the water boys when and how did that come about well Steve had met Sharon and Doolin yeah Sharon camera is Sharon came around to the house one night we had these I had these mud sessions for two weeks that I was there and I met Sharon around Galway because she used to go in to go in play sessions all the time and we got invited the two of us got invited to play with her on a recording for her debut album this was 1989 and we went down to King Vera to a place called winkles hotel and Sharon was holed up there was recording gear and all her her tried playmates making music and we joined in and I remember sitting between Steve and Sharon listen to his fiddle and her accordion making this harmony in stereo around me and I was very moved by the sound it sounded like the marriage of rock and trad music and I wanted to hear
it in the Waterboys so I asked Sharon if she'd come in tour with us so she joined the water boys played with us for a year it was very exciting we played music all the time we would play so much music we'd play in the van on the way to the next town we'd play in the hotel with playing the way to the gig would play backstage we'd break the session to do the gig and then we've come on stage and go back into the session and then we play all night it was wonderful on the airplane in the in the waiting area everywhere you want to play saints and angels for me and this is a song you wrote and collaborated on together yeah play that beautifully together and the strings on that they're incredibly moving come back over to me I mean when I listen to you playing that together and I'm watching you and I can see how close you are you actually looking to each other's eyes and you know what I'm nothing you're in love with each other but don't be silly you know what you each going to do and then you split up I know you back together now but you did have a bit of a separation in the 90s but in 1990 it was in 1990 yeah we just made a room-to-room album and you were writing hi yeah we're doing great on the surface but I think in the bones of the band things weren't so good and there were problems in our sound and Antle our sax player and I wanted to change drummers and Steve was quite withdrawn at the time and I didn't want to burden him with this decision it was a bit of a mistake smiling I get your ation in a minute okay it was a mistake on my part I should have involved them because he was the really answer Steve and I were the leadership of the band but we left him out of this decision and we changed drummers and Steve was very upset about that and I think it was kind of that was a last straw for you at the time and he left and it was a funny thing because it was the first time in the Waterboys career that we did a whole Irish British European American world tour totally organized the right time for the album to be released everything was in place and then suddenly he was gone and the band imploded we still did the tour with a kind of a rump fashion of the band mr. tough Steve you sit there with your head in your hands well you know it was a big blow for Mike and for the world apart at the time I suppose because not only just me leaving but the other people left as well Sharon came and Colin left and Mike had to reorganize everything very quickly so you know hindsight's a great thing when you look back in it after 20 years and you can think oh yeah I cut it on this record but when you're a young man at 29 and and you're looking at your own set of
eyes you're looking at the future and here listening to your own inner instincts you know you have to go with them at the time and I had a terrible thing for the water boys but in fact it turned out to be a great thing for me and I think ultimately for for both of us in a way it was kind of liberating from something well I know for me it was hugely liberating because I actually settled it down how to start a family and I did things that really enriched my life and I could discovered more about music as well is Mike's version of what happened I suppose the firing of the drummer the last straw for you I mean from your perspective but as Mike said it was quite withdrawn at the time I was I had just I mean with John I just gone through a divorce with Adam with my wife my American wife and I kind of resented the Waterboys a bit for it because I thought you know it taken me away from home it was wrong to present the world because in fact we got divorced for a lot of other reasons but when you're 29 you're looking at it you're thinking oh my life is well it's the water boys so it was that and this other thing that Mike said he didn't hit the nail on the head I went into rehearsal Shealy one day and I came in as no bridge was walking out I think the drummer he was the drummer yeah I suppose part of me thought of me thought that could be me when you said you were going did you feel anger did you feel sadness at the time I was sad I think yeah yeah I was sad that had come to that you were very gentlemanly about it there was no there was no bad vibe or anything no and we still stayed friends there was never any break in our friendship but were you shocked running that well channel wasn't because he'd been withdrawn for about a year or so and he was a bit like he's one of the like one of these characters in a cartoon who's got a black cloud following him around and I suppose I wasn't that surprised really but she said later which would get it that when you went to find him and was like you were an amputee that when you're terrible having him in the band was terrible it was like trying to fly in one wing I was awful it's awful he'd been so great in the band and he was like my other half really so working with items like a bad dream but you continued to be successful with a waterfall yep and you didn't stay for a while sorry to be harsh here so right I had to I had to kind of I had a lot of lessons to learn at the time it was a hard time period all of them when you know well it was career-wise it was dreadful because I'd actually if you think about a career you know it left Mike I enjoy in the world boys I enjoy
and to a certain extent I mean you know Mike mica to the water boys whether I was around or not he'd sing songs whether I was around her daughter it they'd be great whether I'm around or not really and I'd done the same thing to a to Anu when I'd left to join the world wise guy you just about happy to do in this do I sound like a nice guy he's a heartbreaker but hey great love stories we begin so high did ASCAP how did you get back together well we'd always stayed friends even when we weren't working together and I did a gig in Galway a one-man show it's in 1998 and Steve came up and guessed it with me and he was sounding pretty good on the fiddle and I was thinking God maybe it's about time we started working together and I had this loose plan that that I would invite him to join me at some stage but he in fact he got to me first he called me up he was living in Sligo and he called me up I was in London and he said shall I put a band together for you come out to sly going to a gig and I thought I said Tim well no let's not do a band let's do a two-man gig and so we did yeah we can't really camera to the Hawks were a hoax we'll see it oh yeah we did to my gig yeah did you have a row before you went on there we did have a row yes not worth it a row a few days before okay tell me about the well I went over from London to rehearse with Steve and we rehearsed in his house he has this wonderful house in the shadow of a hill in County Sligo called here Bell house and we're in there rehearsing and Steve kept getting up he kept breaking the rehearsal and going off into town on some business that I could never quite I get Eurasian don't worry and I got so fed up and keep it on gone away and eventually I snapped and I said look if you don't knuckle down and rehearse properly we're gonna be rubbish on stage in a few days and I've come all this way from London to work with you and you keep backing off to sly goes to see a man about a dog and I want to rehearse properly okay Steve what is your memory of the road well it was a good rail well we had a great row I remember we were rehearsing but you know you know when you have three kids when you have three kids and you're running out and picking up this and that and the other and you know I was at home and also you said something to me that really skin have you not do you not realize how important this is to know that and I was just saying that myself yeah I dunno I dunno I'm too much really doing my best here but you know I have a life outside the water boys and it's not all about that that's what I was thinking inside and we were kind of exploded each other this was the most important thing and then we gave each other a big hug maybe you needed that row almost it's clear the air yeah I think so yeah you see for me
it was it was like a replay of what had happened before I was thinking if he doesn't work hard here but are you a bit of a control freak no oh is he no no are you fictionalist well I like it to be good okay and I knew that we were on the line we're gonna go out there on stage the hospital Theatre the two of us we haven't played proper gig on stage for nine years we had to be good we were good we were good yeah because because we knuckle down and rehearse hard so who's the boss this music is the boss spirit I think so I hope so I'm Mike I suppose he seems a more dominant person but obviously Steve you just keep walking there was another issue when we fell that I had said to Steve that he wouldn't sing any songs at the gate I said to him it's terrible and it was a good idea I said no that was one of your better ideas if people don't come to hear me play fiddle and you sing he was very pissed off about that at the time at least in my my reckless you're probably right I was I've been singing what my own band the Connick Ramblers and I thought I was a great singer well of course the accommodation that we came to was that he knuckle down and rehearsed hard and I mellowed about the fact from singing and the Xiaomi we did a couple of years songs and it was really good as well so it really worked out nicely we both shifted because it could have been a bit insensitive for you to suggest that he's no good as a singer he's a better singer than I am a fiddler yeah you of course record a lot of Yeats you did the innisfree which we're going to have now from both of you tell me about how that came about well I I like JT's poetry when I was in my 20s and I realized when I looked at the portrait book that a lot of them looked like song lyrics they would they rained and they scanned and I thought God why hasn't somebody set these to music of course some people had set them to music but I just didn't know about it the first one we did was the stolen child so on the fisherman blues album and then over the years I kept returning to the Yeats poetry book and the one you're going to do for us now is Lake Ida finish free it is yes which we've transformed from its chocolate box setting into a Delta blues I look for it as Mike scarce and Steve working the water boys with Yeats is the Lake Isle of Innisfree I will arise and go now I've got to get us free and small cabin of clay I love fast lots of people have reasons why they love Yates's poetry why do you love it I like the things he writes about I'll like why says about them like is I like his perspective I like what does
language - beautiful sculptor of languages vowel sounds and the you know it's all we even it when he writes weightily there's always an elegance to the lyricism is it good to be back together playing that's wonderful for me anyway it's great for me as well and we're used to it now cuz we reunited in well that gig in Sligo was 99 and then he's rejoined the band in 2001 well I've been back with the bottle I was longer than I was with the water boys in the first half that's right yeah yeah and in a sense because you're older and I'm not saying you're wiser both you but you're older do you enjoy yourselves even more on stage like when you go out in July and play the IV Gardens I think July the 20th it is yeah would you enjoy yourselves oh we will for sure yet as much or less than before I think more yeah quite em you can kind of take it all in I think as you get older you can sit and enjoy the experience and relish every moment more than then when you're a greenhorn you're learning things you're learning autism you're learning all the time but you get to kind of mother lode of learning and you can sit back and then enjoy the experience or whatever is mad it's mad standing in front of ten twenty twenty thousand people and playing for them it's just a mad place to be yeah I think be Mike you enjoyed as much more I think Miriam when I was in my twenties I didn't have the skills to separate the pressures that I was under perhaps business pressures from being on stage the the two would spill into each other but now when I walk on stage nothing else in the world impinges on that I've got my boundaries sorry des and I can just go on stage and and be completely absorbed and the music and the performance and the audience and the experience and we're going to end on piece of music well a song that's synonymous really with the water boys which is fisherman's Blues yep did you both write this together we did yes G naught was written the same day as saints and angels in wind Mill Lane that was a busy day it was a fantastic success already 12 songs that day and I had the lyric efficient was blues on an envelope in my pocket and I brought it out and I stayed strumming the chords and then Steve put the same doo doo dee doo de dum diddly dum dee dum de dum hook to it and the song emerged it was too you often hear by people you know they can eyes of a writing songs I do years yeah that comes to okay you don't normally write them and about an hour well they're little gifts from heaven I think and they happen quite a lot too sometimes they're really quick and easy but sometimes eight years fisherman's blues what's that about oh I had lots of travails at the time and just thought I
wish I was a fisherman living what I romantically imagined would be a simple life on the waves of the sea but you're happy romantically now aren't you since you bring it up I am yes thank you can I say that you're going interviewed a recently the beautiful comedic Sullivan yes you can and you are an item we are yes yeah well lucky you thank you she's a wonderful woman and you I'm very happy - I'm very happily married to Heidi we've been married um think 17 years this year and yeah we're uh belong together nicely lovely phrase but look I've been delighted to have you both here this morning you go over there and get ready and I'm just going to list out some of the events you doing in the next few months first of all my thanks and sign today - no Roberts - my producer Eileen Heron the water boys that's Mike in the lineup it includes you of course Steve are playing The Ivy Gardens here in Dublin on July the 20th that's a Friday tickets from usual outfits advantages of a water boy has just been published by Lilliput press which is of course Mike your book and you'll be reading a to County Arts Festival and Steve you're performing at the Yates summer school on August the six that's a trot extravaganza in the Hawks well Theatre in Sligo thank you all very much for listening to be here at the same time next Sunday until then we're going out listening to the water boys with fisherman's blues thank you thank you Miriam meets on rté raidió one with Miriam O'Callaghan.
Miriam meets on rté raidió one with Miriam O'Callahan my guests this morning are musical soul mates who first met in London in the mid-1980s and with the following five years played music together wherever they went Mike Scott was born in Edinburgh and is the driving creative force behind the Waterboys formed in the early eighties the band has had some incredibly successful albums including this is the sea and fisherman's blues and in 1991 Mike won an Ivor Novello songwriting award for his song the whole of the moon the serious published his memoir adventures of a water boy Michael Steve the fellow who fiddles Steve welcome was born in Dublin and is a professional musician and fiddling legend according to NME as a musician he's worked with u2 Sinead O'Connor Elvis Costello to name but a few he's enjoyed a really fruitful musical collaboration with Mike and the water boys but lasted until 1990 after some years of not playing together Steve and Mike have rekindled that musical relationship and joined me together this morning hello where did you first meet can you remember we first met on a telephone actually this is Dave yeah this is me I got a call I was living in Ramallah and a flat and I heard Mike Scottish voice go down the line I said would come over to London and play with them in 1985 that's and we met physically dead Michael a few days later I'd heard him on a Sinead O'Connor demo tape before anyone had ever heard of Sinead and I thought Sinead sounded pretty good but what really grabbed my ear was the fiddler behind her and I'd been looking to put fiddle into the war boy sign for a while and this was the sound I was looking for it's whoever this guy was he played a real passion and and a kind of power that I wanted to hear in the water boy so and so I phoned him up and invited him to come and play on what was the last track to be recorded for this is a C which was called the pan within and he came over to London he turned up at the door of my flat so sparkly I dragged a muffin and he came there'll be description he still a sparkly eyed ragamuffin as you can see and he came in a queue man and he lay down on the floor with his head propped on an elbow and told me his life story was it a good life story it was very entertaining yeah I have to say when I lay down on the floor there was no chairs in your flat the reasons oh yeah that's very true just to just to set the record straight although I do like lying down on floors yeah I always used to sit in the floor and when I was writing my songs I would always be in the floor of my books bread in front of me yeah but did you like each other instantly oh yeah we did oh yeah like to me me Julia what is that kind of musical respect oh you just liked each other well I liked him as a guy straightaway was just dead easy to be with and then he picked up a guitar and so I play along with me and I knew that there was a musical understanding too I'd been looking for a fiddle for about six months Miriam and I was a great fan
of Bob Dylan and I loved his Rolling Thunder revue tour that he did in the mid-70s which I heard by the miracle of bootleg records and he had this fiddler called scarlet Rivera and I loved the the Bohemian gypsy-fied sound of the fiddle behind Dylan's voice and I really wanted that in the Waterboys and when I heard Steve on this Sinead O'Connor demo tape I just knew this is the guy this is the one I've been looking for and when you do end up honestly because I'm not in a band never having you end up playing with someone I'm finding somebody that you musically gel with that well I'd ask them to both of you it's not a very special feeling it's amazing it's a it's a once or twice in a lifetime thing I've only had a couple of musical relationships that have been as as powerful or as beautiful as the one I have with Steve I know that when I met Mike and heard him writing songs he was the greatest songwriter has ever heard at that ever really I'll give you the ten quits I know that sounds maybe sounds but now it's funny on the radio but it was at that particular point the best at what stage did you join the water boys and leave into another well I think the minute I met Mike and went and recorded in in London time with in for that this is a sea record I had already committed my musical future to Mike I'd been in a two ánewá we just made a record for Island Records and we were a big corporation of a band was eight or nine people in the band and when we wrote songs we wrote them in the most I love all the people in the jail wrote them in the most awful way somebody would write a chorus and somebody would write a mid-late and somebody who else would write this and it was a it was songs by comity it was lovely friends at all up but it wasn't heart and soul it wasn't songs from the inside of your core a mic was singing songs like that and I knew the minute I heard the first song it rang resonators all you gotta do this and I asked Steve to come and guest with the water boys no up coming to her and into a newer very unwisely allowed him to go that was the end here the lovely thing for us this morning for the listeners you're going to play life yeah and the first one because I will allow you go over now and gets it up with stay for a moment the first one you're going to play for me is Savage Earth harsh was this the first one you played together you wrote this Mike I wrote this is on the first Waterboys album made a couple years before I met Steve but when he came to my flat that day the first song we played together in fact on two guitars oddly enough was savage our third and by the way he played it I knew we were gonna be musical brothers and we both go over there and play that for me let me see the savage I wanna see the
savage I love that that was so beautiful come back over to the table to me was that the first time and the first song you played together in my flight is not flying on the floor in a crouching and I love the lyrics what's what is that song about it's about seeing the it's kind of like seeing God in all creation or pan the God pan as opposed to except in a perhaps a Christian picture of the world and the universe taking an older view that might suggest that everything is alive how old were you when you wrote that song 23 so you're quite a serious young man and a punk rocker tell me a bit about your background for everyone who doesn't know my cuz you both got different backgrounds which is really interesting you grew up tell me about where you grow up in your family well I'm from Edinburgh I lived there till I was 12 I went to a fee peeing boys school in the center of it and vertical George Harriet's it was a magnificent building built in the 1600s so it was a fabulous environment to grow up in even though I just took it for granted and it was in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle incredibly dramatic topography yeah and then when I was 12 my parents had split up when I was 8 or 9 and then my mom and I moved to err on the west coast of Scotland and I was there for my teenage years it's a smaller town I went to the local comprehensive had my first girlfriends and my first bands well you're a happy teenager yeah I think so yeah but I was really only interested in music I used to buy all the weekly music papers every week and read them cover to cover I used to spend all my money on cassettes and albums and then from about the age of 15 I had my first bands you were an only child to that stage went away famous I was an only child yes there are a lot of benefits are never and being an only charge seriously because you don't got your mother's undivided love and attention yeah that's for sure yeah there are as I've grown older I realized that there are there things you miss out on you missed the company of siblings wraps the support of siblings and overtime so I was at school work could probably done with an older brother but there are a great benefits to being an only child to like the one you mentioned and also the amount of space that I had amount of personal space I had at home I never had to fight for space and my mum would often be out of work and she often taught in the evenings so I would have a lot of time on my hands and I used to play music all the time to play my guitar in front of the mirror and have concerts on my own were you ever lonely no I didn't know
how to be lonely are you incredibly close to your mother well whew I wouldn't say incredibly close well we get on great did you miss your dad growing up well it's a funny thing when parents split because kids don't know how to process the fact of that or the emotions of it and for me I remember my mom telling me when I was 8 years old that your dad is leaving because he wants his own life and I remember not being able to understand what does that mean what's his own life his life is with us and a kid just doesn't have the mental apparatus to to decipher that or to understand so being unable to process the information I buried it which I think a lot of kids do and just got on with my life but always underneath the resisting well what's happened to my dad where is he gone doesn't he love me and he left without ever taking me aside and explaining he just was kind of gone and did you ever meet him before you met him eventually did you meet him when you were growing up generally he used to come round to the house to see us maybe once every couple of weeks and then maybe once a month and then once every couple of months and gradually drew away and then when I was 12 I think was the last time I saw him he came round at Christmas probably to bring Christmas presents and then that was the last we saw of him the old boy and was music for you then bit of an escape I think not actually I was mad about music before my dad left and it would have happened anyway where did your music town come from your mom you dad well probably neither of them my mom's grandfather was the Cantor in a church on the Isle of Mull it was a very poor community and he couldn't afford an organ so he would lead the congregation and he would give them the note that was his job so Amaya come from him that's so interesting it came somewhere within Eugene yeah oh that's so absolutely meanwhile Steve Wickham yes we were born in the rotunda I was born in the rotunda yeah one of six kids one of six kids you did you'd like to have been an only child no I would not have liked to have been an only child I don't think so you know what you were talking there are just somethings learned something about you were asking about personal space you know when giving you six kids Mike is you're very good with your personal space you like your personal space and I'm terrible as you know I try come into a room like this there and put that there and I put that there and I realize just as we were talking there what that comes from if you're in a family of six kids you're clay claiming your territory all the time you don't you don't actually have the territory even though he walks into the bands dressing room the jacket goes in one chair the fiddle goes on another a bag goes another and none of the bands have anywhere to sit that's one of six I think my dad was a
fitter in the cie my mother job yeah I don't know how he managed to raise six four sons to go but he did his bet they did their best and my mother read he was a housewife and when we grew up a bit she got a job working in the bank and he paid for music lessons though your dad paid for music lessons yeah he did and they weren't cheap I went to the College of Music for about 10 years I was a slow learner and I have to say but hey it worked in the end and your dad's a fiddler too but that plays a bit bit of fiddle as well yeah he hasn't for years nobody he did play a bit so is that why he was interested in music both of the more that they wanted you to go to the College of Music and do actually my granny gave me a fiddle when I was tree my mother my mother's mother gave me a fiddle she get three of us the retreat there were lots about 40 different cousins she kept three cousins who were at the same age at the same time three of his three fiddles so I believe so she kind of was a catalyst and then and then my dad played a bit obviously yeah what happened to the other two cousins who got the fiddles one of them is a musician and he lives out in Boston Huey Percel okay and then the other fella is a butcher and he lives down in the Midlands somewhere no he took a gift give up the fiddle I think it took up the piano and he loves music but he doesn't doesn't make a living over here we Yuri makes a living over but that was a great thing your grandmother did it fantastic yeah of course there every single day since and is it true that you vent you got a very sensible job in the bank which you look shocked in but I had a band all the time even even though I was in the bank I had a band I used to book book gigs I put in the earring at the weekend and take it out in Monday morning weekend rock and roll and I was Mike yeah who liked status quo as well what was this the cattle is the final catalyst you packing in the bank job do you know it wasn't one thing or another it was lots of things happening at the same time did your parents mind your own you say were devastated absolutely never say that they were so they had me sorted they'd have to worry about me I had a pensionable job forever and I would have fair you know errant bonuses and be very very wealthy now you know and I would have got away with more skullduggery if I'd have been working in the bank than I'd have got away with being a rock and roll musician but it's interesting you both of the confidence to do that did you when did you go to college Mike what did she do VIN UNESCO I went to university briefly Marian for one year but I never did any studying I was only interested in music and punk rock so you laughed spent the whole year going to gigs doing my fanzine and filled all my exams and left yeah when did you set up your first friend well I was already in bands before I went to university and on leaving I put together my first
professional band yeah it was called another pretty face and we were based in Edinburgh and we did four or five singles on our own labels first one got a bit play from John Peel which is the most amazing thing here your record coming out on the John Peel show ISM that we thought we'd made it and then when and how did the Waterboys come about well another pretty face lasted for about three years and we got a record deal with a small London label called ensign and they asked us to move down to London so we did this 1981 and another pretty face was run by myself and my then songwriting partner who was another Scottish lad called John John Caldwell and then we split up he went back to Edinburgh and I stayed on in London and ensign kept the record deal with me as effectively as a solo artist but I didn't want to be a solo artist know what he'd have a band and I don't have any band members but I had this name the water boys where did you get the name I got it from a Lou Reed song on Lou Reed's album Berlin there is a song called the kids and at the end he's got this line I am the water boy in that strange voice that Lou has and in that voice the word water boys and he's so mysterious and I didn't know what it meant I know know that it's the guy that brings water to the chain gang or the tennis players etc but I didn't know that and it was just a mysterious wonderful word so I nicked it from my band my future band and started recording and I eventually put together the first live water boys from people who played on the recordings with me so but when you set out to say write the next song which you're going to sing for me here which is saying things as how long did it take you to write that and what what is this song about well this is a song that that was written very shortly after Steve and I met we've been working together about three months and I had just come to live in Ireland Steve invited me for a week's holiday eventually I came for six to seven years and we did a recording session in wind Mill Lane we just kind of played live all day and win Mullane and this song got made up on the spot do you remember that oh yeah I do we played all day twelve errors and might just kept on playing out these songs and new bits of pieces of songs and I plan to invite him to come and live in Ireland I remember going over to London seeing Mike you know in this place of music this stuff yeah we were making music and playing music but it was all the sort of stuff of interviews and record companies and all this stuff not only means pressure some social life yeah was he right oh definitely yeah I had a very dry life in London at that time his all work and and no fun and had you any idea about the pod Ireland would be like oh you came here yeah well I holiday here with my mom when I was 10 or 11 we
got a wait a week in concealed and a week in Slagle and I had this sense of Ireland as a a magical place as appeared to my child's eyes and then I toured here with ownerle Waterboys tours now I've been in Dublin and Galway and really liked it and I liked Steve and I thought I really fancy going to stay with him and see what we got up to and when you came here why did you decide to stay and can you remember in the moment we thought actually I think I'll stay here for six or seven years I don't remember the moment but it was very obvious very quickly that why would I leave I made friends quickly I had a wonderful time there was music everywhere we would play in pubs and cafes play on the street it was brilliant I loved being a Dublin Steve would take me around and and I remember walking into a cafe and and he saw a guy in you and he said to this guy I hear your plan chest for money these days and I thought I want to live in a place where people say things like that to each other did you miss London no not at all none of us oh no not at all no and when you eventually did discover Connemara why was it so important to you why do you love Connemara well my grandmother was a Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Mull and she moved to lowland Scotland when she was a teenager and that broke the language they spoke English from their honor and she didn't pass the language on to my mother and my uncle and so I grew up with this awareness that there was this lost heritage when I went to the West of Ireland to the Quayle tucked I found that lost heritage I didn't learn to speak Irish but uh I was thrilled to find that my granny's world was still thriving and that was part of the for me of the West of Ireland so did you get him to have a good social life when he arrives - I think old habits die hard Mike was always straight into work when he got here anybody straight into making a new plan getting a new sound getting there getting there suddenly and I think you did you did make your own friends and Vinny kaldorf and loads of people that you did kind of we did have a social life great so she's like but old habits die hard yeah always driven Miriam still driven it's still driven yeah he looks kind of Mara but you both ends up playing off the sessions in places like Claire which are in Shannon yeah there was a whole trial thing we got to enjoy as well no well I was in the triad musician we got it Mike gun into trial we got in I had a good friend it was a tribe musician still have any killed off and he was a great Irish Tin whistle player and he played with me and into a newer and then he had a big repertoire of Irish music and I started getting it being a fiddle player I started getting into Irish tradition music and I played a little bit and I think Mike had heard really me playing tunes and things like that and the years pricked up and said what's that one what someone what's that one and I remember we did I had a tune called attempted bitten it became it got incorporated into a song called when will we be married and things like that
the sort of was it was here was pricking up and I'd be playing Irish music all the time at the dressing room backstage black and Mike got into it so much he said you got to go out and learn more about this I shouldn't take it seriously he didn't reset it in those words but I got the sense that you wanted me to take it seriously yeah sois are taken seriously and I went down to live with James Begley for a weekend in dingle my friend Steve Coony was down there and he invited me don't come down James Baker Seamus was the well of the pure drop of Irish music so I had to go down to Sheamus and went down and fair play to him he put me up and invited me into his house maybe apparent to the family and I had a week of diving in the deep end of the Atlantic source of Irish music and from there I went up to Doolin or might have been the other way around but I went up to do land then where everybody said that was the heart of Irish music at the time you know must remember I grew up in Dublin playing classical music can go into the college music and not really an Irish Drive my dad played little bits of jazz and be somewhere over the rainbow a little bits of piece like that tree care coins and a fountain so I had to go and and get to the real thing and I went and met Michael Russell who was in Doolin the time just a noble yes he was like a monk an old monk that lived in the in this little house and he had these perfect honey dropped tunes that he played himself simple simple simple tunes that had gone back hundreds of years come from the Aran Islands and were still there in this last little bastion and you know the year after I left everything changed and duel and they just exploded into a tourist destination and when I got there it was just at the end of the turf smoke and yeah so that's what I did I might end up the spittle and then I followed him up the spittle where there was yet another wellspring of Irish music so how do people like say Sharon Shannon end up playing with the water boys when and how did that come about well Steve had met Sharon and Doolin yeah Sharon camera is Sharon came around to the house one night we had these I had these mud sessions for two weeks that I was there and I met Sharon around Galway because she used to go in to go in play sessions all the time and we got invited the two of us got invited to play with her on a recording for her debut album this was 1989 and we went down to King Vera to a place called winkles hotel and Sharon was holed up there was recording gear and all her her tried playmates making music and we joined in and I remember sitting between Steve and Sharon listen to his fiddle and her accordion making this harmony in stereo around me and I was very moved by the sound it sounded like the marriage of rock and trad music and I wanted to hear
it in the Waterboys so I asked Sharon if she'd come in tour with us so she joined the water boys played with us for a year it was very exciting we played music all the time we would play so much music we'd play in the van on the way to the next town we'd play in the hotel with playing the way to the gig would play backstage we'd break the session to do the gig and then we've come on stage and go back into the session and then we play all night it was wonderful on the airplane in the in the waiting area everywhere you want to play saints and angels for me and this is a song you wrote and collaborated on together yeah play that beautifully together and the strings on that they're incredibly moving come back over to me I mean when I listen to you playing that together and I'm watching you and I can see how close you are you actually looking to each other's eyes and you know what I'm nothing you're in love with each other but don't be silly you know what you each going to do and then you split up I know you back together now but you did have a bit of a separation in the 90s but in 1990 it was in 1990 yeah we just made a room-to-room album and you were writing hi yeah we're doing great on the surface but I think in the bones of the band things weren't so good and there were problems in our sound and Antle our sax player and I wanted to change drummers and Steve was quite withdrawn at the time and I didn't want to burden him with this decision it was a bit of a mistake smiling I get your ation in a minute okay it was a mistake on my part I should have involved them because he was the really answer Steve and I were the leadership of the band but we left him out of this decision and we changed drummers and Steve was very upset about that and I think it was kind of that was a last straw for you at the time and he left and it was a funny thing because it was the first time in the Waterboys career that we did a whole Irish British European American world tour totally organized the right time for the album to be released everything was in place and then suddenly he was gone and the band imploded we still did the tour with a kind of a rump fashion of the band mr. tough Steve you sit there with your head in your hands well you know it was a big blow for Mike and for the world apart at the time I suppose because not only just me leaving but the other people left as well Sharon came and Colin left and Mike had to reorganize everything very quickly so you know hindsight's a great thing when you look back in it after 20 years and you can think oh yeah I cut it on this record but when you're a young man at 29 and and you're looking at your own set of
eyes you're looking at the future and here listening to your own inner instincts you know you have to go with them at the time and I had a terrible thing for the water boys but in fact it turned out to be a great thing for me and I think ultimately for for both of us in a way it was kind of liberating from something well I know for me it was hugely liberating because I actually settled it down how to start a family and I did things that really enriched my life and I could discovered more about music as well is Mike's version of what happened I suppose the firing of the drummer the last straw for you I mean from your perspective but as Mike said it was quite withdrawn at the time I was I had just I mean with John I just gone through a divorce with Adam with my wife my American wife and I kind of resented the Waterboys a bit for it because I thought you know it taken me away from home it was wrong to present the world because in fact we got divorced for a lot of other reasons but when you're 29 you're looking at it you're thinking oh my life is well it's the water boys so it was that and this other thing that Mike said he didn't hit the nail on the head I went into rehearsal Shealy one day and I came in as no bridge was walking out I think the drummer he was the drummer yeah I suppose part of me thought of me thought that could be me when you said you were going did you feel anger did you feel sadness at the time I was sad I think yeah yeah I was sad that had come to that you were very gentlemanly about it there was no there was no bad vibe or anything no and we still stayed friends there was never any break in our friendship but were you shocked running that well channel wasn't because he'd been withdrawn for about a year or so and he was a bit like he's one of the like one of these characters in a cartoon who's got a black cloud following him around and I suppose I wasn't that surprised really but she said later which would get it that when you went to find him and was like you were an amputee that when you're terrible having him in the band was terrible it was like trying to fly in one wing I was awful it's awful he'd been so great in the band and he was like my other half really so working with items like a bad dream but you continued to be successful with a waterfall yep and you didn't stay for a while sorry to be harsh here so right I had to I had to kind of I had a lot of lessons to learn at the time it was a hard time period all of them when you know well it was career-wise it was dreadful because I'd actually if you think about a career you know it left Mike I enjoy in the world boys I enjoy
and to a certain extent I mean you know Mike mica to the water boys whether I was around or not he'd sing songs whether I was around her daughter it they'd be great whether I'm around or not really and I'd done the same thing to a to Anu when I'd left to join the world wise guy you just about happy to do in this do I sound like a nice guy he's a heartbreaker but hey great love stories we begin so high did ASCAP how did you get back together well we'd always stayed friends even when we weren't working together and I did a gig in Galway a one-man show it's in 1998 and Steve came up and guessed it with me and he was sounding pretty good on the fiddle and I was thinking God maybe it's about time we started working together and I had this loose plan that that I would invite him to join me at some stage but he in fact he got to me first he called me up he was living in Sligo and he called me up I was in London and he said shall I put a band together for you come out to sly going to a gig and I thought I said Tim well no let's not do a band let's do a two-man gig and so we did yeah we can't really camera to the Hawks were a hoax we'll see it oh yeah we did to my gig yeah did you have a row before you went on there we did have a row yes not worth it a row a few days before okay tell me about the well I went over from London to rehearse with Steve and we rehearsed in his house he has this wonderful house in the shadow of a hill in County Sligo called here Bell house and we're in there rehearsing and Steve kept getting up he kept breaking the rehearsal and going off into town on some business that I could never quite I get Eurasian don't worry and I got so fed up and keep it on gone away and eventually I snapped and I said look if you don't knuckle down and rehearse properly we're gonna be rubbish on stage in a few days and I've come all this way from London to work with you and you keep backing off to sly goes to see a man about a dog and I want to rehearse properly okay Steve what is your memory of the road well it was a good rail well we had a great row I remember we were rehearsing but you know you know when you have three kids when you have three kids and you're running out and picking up this and that and the other and you know I was at home and also you said something to me that really skin have you not do you not realize how important this is to know that and I was just saying that myself yeah I dunno I dunno I'm too much really doing my best here but you know I have a life outside the water boys and it's not all about that that's what I was thinking inside and we were kind of exploded each other this was the most important thing and then we gave each other a big hug maybe you needed that row almost it's clear the air yeah I think so yeah you see for me
it was it was like a replay of what had happened before I was thinking if he doesn't work hard here but are you a bit of a control freak no oh is he no no are you fictionalist well I like it to be good okay and I knew that we were on the line we're gonna go out there on stage the hospital Theatre the two of us we haven't played proper gig on stage for nine years we had to be good we were good we were good yeah because because we knuckle down and rehearse hard so who's the boss this music is the boss spirit I think so I hope so I'm Mike I suppose he seems a more dominant person but obviously Steve you just keep walking there was another issue when we fell that I had said to Steve that he wouldn't sing any songs at the gate I said to him it's terrible and it was a good idea I said no that was one of your better ideas if people don't come to hear me play fiddle and you sing he was very pissed off about that at the time at least in my my reckless you're probably right I was I've been singing what my own band the Connick Ramblers and I thought I was a great singer well of course the accommodation that we came to was that he knuckle down and rehearsed hard and I mellowed about the fact from singing and the Xiaomi we did a couple of years songs and it was really good as well so it really worked out nicely we both shifted because it could have been a bit insensitive for you to suggest that he's no good as a singer he's a better singer than I am a fiddler yeah you of course record a lot of Yeats you did the innisfree which we're going to have now from both of you tell me about how that came about well I I like JT's poetry when I was in my 20s and I realized when I looked at the portrait book that a lot of them looked like song lyrics they would they rained and they scanned and I thought God why hasn't somebody set these to music of course some people had set them to music but I just didn't know about it the first one we did was the stolen child so on the fisherman blues album and then over the years I kept returning to the Yeats poetry book and the one you're going to do for us now is Lake Ida finish free it is yes which we've transformed from its chocolate box setting into a Delta blues I look for it as Mike scarce and Steve working the water boys with Yeats is the Lake Isle of Innisfree I will arise and go now I've got to get us free and small cabin of clay I love fast lots of people have reasons why they love Yates's poetry why do you love it I like the things he writes about I'll like why says about them like is I like his perspective I like what does
language - beautiful sculptor of languages vowel sounds and the you know it's all we even it when he writes weightily there's always an elegance to the lyricism is it good to be back together playing that's wonderful for me anyway it's great for me as well and we're used to it now cuz we reunited in well that gig in Sligo was 99 and then he's rejoined the band in 2001 well I've been back with the bottle I was longer than I was with the water boys in the first half that's right yeah yeah and in a sense because you're older and I'm not saying you're wiser both you but you're older do you enjoy yourselves even more on stage like when you go out in July and play the IV Gardens I think July the 20th it is yeah would you enjoy yourselves oh we will for sure yet as much or less than before I think more yeah quite em you can kind of take it all in I think as you get older you can sit and enjoy the experience and relish every moment more than then when you're a greenhorn you're learning things you're learning autism you're learning all the time but you get to kind of mother lode of learning and you can sit back and then enjoy the experience or whatever is mad it's mad standing in front of ten twenty twenty thousand people and playing for them it's just a mad place to be yeah I think be Mike you enjoyed as much more I think Miriam when I was in my twenties I didn't have the skills to separate the pressures that I was under perhaps business pressures from being on stage the the two would spill into each other but now when I walk on stage nothing else in the world impinges on that I've got my boundaries sorry des and I can just go on stage and and be completely absorbed and the music and the performance and the audience and the experience and we're going to end on piece of music well a song that's synonymous really with the water boys which is fisherman's Blues yep did you both write this together we did yes G naught was written the same day as saints and angels in wind Mill Lane that was a busy day it was a fantastic success already 12 songs that day and I had the lyric efficient was blues on an envelope in my pocket and I brought it out and I stayed strumming the chords and then Steve put the same doo doo dee doo de dum diddly dum dee dum de dum hook to it and the song emerged it was too you often hear by people you know they can eyes of a writing songs I do years yeah that comes to okay you don't normally write them and about an hour well they're little gifts from heaven I think and they happen quite a lot too sometimes they're really quick and easy but sometimes eight years fisherman's blues what's that about oh I had lots of travails at the time and just thought I
wish I was a fisherman living what I romantically imagined would be a simple life on the waves of the sea but you're happy romantically now aren't you since you bring it up I am yes thank you can I say that you're going interviewed a recently the beautiful comedic Sullivan yes you can and you are an item we are yes yeah well lucky you thank you she's a wonderful woman and you I'm very happy - I'm very happily married to Heidi we've been married um think 17 years this year and yeah we're uh belong together nicely lovely phrase but look I've been delighted to have you both here this morning you go over there and get ready and I'm just going to list out some of the events you doing in the next few months first of all my thanks and sign today - no Roberts - my producer Eileen Heron the water boys that's Mike in the lineup it includes you of course Steve are playing The Ivy Gardens here in Dublin on July the 20th that's a Friday tickets from usual outfits advantages of a water boy has just been published by Lilliput press which is of course Mike your book and you'll be reading a to County Arts Festival and Steve you're performing at the Yates summer school on August the six that's a trot extravaganza in the Hawks well Theatre in Sligo thank you all very much for listening to be here at the same time next Sunday until then we're going out listening to the water boys with fisherman's blues thank you thank you Miriam meets on rté raidió one with Miriam O'Callaghan.
Music Box Interview with Mike Scott of The Waterboys 1986
without further ado let's move on to an interview I had recently with Mike Scott of the water boys very good it was to know I say so myself Mike would it be fair to say that the water boys are one person just you well there were one person but it's becoming more of a group there you know I've had five musicians five or four musicians with me since I started this year and it as we practice and play more it becomes more of a unit than just one guy all right why decide to put these other guys around you because I would have thought
that if you were in the driving seat and doing everything on your own that would be much better for you well I can't go out and play live if it's just me I don't want to be a fork singer right so I'd like that big rock and roll noise I get the guys beside me okay I read somewhere that you actually put the water boys together and it was actually the band you've been looking for virtually all your life is that true yeah I guess so we can achieve music play on stage and in the studio the musical dreams that I have in my brain so I think that the answer is yes and
did you always want to be a pop star you know I don't want to get pop star know any what you want to be in it I want to be a very serious musician and be taken seriously and everything I do is dedicated to the cause of of excellence in music and furthering art that's what I'm interested in people would say that that's perhaps a very clichéd idea of rock music did you ever get knocked for it no not really I mean any idea that a lot of people have you could say it's cliched really it's not even like I say it's just I'm interested in being good that's much
more important to me than selling a lot of records of course I'd like to sell a lot of records but I'm only really interested in selling records if the records are good and I believe in them then I'll be happy otherwise okay so though it's quite an unusual stance to take I think because a lot of pop stars today are actually really into kind of doing the pinup photo sessions and doing the rounds of the clubs and all that yeah so I suppose that kind of thing alienate you does it yeah it certainly does whew pretty horrible former sessions
really that kind of thing and me don't agree so it's just the music it's the music in the attitude yeah all right backtracking a little while now you've formed a band called another pretty face some time ago we had a bit of a cult of a single out called all the boys love Carrie was that disappointing that it didn't do better because a lot of people raved about it at the time oh well we were starting off from scratch at that time and we didn't expect it to do anything at all so anything that it did do is a wonderful bonus to us alright so I
wasn't really disappointed I was just in love with the whole idea of doing things and here we we're doing things for the first time it just felt great right and you also formed your own record label didn't you called chicking chance was that about the same time no that was a bit later we had a deal with Virgin Records that evaporated quite promptly and in order to keep momentum going we formed our own label to buy our own records and that was chicken jazz that was in 1980 alright is it difficult to form your own label I mean it must create a hell of a
lot of work it's very hard what it's quite easy to form the label all you need is about six hundred pounds and we raise that by selling bass guitar or some things hmm and it's easy to start off but it's really hard to all over distribution you have to go go to rough trade surfaces go to bonaparte records and go to the virgin mail-order placer all that's really hard Wharton it's really difficult to run a record label and run a group the two jobs are just too much for one human so no I don't have anything to do with my record label
don't so it's nice to have a major behind you say well it doesn't really feel like a major because it's ensign records that I've lost contact okay and that's a really small informal company I can walk in in the door and sit down and talk to Nigel the management director straightaway and that's really good so it doesn't really feel like it's not like CBS great okay Mike thanks alright.
without further ado let's move on to an interview I had recently with Mike Scott of the water boys very good it was to know I say so myself Mike would it be fair to say that the water boys are one person just you well there were one person but it's becoming more of a group there you know I've had five musicians five or four musicians with me since I started this year and it as we practice and play more it becomes more of a unit than just one guy all right why decide to put these other guys around you because I would have thought
that if you were in the driving seat and doing everything on your own that would be much better for you well I can't go out and play live if it's just me I don't want to be a fork singer right so I'd like that big rock and roll noise I get the guys beside me okay I read somewhere that you actually put the water boys together and it was actually the band you've been looking for virtually all your life is that true yeah I guess so we can achieve music play on stage and in the studio the musical dreams that I have in my brain so I think that the answer is yes and
did you always want to be a pop star you know I don't want to get pop star know any what you want to be in it I want to be a very serious musician and be taken seriously and everything I do is dedicated to the cause of of excellence in music and furthering art that's what I'm interested in people would say that that's perhaps a very clichéd idea of rock music did you ever get knocked for it no not really I mean any idea that a lot of people have you could say it's cliched really it's not even like I say it's just I'm interested in being good that's much
more important to me than selling a lot of records of course I'd like to sell a lot of records but I'm only really interested in selling records if the records are good and I believe in them then I'll be happy otherwise okay so though it's quite an unusual stance to take I think because a lot of pop stars today are actually really into kind of doing the pinup photo sessions and doing the rounds of the clubs and all that yeah so I suppose that kind of thing alienate you does it yeah it certainly does whew pretty horrible former sessions
really that kind of thing and me don't agree so it's just the music it's the music in the attitude yeah all right backtracking a little while now you've formed a band called another pretty face some time ago we had a bit of a cult of a single out called all the boys love Carrie was that disappointing that it didn't do better because a lot of people raved about it at the time oh well we were starting off from scratch at that time and we didn't expect it to do anything at all so anything that it did do is a wonderful bonus to us alright so I
wasn't really disappointed I was just in love with the whole idea of doing things and here we we're doing things for the first time it just felt great right and you also formed your own record label didn't you called chicking chance was that about the same time no that was a bit later we had a deal with Virgin Records that evaporated quite promptly and in order to keep momentum going we formed our own label to buy our own records and that was chicken jazz that was in 1980 alright is it difficult to form your own label I mean it must create a hell of a
lot of work it's very hard what it's quite easy to form the label all you need is about six hundred pounds and we raise that by selling bass guitar or some things hmm and it's easy to start off but it's really hard to all over distribution you have to go go to rough trade surfaces go to bonaparte records and go to the virgin mail-order placer all that's really hard Wharton it's really difficult to run a record label and run a group the two jobs are just too much for one human so no I don't have anything to do with my record label
don't so it's nice to have a major behind you say well it doesn't really feel like a major because it's ensign records that I've lost contact okay and that's a really small informal company I can walk in in the door and sit down and talk to Nigel the management director straightaway and that's really good so it doesn't really feel like it's not like CBS great okay Mike thanks alright.
T.V. Three interview with Mike Scott of The Waterboys
Now our next guest has been involved in music since he was a very young boy and he's grown up in the punk era of the 70s uncreated fantastic rock and roll rock and roll and folk music for the water boys in 83 is currently touring Ireland with the band to transport music life on the road and wb8 Mike Scott joins us okay more sir thank you we was just saying that before the break we met a long time ago in Galway and also in those halcyon this is the sea days larks in the parks and beats in the streets yeah I'm just saying that those songs this is the sea and the whole of the Moon were kind of anthems for that generation they were you know they were pop songs they were but they were also kind of I don't know blueprints for life as well for a lot of people did you have any sense of that when you were when you were living in the country at the time I thought popular they were popular they were yeah and the stuff we did after Fishman's bluesman eight years or yeah I used to walk up Grafton Street and and I would hear a song and I think God who does that song it's someone I like and I'd realize it was one of my own songs that's a nice feeling at least one going
on God what's that noise yeah at least you like your own stuff that's right I remember reading some of the English press the time because of Jude had and the three water was ABS what was called I supposed to be called you a big music period the water boys pagan place and this is the sea and you were a darling of the English music press at the time then you came to Ireland and I remember warning this journalist saying Mike Scott went to Ireland and got lost and you did seem to come here and and lose yourself in the place is that a fair religion myself in place my life changed when I came to our did I changed in lots of good ways and I discovered I've made this this cinematic widescreen Academy is your three records and I've taken as far as it could go and I was frustrated that I couldn't represent stage and I got interested in in simpler me older music like country music gospel music and I wanted to bring those into the water boy sign that I found in Ireland I could do it and like the catalyst was a fiddler Steve wicked Wigan and when I had Steve in the band suddenly with his fiddle in my guitar we could play any kind of music and I that
liberated me and I was just wanting on those days what was the reason for the change and a say he was the catalyst but there to being a personal change as well there were lots of personal changes you know when I lived in London I didn't much social life I came to Ireland and um I don't know how I see it but coming in from the outside yeah it seems an incredibly hospitable place and there's a atmosphere of easygoing you know absolutely concerned to live compared to living in London definitely yeah and I loved that I plugged into it it doesn't call more hospitable than go away either does no in fairness if you've got to go and sit in the bars of the world and meet make friends it literally almost instantly always the place to do it and the you spent how many years did you spend making and Fishman's blue sunrooms wrong three years yeah did the record company lose their mind you know is it was a weird situation market we'd had a bit of success with this is the sea and as often happens when a band gets the first bit of success they they have a suddenly have a
lot of power and nobody could say anything to me I was working on that record for so long record company no one no one said boo we just got left to go on with it really and in a way that was that we could have done it was one time in my life I could have done with someone looking over my shoulders and come on speed up here but there was no one to do that and we just kept record we recorded probably more music than any album in the history of roll rock and roll I heard from an engineer who worked on sessions for you around that time that you had enough music to make about 10 years worth of albums absolutely hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of music well has it ever was that music now well we've done three albums worth it was the original album yeah there was a record came out in 2001 called too close to heaven which was the best of the unreleased stuff at least in my opinion and then in 2006 we reissued to a fisherman who's a remaster and we did a bonus CD with another 17 or 18 tracks so a lot of its come out now but 5560 tracks but that means there's still some music sitting on the shelves there's
quite a bit yeah hundreds of more I said can we talk about your fascination with reporter euro Norah and English literature and philosophy you study that in college and it was that where the love of poetry started or Yeats never really did study it I went to university in 1977 my only interest was punk rock I didn't do a stitch of work and I dropped out he came to any lecture so he's dropped out I went to three or four lectures dream'd never paid any attention so sorry about that but your love of poetry does exist and is still very strong in you especially when it comes to eights yeah I grew up in a house full of books yeah and my mother had lots of Yeats books and I picked them up when I was 10 or 11 years old didn't understand a word of them but something caught yeah will you use golden child on stolen child yeah it's still uncharted yeah on fisherman's yeah that was the first time I put Yeats to music I've done a lot of times as you probably know I'm less I was gonna say that next March you're going to do five nights in the Abbey that's right that's it and that's it massive undertaking because I mean you're talking about a
body of work that's incredibly well known so there'll be lots of expectations are you nervous about that or it's been a dream of mine for about 20 years mark to make a show based on the eighties poems after we did the stolen child and fisherman's blues I began to people began to tell me have you heard Clannad have done this song Bono's done this one find Morris no I began to realize a lot of people have done Yates his poems turn them into songs and I thought this is sure there's a whole album in this and I didn't realize I was gonna write it all myself but I did and I'm presenting it five nights at the Abbey next March is befitting that it's at the Abbey as well as well I wanted to do it there yeah yeah waiting to make his radical statement as I could d-does his own theatre okay what's the radical statement you're trying to make them well putting Yates in a new context turning his poems into rock and roll songs and he's at rock and roll so it's not folks eat so I wrote one of his paint stripping rock and roll Yeats whoo I bet he never saw this day coming well he was a kind of a rock'n'roll
character Rizzoli's definitely left-of-center he was radical yeah he was radical you're absolutely right no you and you famously said that the Waterboys is effectively wherever Mike Scott is and whoever he happens to be working with at the time but there's no question that you you seem to be very happy with you work with Steve Wickham and you're back working with him again and have been on a fairly regular basis so you're on the road at the moment no he's in the band you're in the band who else is with you the moment we've got a drummer called Carlos Hercules it's his real name a great name he lives in Limerick English bass player Mark Smith and we've got a new keyboard player from Belfast called John the colour I know Anthony through the grace no I did ask him to come and play these shows with us but he's busy with his day job in the Saw Doctors well my team might show up I mean you are you you will be playing in the restaurant I think he's on tour I was elsewhere now they're there you're doing a couple of dates this weekend actually are you and go away this weekend go away on Friday Skibbereen at
the court by Southwest on Saturday and we're doing Wrath angin in County Kildare and Sunday all festivals yeah so this is basically the festival lineup then so it's it's not it's not they're not they're part of a festival rather than full waterboys shows on it yeah guess so I kept saying I just can't I'm still trying to think of Yates's poem set to paint stripping rock and roll I have to go and see it and mad is the mist and snow that's the worldís winner that's sweet like it works yeah you click on a pack the place I have people will be fascinated by do you think it are you hoping to introduce new generation, you might not be familiar with them at all I wouldn't presume to do that because as far as I know you still get Yeats in school and Ireland so but if I can compress nth Yeats in a way that makes people listen to me yeah I knew yeah and here here because his words are timeless yeah they're so great if I can turn people on to them just in a new way that I'll be happy so that's next mark that's expose you look what does that seem like this is a pleasure to meet you thank you very much I think.
Now our next guest has been involved in music since he was a very young boy and he's grown up in the punk era of the 70s uncreated fantastic rock and roll rock and roll and folk music for the water boys in 83 is currently touring Ireland with the band to transport music life on the road and wb8 Mike Scott joins us okay more sir thank you we was just saying that before the break we met a long time ago in Galway and also in those halcyon this is the sea days larks in the parks and beats in the streets yeah I'm just saying that those songs this is the sea and the whole of the Moon were kind of anthems for that generation they were you know they were pop songs they were but they were also kind of I don't know blueprints for life as well for a lot of people did you have any sense of that when you were when you were living in the country at the time I thought popular they were popular they were yeah and the stuff we did after Fishman's bluesman eight years or yeah I used to walk up Grafton Street and and I would hear a song and I think God who does that song it's someone I like and I'd realize it was one of my own songs that's a nice feeling at least one going
on God what's that noise yeah at least you like your own stuff that's right I remember reading some of the English press the time because of Jude had and the three water was ABS what was called I supposed to be called you a big music period the water boys pagan place and this is the sea and you were a darling of the English music press at the time then you came to Ireland and I remember warning this journalist saying Mike Scott went to Ireland and got lost and you did seem to come here and and lose yourself in the place is that a fair religion myself in place my life changed when I came to our did I changed in lots of good ways and I discovered I've made this this cinematic widescreen Academy is your three records and I've taken as far as it could go and I was frustrated that I couldn't represent stage and I got interested in in simpler me older music like country music gospel music and I wanted to bring those into the water boy sign that I found in Ireland I could do it and like the catalyst was a fiddler Steve wicked Wigan and when I had Steve in the band suddenly with his fiddle in my guitar we could play any kind of music and I that
liberated me and I was just wanting on those days what was the reason for the change and a say he was the catalyst but there to being a personal change as well there were lots of personal changes you know when I lived in London I didn't much social life I came to Ireland and um I don't know how I see it but coming in from the outside yeah it seems an incredibly hospitable place and there's a atmosphere of easygoing you know absolutely concerned to live compared to living in London definitely yeah and I loved that I plugged into it it doesn't call more hospitable than go away either does no in fairness if you've got to go and sit in the bars of the world and meet make friends it literally almost instantly always the place to do it and the you spent how many years did you spend making and Fishman's blue sunrooms wrong three years yeah did the record company lose their mind you know is it was a weird situation market we'd had a bit of success with this is the sea and as often happens when a band gets the first bit of success they they have a suddenly have a
lot of power and nobody could say anything to me I was working on that record for so long record company no one no one said boo we just got left to go on with it really and in a way that was that we could have done it was one time in my life I could have done with someone looking over my shoulders and come on speed up here but there was no one to do that and we just kept record we recorded probably more music than any album in the history of roll rock and roll I heard from an engineer who worked on sessions for you around that time that you had enough music to make about 10 years worth of albums absolutely hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of music well has it ever was that music now well we've done three albums worth it was the original album yeah there was a record came out in 2001 called too close to heaven which was the best of the unreleased stuff at least in my opinion and then in 2006 we reissued to a fisherman who's a remaster and we did a bonus CD with another 17 or 18 tracks so a lot of its come out now but 5560 tracks but that means there's still some music sitting on the shelves there's
quite a bit yeah hundreds of more I said can we talk about your fascination with reporter euro Norah and English literature and philosophy you study that in college and it was that where the love of poetry started or Yeats never really did study it I went to university in 1977 my only interest was punk rock I didn't do a stitch of work and I dropped out he came to any lecture so he's dropped out I went to three or four lectures dream'd never paid any attention so sorry about that but your love of poetry does exist and is still very strong in you especially when it comes to eights yeah I grew up in a house full of books yeah and my mother had lots of Yeats books and I picked them up when I was 10 or 11 years old didn't understand a word of them but something caught yeah will you use golden child on stolen child yeah it's still uncharted yeah on fisherman's yeah that was the first time I put Yeats to music I've done a lot of times as you probably know I'm less I was gonna say that next March you're going to do five nights in the Abbey that's right that's it and that's it massive undertaking because I mean you're talking about a
body of work that's incredibly well known so there'll be lots of expectations are you nervous about that or it's been a dream of mine for about 20 years mark to make a show based on the eighties poems after we did the stolen child and fisherman's blues I began to people began to tell me have you heard Clannad have done this song Bono's done this one find Morris no I began to realize a lot of people have done Yates his poems turn them into songs and I thought this is sure there's a whole album in this and I didn't realize I was gonna write it all myself but I did and I'm presenting it five nights at the Abbey next March is befitting that it's at the Abbey as well as well I wanted to do it there yeah yeah waiting to make his radical statement as I could d-does his own theatre okay what's the radical statement you're trying to make them well putting Yates in a new context turning his poems into rock and roll songs and he's at rock and roll so it's not folks eat so I wrote one of his paint stripping rock and roll Yeats whoo I bet he never saw this day coming well he was a kind of a rock'n'roll
character Rizzoli's definitely left-of-center he was radical yeah he was radical you're absolutely right no you and you famously said that the Waterboys is effectively wherever Mike Scott is and whoever he happens to be working with at the time but there's no question that you you seem to be very happy with you work with Steve Wickham and you're back working with him again and have been on a fairly regular basis so you're on the road at the moment no he's in the band you're in the band who else is with you the moment we've got a drummer called Carlos Hercules it's his real name a great name he lives in Limerick English bass player Mark Smith and we've got a new keyboard player from Belfast called John the colour I know Anthony through the grace no I did ask him to come and play these shows with us but he's busy with his day job in the Saw Doctors well my team might show up I mean you are you you will be playing in the restaurant I think he's on tour I was elsewhere now they're there you're doing a couple of dates this weekend actually are you and go away this weekend go away on Friday Skibbereen at
the court by Southwest on Saturday and we're doing Wrath angin in County Kildare and Sunday all festivals yeah so this is basically the festival lineup then so it's it's not it's not they're not they're part of a festival rather than full waterboys shows on it yeah guess so I kept saying I just can't I'm still trying to think of Yates's poem set to paint stripping rock and roll I have to go and see it and mad is the mist and snow that's the worldís winner that's sweet like it works yeah you click on a pack the place I have people will be fascinated by do you think it are you hoping to introduce new generation, you might not be familiar with them at all I wouldn't presume to do that because as far as I know you still get Yeats in school and Ireland so but if I can compress nth Yeats in a way that makes people listen to me yeah I knew yeah and here here because his words are timeless yeah they're so great if I can turn people on to them just in a new way that I'll be happy so that's next mark that's expose you look what does that seem like this is a pleasure to meet you thank you very much I think.
