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HOT PRESS / 4411 / CONTENTS COVER STORY

B OY ’ S OW N A DVEN TU R E

As Boy and All That You Can’t Leave Behind celebrate their respective 40th and 20th birthdays and An Post honour them with their own set of stamps, Pat Carty presides over the mother of all U2 features. Not content with getting the inside words from producer Steve Lillywhite and their graphic designer, Shaughn McGrath, we’ve the best of Noel Gallagher’s extremely funny Bono yarns and fan letters from the likes of Christy Dignam, Gemma Hayes, Kodaline and The Script.

REVIEWS

FEATURES 44

IT ’ S OK AY TO NOT B E OK AY

To kick off our mindfulness special, Lucy O’Toole quizzes the Minister of State for Mental Health, Mary Butler, who talks about her own experience of postnatal depression.

WH EN T H E L E VY B R EAK S T H E BE A N ECESS I T T I ES Tattoos, viral hits, Dublin karaoke joints and wanting to be a nursery school teacher are all on the agenda when Tanis Smither shoots the grunge-pop breeze with Beabadoobee.

In a bumper Inside The Box, we select the month’s finest eye and ear candy, and Tanis Smither gets on the transAtlantic blower to three of the Emmy award-winning Schitt's Creek crew,

BE T WEE N A ROC K ET AND A HA RD PLACE

Pat Carty talks Nazi super weapons with historical fiction writer Robert Harris, plus we run the rule over the latest from Roddy Doyle, Kevin Barry and Mary McAleese. SPOILER ALERT: They’re all belters!

FRONTLINES Shamim Malekmian reports on the latest developments in the St. Mary’s (Telford) closure scandal; McCann goes all Gogglebox on us; and The Whole Hog looks forward to the Trumps being evicted from The White House.

A&R DEPT...14 ALBUMS…80 PHANTOM...90

SIX OF THE BEST FROM HOTPRESS.COM

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Credit Where It's Due

facebook.com/hotpressmagazine Niall Stokes

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editor

Hot Press Magazine

group deputy editor

Mairin Sheehy Stuart Clark editor Jess Murray

group production editor commissioning

Eimear O'Connor Karen Kelleher

art director design

NOTHING COMPARES TO U2 In a further salute to our cover stars, we’ve classic reviews, interviews, on the road reports, videos and other U2 goodies, which you really can’t leave behind.

Duan Stokes Paul Nolan Lucy O'Toole, Tanis Smither

publishing director

contributing editor editorial writers

Miguel Ruiz Glen Bollard, Danni Fro, Ava Holtzman, Karen Kelleher chief photographer

additional photography

cover photography includes

Anton Corbijn, Simon Reeves accounts

Colm Henry,

Shaun Oscar Taylor Mark Hogan Danielle Ronan

marketing consultant

MAY TAL ATTRACTION

Reggae superstar Toots Hibbert talked Pat Carty through his remarkable career in one of the last interviews he gave before his tragic death last month.

THIEF ENCOUNTERS

Adrianne Lenker of cult indie rockers Big Thief discusses the band’s new album songs and instrumentals, a powerful exploration of grief and healing, with Ingrid Angulo.

GENESIS BAEZ

THE DEVIL IS A LIAR

As the US Presidential election hurtles towards us, Sinéad O’Connor speaks with great eloquence – and no little venom – about why the success of the Black Lives Matter movement hinges on Trump being booted out of the White House. Oh yes, and him literally being the devil. She also talks musical heroes, memoirs and new material with Stuart Clark.

NORMAN SEEFF

VAN OVERBOARD

President Michael D. Higgins freestyling ‘Rave On, John Donne’, Damien Rice singing ‘Crazy Love’ in silhouette and Andrea Corr performing ‘Moondance’ on a mandolin in her bedroom are just three of the 75 Van songs covered by Irish artists in celebration of The Man’s 75th birthday. You’ll find them all archived on the Hot Press YouTube.

IT’S NEWS TO ME

From upcoming Amy Winehouse box-sets and Bruce Springsteen docs to Wild Stripes’ Greatest Hits packages and the music industry’s fightback against Covid, we’ll keep you up to date with the rock ‘n’ roll stories that matter.

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Eirin Combs, Cathal Dawson, CJ Hartigan, Colm Henry, Graham Keogh, Anna Kerslake, Aga Kowalska, Natalia Marzec, Brian Mulligan, Mark Nixon, Peter O'Hanlon, Max Freebern, Karl Leonard, Saoirse Sexton, Vicki Anderson, Adriano Elisei contributors

Ingrid Angulo, Pavel Barter, Nia Beckett, Aoife Bradshaw, Kate Brayden, Jack Byrne, Wayne Byrne, Pat Carty, Helen Cullen, Roisin Dwyer, Artemis Fowl, Sarah Gill, Laura Grainger, Rachel Hannon, Laura Harff, Selina Jeunling, Michael Kealy, Johnny Keegan, Stephen Keegan, Will Kinsella, Tadhg Larabee, Eamonn McCann, Roe McDermott, Peter McGoran, Edwin McFee, Peter McNally, Valentina Magli, Shamim Malekmian, Joey Molloy, Kyle Mulholland, Adrienne Murphy, Colm O’Hare, Lucy O'Toole, Alan Owens, Stephen Porzio, Ed Power, Brenna Ransden, Alix Renaud, David Rooney, Will Russell, Anne Sexton, Tanis Smither, Dermot Stokes, Mary Stokes, Eamon Sweeney, Julie Van Praet, John Walshe, Brooke Weber, Kevin Worrall, Bill Graham 1951-1996.

CONTACT US Hot Press is published fortnightly by Osnovina Ltd., 100 Capel Street, Dublin 1, Ireland. TEL: (01) 241 1500 EMAIL: info@hotpress.ie WEBSITE: hotpress.com All material © Hot Press 2020. All rights reserved.

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ACCE S S A LL A R E A S SUB S CR IP TION YO U C A N G IV E T H E M U S IC FA N IN Y O U R LIF E A C C E S S T O T H E H U B O F IR IS H M U S IC • AW A R D -W IN N IN G P H O T O G R A P H Y, M U S IC A N D J O U R N A LIS M • T H E H O T P R E S S A R C H IV E S DAT IN G B A C K T O 19 7 7 • T H E M A G A Z IN E D E L IV E R E D D IR E C T LY T O Y O U E V E R Y T IM E • A LL T H E IN F O O N E V E R Y T H IN G T H AT M AT T E R S IN M U S IC IN IR E L A N D – A S IT H A P P E N S SUPP OR T INDEPENDENT JOUR NA LISM

JOIN US ON OUR JOUR NE Y M OR E THA N E V ER , INDEPENDENT IR ISH JOUR NA LISM NEEDS YOUR SUPP OR T

MAD HATTER Who would be the last person you would invite to your birthday party? Donald Trump Who would be the first person you would invite to your birthday party? My partner Brian. Favourite saying? Never give up, you never know how close you are! Favourite record? Mud Slide Slim – James Taylor Favourite book? Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden Favourite film? Shawshank Redemption Favourite author or poet? Seamus Heaney Favourite actor/actress? Judy Garland Favourite musician? Steve Cooney Most embarrassing moment of your life? Many years ago I did a TV interview, throughout which I called the presenter by another well-known presenter’s name. When I got home my husband pointed it out and I was absolutely mortified. Favourite food/drink/stimulant? Thai/Sparkling water/Coffee TV programme? Gogglebox Favourite TV personality? Des Cahill Favourite item of clothing? Black jeans

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FRANCES BLACK Senator

Most desirable date? Will Smith (after my partner Brian of course) Favourite method of relaxation? Long walks on Rathlin Island with my lovely dog Charlo. If you weren’t pursuing your present career, what other career might you have chosen? I’m a singer, an addiction therapist and a politician. I’m still working at all three, which I love but I am looking forward to retiring in about 10 years time. Biggest thrill? My beautiful granddaughters Kitty and Winnie. Biggest disappointment? The Green Party going into Government.

FAVOURITE SAYING? NEVER GIVE UP, YOU NEVER KNOW HOW CLOSE YOU ARE!

Your concept of heaven? Hanging out with my children, their partners and grandchildren on Rathlin Island. Your concept of hell? When I couldn’t see my grandchildren during lockdown. What would be your dying words? I did me best. Greatest ambition? To get the Occupied Territories Bill passed. Period of history you’d most like to have lived in and why? ‘30s and ‘40s in Hollywood, I loved all the old movies. If you weren’t a human being which animal would you have chosen to be? An elephant because they are familyorientated, loyal and very determined. If you were told that the world was ending tomorrow morning, how would you react/what would you do? Have a party with family and friends. Your nominee for the world’s bestdressed person? My sister Mary Favourite term of abuse? I learned this from me ma! It’s an old Dublin saying! ‘Go fart up a plum tree.’ Biggest fear? Swimming in the sea. Humanity’s most useful invention? Music Humanity’s most useless invention? Gaming consoles that promote violence. • Frances Black is an Independent Senator, singer and founder of the RISE Foundation, a charitable organisation working with people with a loved one in addiction.

THE MESSAGE NIALL STOKES EDITOR OF THE YEAR

ALL THAT DONALD TRUMP CAN’T LEAVE BEHIND We are less than a fortnight away from what – one way or another – will be a watershed Presidential election in the US. At the moment, political analysts believe that Donald Trump is likely to be turfed unceremoniously out of the White House by the electorate. But the grim underlying fear is that the natural born demagogue and proto-fascist may have one final trick up his sleeve – or worse again that he will dig in and refuse to go. Fasten your seat belts...

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conditions, or along the banks of rivers, in the southern half of the continent of Africa. But nice, and creatively productive, as that meeting of great minds would undoubtedly be, the fact is that I had other issues with which to wrestle.

HUCKSTER WITH HIDDEN HORNS

In truth, I also wanted to write about Donald Trump and the upcoming Presidential election in the United States of America. It has been next to impossible, after all, for endless months now, to get away – even for half an hour of a normal working day – from an ongoing sense of sheer, almighty dread at the appalling possibility that the nasty, lying loudmouth might somehow steal a win in the first week of November, and remain in occupation of the White House. And proceed to torture us all on Twitter for another four years. Jesus fucking Christ. The palpitations. On the plus side, since Joe Biden emerged from the exercise in absurdity that is the US system of ‘primaries’, where money doesn’t talk it swears till its red in the face, and the Presidential election campaign proper started, the Democrats have played a relatively good, simple, strategic game. I am not being insulting when I say that almost nowhere in the world would Joe Biden be considered prime Presidential material. He has nothing much to say. He can’t string more than a few words together impressively. Original he is not. Nor

TRUMP IN COLLAGE FROM GAGE SKIDMORE

wanted to write about U2. This is a special issue after all, to mark 40 years since the launch of the band’s wonderfully innocent and explosively original debut album Boy; and 20 years since the release of their huge, shimmering global hit record All That You Can’t Leave Behind. In the context of such monumental musical achievements, we couldn’t leave the entire foreground to a man from Tullamore by the name of Pat Carty, could we? Well, maybe we could, but it seemed to me, when I dragged myself out of the scratcher this morning, that the poor fella had been digging away in the vineyard for so long, over the past few weeks, that he’d need a bit of a hand. Or moral support at least. I could, for example, sit and watch, while he hammered away at his poor, battered and bedraggled laptop. He might read aloud the odd phrase to me, ostensibly by way of engaging in a form of creative collaboration with the boss, but really just to demonstrate that he is indeed what, in the old school, used to be called “a phrase-maker.” It’d require only a modicum of attention and a smattering of enthusiastic applause on my part to convince him that I had been listening. I could, meanwhile, polish my nails and dream up new rhymes for the word ‘preposterous’ that have nothing whatsoever to do with large mammals with big mouths that live generally in swampy

THE MESSAGE charismatic. His energy levels are low. And he has, in the past, been somewhat gaffe-prone. He is, however, a decent sort of skin and he is a moderate. Perversely, that may be all that the current moment requires in the US. And so, for the most part, the Democrats have kept their man out of harm’s way. All the while, since February, the death toll from coronavirus has been mounting inexorably. As a result, Trump is trailing badly in the polls, with Joe Biden hitting a double digit lead, in the poll of polls, taken across the lot. Right now, on the face of it, the election is his to lose. But that’s what most commentators believed last time out. Hillary Clinton’s advantage wasn’t quite as cavernous, and Trump had the faddish momentum that a fresh kind of lunacy can sometimes engender. But, still, no one thought that Trump had a hope two weeks out. The huckster with hidden horns won completely against the odds. No wonder that, all over the world, people are sweating. Might the despicable con man have enough treachery in the tank to succeed in doing the same again? He might.

WE’VE DONE A VERY GOOD JOB

There is one key difference on this occasion. Back in 2016, the social media behemoth Facebook effectively colluded with the Trump campaign, enabling them to target African American voters with the message that their vote would make no difference. Facebook had amassed sufficient data on just about everyone in America to enable the Trump campaign to home in on those who were most easily swayed to indifference. Who were themselves cynical about the political process. Who had a lot going on in their lives. Or who could be convinced that Clinton had it in the bag and there was no need for them to bother going to the polls on Election Day. The opportunity Trump and his sleazy backroom operators had spotted was riper for exploitation than conventional political pundits had understood: foment misogynistic hatred of Hillary Clinton;

taxes. And still, early in the year, looked as if he might only need to pull the right stunt – like launching a war in Iran – to win. And then came Covid-19. We’ve got it totally under control – it’s just one person from China. It’s just like the flu. 99% of covid cases are totally harmless. Children are virtually immune from Covid-19. Some day, it’s like a miracle, it’ll just disappear. Anybody that needs a test get a test: they’re there – they have the tests and the tests are beautiful. The United States has carried out more testing than the rest of the world combined. The US has the lowest case fatality rate in the world. I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute – one minute – is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Pharmaceutical companies are going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon. I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way – and I think you said you’re going to test that too... so, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute – that’s pretty powerful. So we have between 100,000 and 200,000 (deaths), and we altogether have done a very good job. A coronavirus vaccine could be ready by Election Day. We’re weeks away from a vaccine.

THERE ARE ENOUGH GUNS OUT THERE

He denied it. Minimised it. Blamed China. Fomented racial hatred again. Offered his own crackpot musings on potential cures. Said it was nothing. Promised vaccines and fixes. You could see him frothing dangerously at the mouth. But the numbers kept growing. Trump joked about it only being losers like Joe Biden who wear masks. Then he contracted the virus. He had become just another one of an astonishing 8.5 million confirmed cases in the US alone. He failed to add himself to the over 225,000 deaths to date (and rising). There were in excess of 51,000 new cases on Monday of this week – the highest in the world. And Donald Trump is still claiming that he has done a great job.

“HE HAS RUN THE WORST, MOST CHAOTIC, MOST CHRONICALLY DYSFUNCTIONAL ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY.” prevent enough black people from voting; meanwhile, get the white supremacists and racists energised and convince them that their hour has come at last and ‘Hey presto!’. Trump stole the Presidency. There were those who, in the immediate aftermath of his victory, got all huffy at the suggestion that this really was a disaster; that he was not fit for high office; that he had the makings in him of a political monster, and a demagogue; that he could and most likely would do wrecking ball-scale damage – not just to the United States of America, its people and its institutions, but that the poisonous nastiness, which is his milieu and modus operandi, would spill out across the world in a cataclysmic, toxic, political contagion. “He’s the legitimately elected President of the United States,” they said. “Get over it.” Would that it had turned out to be that easy. In fact, in each and every respect, Trump has exceeded even the very worst expectations of his most virulent detractors. From the start, he was a mendacious, cesspit-minded and thoroughly divisive figure, promoting hatred and conflict where even the worst Presidents have tried – in some shape or form – to act as a healing force, if only just among Americans. As the President of the United States, he has abused individuals, reneged on promises, broken international treaties, consistently acted in bad faith, carried out personal vendettas, lied countless thousands of times, supported white supremacists, condoned police brutality against African Americans, feathered his own nest, spewed hate, attempted to bully and browbeat political rivals, and so on and on and on. We’d be here for a week, if we had to get through the entire chargesheet. He began his term with risible lies about the size of the turn-out at his inauguration. Invented the idea of an ‘alternative facts’. Fomented hatred against asylum seekers and immigrants. Attacked Muslims. Separated children from their parents at the border. Declared alt-right fascists to be very fine people. Refused to condemn police brutality or the murder of George Floyd. Called US soldiers losers. Paid zero

There is not a single good and lasting thing that he has achieved in his four years as President. He has run the worst, most chaotic, most chronically dysfunctional administration in history. He has surrounded himself with chancers, flunkies and family members. He has continued to shamelessly screw a buck out of every opportunity in the most corrupt and venal ways imaginable. He is a walking, talking, lying, scheming embarrassment. And a crude and ignorant demolition man, destroying whatever checks, balances and accommodations had been achieved in the international arena through decades of diplomatic hard graft. And yet, objectively, he is still in with a chance. His core support of up to 35% has barely wavered. He just needs to spook enough people out of voting for Biden. Which brings us to the core absurdity. So totally unrepresentative is the utterly bizarre electoral college system used to vote in the US President that the final tally is likely to come down to the results in a small number of so called swing States. Last time out Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 48% to 46% – and yet Trump took 56.5% of the electoral college votes to become President. How do the citizens of the country that claims to be the world’s greatest democracy allow such a crazy system to continue? And while we’re at it, how do they invest what amount to the powers of a dictator in what is meant to be a democratically accountable President? How do they let someone like Donald Trump get away, for four years, with the kind of erratic, dangerous, prejudiced and self-serving behaviour that would see him sacked in almost every other civilised country? To take it as its most blindingly toxic, how is it possible for him to flagrantly parachute a stooge in, to take charge of the postal system a few months before the Presidential election, with the specific purpose of slowing down and if possible jamming entirely the process of postal voting, to suppress the African American vote? What we are witnessing is a level of unscrupulousness that is historic. And a political and electoral system that is completely unable to cope with it. Trump is desperate to hang onto power. Because if he doesn’t

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THE MESSAGE

GREED AND LUST FOR UNTRAMMELLED POWER

As I said, I had wanted to write about U2. So much that they have achieved has been done out of idealism. Over the 40 years since Boy, they have created great art. They have built tours that broke new ground in production terms. They have created marvellous iconography that has just now been honoured by being used as the basis for four new Irish stamps. They have quietly contributed hugely to good causes locally and across the world. Bono in particular has campaigned for a different, justice-driven relationship with Africa. He has battled for the resources to fight AIDS there. He has got in the faces of politicians and refused to go away till he extracted commitments from them that would – and did – offer hope of a better future to individuals and communities across that beautiful continent. Those of us who have known U2 from the start can bear witness to something extraordinary. The instinct they have shown to make a contribution, to be a force for good and for enlightenment, to make the world a better place for everyone, as far as their influence might

reach, was there from the very start. Bill Graham’s article, from 1980, which we republish in this issue of Hot Press, offers an insight that is extraordinary, even for those who know the score. You can trace almost everything that happened to U2 in their work and in their art, back to that moment when a hugely ambitious young band set out, to take on the world. In The Graveyard Talks Back, Arundhati Roy recently wondered: if she were incarcerated would her writing become freer and less ’negotiated’. Her answer is a powerful rebuke to those who reduce the richness of life to mere slogans. “I believe our liberation lies in the negotiation,” she counters. “Hope lies in the texts that can accommodate and keep alive our intricacy, our complexity and our density against the onslaught of the terrifying, sweeping simplifications of fascism.” This is something that Bono, for one, has long understood. You could not, I think, find a greater contrast to the self-serving greed and lust for untrammelled power that Donald Trump stands for, than what those four innocent 20 year olds thought, felt and said back in 1980. Human creatures exist in a permanent tension between the drive towards freedom and liberation and the brutal ideology of fear, control and exploitation. The hope now has to be that we can renew that sense of idealism which U2 showed, and the commitment to the values of mutual support, respect and solidarity it underpins. If Donald Trump is beaten well, and forced to slink away from the White House for good – to go down in the annals as a mere twisted blip in history – then it surely will be time to celebrate. It if does come to pass, this will hopefully be just the start of the a much deeper and more far-reaching process of renewal. In the US, what is needed is a complete reinvention of how democracy works. But that is for another day. In Ireland, we have to get to grips not just with the coronavirus, but with the drift towards a different kind of creeping authoritarianism which it has enabled. But for now, friends, let us just try to breathe. Deeply. A brighter morning may dawn on November 4. Sleep, sleep tonight. And may your dreams be realised.

SAV I N G C H R I S T M A S

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ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID ROONEY

he might end up in jail. This is the Faustian pact into which he entered. On the one hand almost limitless power. But at the end of it, the possibility that every crime committed along the way might just catch up with him. If he loses will he go quietly into that good night? Right now it is impossible to know. But what we can say is that there is growing evidence that he is getting the stage set, and ready, for a refusal to accept the result. That he will do everything in his power to mobilise the white militias he has sucked up to over the past four years. And that there are enough guns out there in the hands of extremists for these fanatics to believe that they are in with a chance of taking over. And besides, who knows what the US military and police might do, confronted with a choice? The portents for US democracy have seldom been as dark. We thought the horror show might be coming to an end – and it might. But if not, it’s going to get a whole lot bloodier and gorier.

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MUSIC NEWS

VOL: 44 ISSUE: 11

Hot Press Records To Release Malaki Van Tribute

“IT’S HARD NOT TO FEEL SOME SORT OF CONNECTION TOWARDS VAN MORRISON’S LEGACY AS AN ARTIST.”

ollowing the worldwide success of our Rave On, Van Morrison 75th birthday celebrations – close now to a million YouTube views – we’re delighted to announce the release through Hot Press Records of Malaki’s sublime take on ‘Someone Like You’. Hitting all the major digital platforms over the next fortnight, it confirms the Dublin Hip Hopper Also Known As Hugh Mulligan and his Malaki cohort Matthew Harris as the country’s most prodigiously talented up and coming acts. “The first time I connected to Van Morrison’s music was in 2015,” he tells us. “I was driving with my mother on a summer’s evening and ‘Someone Like You’ was playing on the radio. I asked my mother who this

was, as she replied ‘That’s Van the Man’. I have felt a connection towards his music ever since. “It’s a sort of admiration I have for the man that you can’t quite find in some other artists. He is definitely a role model to me musically. “What makes Van Morrison so special in my eyes is his diversity in genres. He ranges from rock to R&B to jazz to blues. There’s nothing the man can’t do. “It’s hard not to feel some sort of connection towards Van Morrison’s legacy as an artist,” Malaki concludes. “His music transcends a sense of Irishness throughout commonly referring to poets such as Seamus Heaney. I admire his dedication to never forgetting his roots no matter how successful.” ‘Someone Like You’ was one of the

standouts on Poetic Champions Compose, Van’s 17th studio album from 1987, which also included ‘Queen Of The Slipstreem’, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child’ and ‘Did Ye Get Healed?’ The song has become a walking down the aisle wedding staple, and featured on movies as divere as Bridget Jones’ Diary, French Kiss and American Sniper. It’s a brave young singer that tries to put their own stamp on it, but Malaki brings it right up to date without losing any of the original’s dreamy-eyed soul. In addition to his Hot Press Records release, the prolific 19-year-old has a heavyweight vinyl LP, Chrysalis, shipping shortly with preorders being taken at musicglue.com/malaki/ products/malaki-chrysalis.

WIN A U2 SPECIAL COLLECTION PACK! To celebrate the launch of An Post's set of U2 stamps on October 15, we're offering you the chance to win a spectacular special collection pack – including a booklet of four U2 stamps; a miniature sheet with U2 stamps; a souvenir sheet with a special U2 stamp; and a first day cover souvenir sheet with special U2 stamps.

Log on to hotpress.com/competitions for your chance to win! HOTPRESS.COM 011

SEND DESIRE. SEND PRIDE. SEND LOVE.

From the Dandelion Market to Madison Square Garden. From Boy to Songs of Experience. From Dublin’s hardest working band to the biggest band in the world. U2’s incredible journey is worthy of a celebration. An Post is celebrating four albums from their era-defining back catalogue with four beautiful new stamps.

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A CELEBRATION

For these stamps and more great U2 collectables, visit your local post office ÉIRE N ÉIRE W or anpost.com/U2

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It is October, the month when kingdoms rise… and fall. The trees stripped bare, we celebrate two U2 anniversaries. Their debut album Boy in all its bright and shining glory, is turning forty. Meanwhile, it’s twenty whole years since the 12 million-selling All That You Can’t Leave Behind was released, into a turbulent world. To mark the occasion, Pat Carty pulls them both down off the shelf and joins the dots... yself and Guggi had made a pledge as kids that we would never grow up.” Bono was looking back, trying to find the key to what made the band’s 1980 debut album Boy such a special artefact. “We didn’t want to be like adults,” he reflected, “and in a certain way we pulled it off. I probably had a hunch that we might lose some of our uniqueness, and our first album was perhaps trying to lay claim to the power of naïveté.” It’s a nice idea, and if you’re determined not to grow up, a rock n’ roll band is the place to do it. Tom Waits was right, after all, when he howled “Nothin’ out there but sad and gloom/ I don’t wanna grow up.” Then again, so was Percy Bysshe Shelley when he coined the immortal line: “Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; nought may endure but mutability.” Nothing can change the course of time’s dangerous arrow. And so Boy, U2’s debut album is now – sing this with me – 40. It is a record that captures the confusion, and as the man himself hinted, the naïveté, of adolescence like few, if any, others. It is a snapshot of boys trying hard to be the men they would eventually become. All of twenty years separates it from All That You Can’t Leave Behind, a record that speaks to confusion of a different stripe – as well as hard-won wisdom. And twenty years separates our now from that then. But there are commonalities; in the shadows, boy meets man. So let us first fast forward, to another time, another place, all the better to look back.

PHOTOS: ANTON CORBIJN & COLM HENRY

T H E L A S T O F T H E R O C K S TA R S Whatever you and I might feel about Pop (1997) now – and any record that has ‘Do You Feel Loved’, ‘Staring At The Sun’, ‘Please’ and ‘If You Wear That Velvet Dress’ on it can hardly be classed as bad – it seems U2 don’t like it. “We wanted to make a party record, but we came in at the end of the party,” is how Bono has characterised it. The general consensus is, apparently, that it could have done with another month or two in the oven, although the real problem might have been that there were too many cooks gathered around the kitchen

(or even The Kitchen). The tour had been booked, however, so out it went into the world. Whatever about its artistic merits, it remains one of the band’s least successful records commercially, and by the time they got the Popmart tour out of their system, they were ready to take a step back from the blips, the beeps and the Day-Glo. Among U2 fans – or many of them at any rate – there was a sigh of relief. They wanted the band they had fallen in love with back. “We’d really taken the deconstruction of the rock n’ roll band format to its absolute Nth degree,” was how The Edge put it. “We felt we wanted to hear the band again.” They first released the compilation, The Best Of 1980-1990, in 1998, as a kind of stop gap. It was a reminder of the old, openhearted U2, before they’d hidden their good intentions beneath the cloak of irony. And then, they took their sweet time in hazarding their next step. They had learned a lesson and were not going to rush this one. They reunited with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, the production team behind their three greatest records – and the first thing the rest of us got to hear from the sessions was ‘Beautiful Day’, released as the lead single on the October 9, 2000. It was a step back to where they once belonged: here was a big, sky-scraping song that could have slotted onto that first decade compilation in a way that nothing on Pop really would have. Apparently, there was some argy-bargy within the band about the single, with Bono suggesting that it was just a bit too U2-y. The Edge’s guitar was to the fore: it hadn’t really been heard that way since the first three albums. Then again, as manager Paul McGuiness pointed out, why not play to your strengths? The Edge has referred to it as a U2 Coca-Cola riff, the kind of thing he had trademarked with the opening bars of ‘I Will Follow’, although there’s still plenty of the ‘90s techniques the band had adopted going on in the background – just listen to its opening glow, or those massed voices that take over after the middle eight. You can also hear the bright, radio friendly sheen that Steve Lillywhite added to the production when he was called in to assist. Muso talk like this is all very well, you might say – the main thing is that when U2 play it live and the big riff and chorus come in, everybody jumps up and down. Like lunatics. Mission accomplished. Released as a single, it was a huge hit, peaking at

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THIS HUR T WILL HUR T NO M OR E Songs like ‘Walk On’, ‘New York’ and most especially ‘Grace’ deserve a place on any self-respecting U2 playlist. But two of my own favourites – sitting at the album’s centre – are less celebrated. ‘In A Little While’ is a beauty in its simplicity. The Edge pulls another of his seemingly inexhaustible supply of instantly memorable riffs out of the air, only this time he plays it straight, with what seems like very little signal processing going on. There are four producers credited, including Richard Stannard and

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Julian Gallagher alongside Eno and Lanois: Stanard, who had worked extensively with The Spice Girls, added a loop to Larry’s drums before the band were happy with it and Bono sings one of his “sorry, missus” lyrics. You can imagine Ali rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. It’s Bono’s vocal performance that really carries the track, made all the more remarkable when you hear that it emerged out of the haze of a disastrous hangover. I always imagined this as a song that Al Green could have gamely tackled. It is also the tune that Joey Ramone listened to more than any other, as he lay dying. There are reports that The Edge thought ‘Wild Honey’ a little too close to the Paul McCartney song recorded by The Beatles, the bouncy ‘Ob-la-Di, Ob-La-Da’; Brian Eno said the song reminded him of Van Morrison. Let’s go with Eno on this one, as it does have some of that carefree soul that the best Morrison records exude. Mullen doesn’t like it, but that’s okay, as this is freewheeling in the same way that Prince was on ‘Raspberry Beret’. It sounds like U2 arsing around and having a laugh, and is all the better for it. “We thought it would be fun to include it,” Daniel Lanois told Niall Stokes for U2: Songs and Experience, “a nice, simple, clear song with a lovely sentiment.” Bono has spoken about a lack of joy on Pop; they had relocated it here. Before we, uh, leave it behind then, it is worth taking a look at the extras in the new package. There are some choice B-Sides and outtakes like ‘Levitate’ and ‘Summer Rain’. For ‘The Ground Beneath Her Feet’, the band took a lyric from Salman Rushdie’s book and crafted something beautiful around it. Both it and ‘Stateless’ – described by the singer as a kind of “sci-fi blues” – are taken from

BRIAN ENO: SHAMIL TANNA / SUMMERHILL / SLANE PHOTO: COLM HENRY

No.1 across Europe – including the UK – and went on to win three Grammys all on its own. You can’t argue with a hit. And before the cool kids try to argue with it anyway, they should remember that this is a song that Michael Stipe of REM has pointed to as one he wishes he had written. Case dismissed. The album All That You Can’t Leave Behind followed on October 30 and – driven by the soaring success of the first single – it rocketed to the top of the charts all over the world (with a few odd exceptions, including the US, where it peaked at No.3). No wonder it is worth celebrating, in a new, expanded, special 2020 edition. Bono liked to joke that this was the record where they reapplied for the job of best band in the world, and they may just have pulled it off. Put aside the fact that it was a huge commercial success – 12 million copies and counting – and concentrate instead on its contents. The album was packed with what the band felt Pop had been missing: finished songs fit to stand beside the big ones from the eighties and early nineties that had written their name indelibly into the history books.

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Bono’s acquired taste of a movie, The Million Dollar Hotel. Perhaps the best thing on the extra disks is ‘Big Girls Are Best’, a Pop leftover wherein Bono praises the more voluptuous section of the female population, as the band get all the way down behind him. Some girls are bigger than others and that suits our man just fine. “He’s talking about women who aren’t stick insects,” Edge said. “It’s pretty tongue-in-cheek and throwaway.” They should have included its genuine, grinning joy on that troubled album. The Elevation tour that followed the album’s release was akin to a lap of honour for a band that were truly back on top, winning back the fans that slipped away, while they were busy trying to learn how to dance. It sold out all over the place and grossed a tidy $143 million, proving that they had certainly passed the audition for their old job. The audio of the show from Boston is included in the box, but it was the two stops in Slane in 2001 – extraordinary gigs both – that linked All That You Can’t Leave Behind back to where they had come from in more ways than one.

W H O ’ S T O S AY W H AT I T I S W I L L B R E A K Y O U For all its joyous music – there aren’t many things as loveably daft as the moles-digging-in-holes ‘Elevation’ in the U2 canon – there is a shadow of mortality hanging over this record. ‘Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of’ is a great soul/gospel song to rival the directness of ‘In A Little While’ and another Grammy winner in 2002. It was written as an imagined conversation that Bono never got to have with his tormented friend, INXS frontman Michael

Hutchence, who died by suicide in 1997. Added to that tragic backdrop, Bono’s dad, Bob Hewson, was gravely ill while the band were at work recording. After he passed away, Bono dedicated ‘Kite’ to him at the Slane gig and it’s clear that that his illness was playing on his son’s mind when Bono wrote the lyric, “Who’s to know when the time’s come around/ Don’t want to see you cry/ I know that this is not goodbye.” As well as essaying the new, at those momentous 2001 Slane Castle shows, U2 also reached right back, playing ‘I Will Follow’ on the first night, and ‘Out Of Control’ on the second. They are perhaps the two best known songs from the debut album Boy, which was released four decades ago, on October 20, 1980. It remains one of their finest records – I know people who swear blind that it is their greatest – and stands as the first time they put in an application for that “best band in the world” position. Well, they could hardly have done it any sooner. Any band worth talking about at all must treat their debut album as their shot at the title, their spin on the big wheel of fate, a foot to be shoved in the door, an application for a seat at the big table. However, there aren’t many bands that managed it as successfully, and as on their own terms as U2 – but then the ‘2 were different from the kick off. Even before the album arrived, you could hear the confidence in Bono’s voice, when he went on Dave Fanning’s radio show in 1979 to premiere the tracks on the U2 3 EP and carefully distanced himself from other bands of the time. He was there, ostensibly, to let the audience pick the lead track, although it was more a case of you can have any colour you like as long as it’s ‘Out Of Control’.

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You can hear that self-belief on the finished album too: Boy was confident enough to dispense with the studied cool of contemporaries like Echo & The Bunnymen, allowing itself instead to be almost gauche in its openness. That confidence is exemplified in the already unique sound of Edge’s guitar, replete with the chiming, echoed patterns of Coca-Cola riffs like ‘The Electric Co.’ and ‘I Will Follow’ – ancestors of ‘Beautiful Day’ in their own way. You can hear it in Larry’s drumming, playing in the songs rather than against them. You can even hear it in Adam Clayton’s bass. He’d probably be the first to admit that he had a way to go yet to achieve proficiency, but he displays subtle and inventive touches. Bono’s voice had a distance to travel too, before he would achieve the soul-baring heights of ‘One Tree Hill’ or ‘In A Little While’. But he was heading in the right direction: it would only take that voice five years to get from here to the memorable falsetto on ‘The Unforgettable Fire’. His steady, incremental development as a singer is something Bono doesn’t get enough credit for.

The voice he had as a teenager, however, was perfectly suited to delivering the themes the band explored on Boy – from sexual awakening in ‘An Cat Dubh’ to his naked ambition on ‘The Ocean’. “I felt the world could go far,” he sings unabashed, “if they’d listen to what I say.” Bono had already started the reverse landslide of self-belief in his ego that would ultimately fuel his ascent. One can find grief here too as the absence of Bono’s mother looms large over both ‘Out Of Control’ and ‘I Will Follow’, a sentiment that would be transferred to his father for ‘Kite’. Juxtapose all this with how Adam Clayton described All That You Can’t Leave Behind: the record, he said was written “about the journey we’d been through as a band, as men in relationships, as sons of mothers and fathers. It was about the baggage that you have to live with, the sense of loss.” Put it another way: Boy navigates the confusion of adolescence while All That You Can’t Leave Behind tries to negotiate the equally tricky bollards of maturity. I sat in a lecture once about Homer’s Odyssey, as the good professor tried to explain to the 18 year-old me why Odysseus was the perfect human character. Yes, he got into all these crazy adventures and threw the leg over Circe, but he was also a husband, a father, and a son, he knew about life because he had lived it and experienced both its joys and its pains. It is a message that struck home, and that stuck. I’m far from trying to claim demigod status for U2 – but this was where the band were at, individually and collectively, on ATYCLB. The rounded lives they had lived as husbands and fathers and sons were there, embedded in their art but visible still for all to see. Boy is the perfect title for their first album, but All That You Can’t Leave Behind could have just as easily been called Man. Both records are soundtracks that play over the tannoy in stations we must all pass through. And I, for one, am still listening.

In n o v atio n Is Th e Sin c e re st Form Of Ph ilate ly SHAUGHN McGRATH has designed for U2 on everything they’ve released since Achtung Baby – so when An Post decided to honour the Irish fab four with a quartet of stamps, they knew who to call. Interview: Pat Carty P O RT RA I T: M A R I A K A N E

esign, artwork and photographs have always been vital to U2. It is, of course, initially all about the music. But the release of an album involves the opportunity to play with other elements that have the potential to immerse the audience in a wider expression of what an artist or a band is driving at: how they want to be seen, as well as what they are trying to say. If you think fondly of the Day-Glo mash up of Lichtenstein and Kmart that was the essence of Pop, or the pleasing lines of the Joshua Tree box-set, then designer Shaughn McGrath is the man to thank. We may now also praise him for An Post’s brand new set of U2 stamps, which are more objet d’art than mere proof of postage paid. Shaughn explains how the whole thing came about. “I think An Post want to broaden their landscape as a business,” Shaun observes, “and with the stamp programme, I think they want to give it a more poignant meaning in people’s lives rather than just being a functionary service. I had designed another set of stamps, called Great Irish Songs, and one of those was for ‘With Or Without You’, so there was a relationship there. I’m both An Post’s designer and U2’s designer.”

It Was The Ques t ions We Got Right

It doesn’t take Einstein to observe that the combination of the constraints of the medium – stamps are rather small, after all – and the breadth of the subject, presents its own special challenges. “How do you sum up the band’s career in four very small canvases?” Shaun asks. “Do you pick four albums? Do you go by decade? I combined both approaches, with a significant album from each decade, in an attempt to cover the incredible legacy and career of the band.”

The questions don’t end there. “Do you use a photograph? Could we make it more of an exceptional and unique thing in itself? The idea of reinvention is really important to U2: we don’t repeat. The creative process, approached anew each time, is a driving factor in how everyone involved with the band operates.” There’s a strong iconography associated with every U2 campaign and release, but certain eras stand out. That’s what got Shaun buzzing again. “The idea became: to take icons associated with albums that have a particular meaning for U2 fans and music fans alike. If you consider the band’s incredible output in the 1980s, we couldn’t but agree that The Joshua Tree is a high mark, and the icons that have come to represent those ideas are well known in themselves – like the tree from the photograph by Anton Corbijn. That became the pathway to try and explore, for the rest of the decades.” The 1990s were next. “The Achtung Baby baby was originally a spray drawing on Windmill Lane wall by Charlie Whisker. Going back to the original design, I then set about creating a whole suite of icons for the Zoo TV Tour, and they’ve kind of taken on a life of their own. “Likewise on the All That You Can’t Leave Behind album, I made icons for each song, and then an icon for the album itself. From Songs Of Experience, the silhouette of the photograph of Bono’s son and Edge’s daughter has become another icon that fits the remit we have going on.” McGrath is quick to share the kudos for the specialness of U2’s imagery. “In the background of all this is Anton Corbijn’s work, his incredible visual concepts that have represented the band, right back to his first work for Unforgettable Fire. He has been a constant part of U2’s visual catalogue.”continued on page 29

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It’s hard to know where to start when talking about what makes U2 unique. I was only four years old when Boy came out in 1980, but because of older siblings, this album seemed to be part of the soundtrack to my younger days. When I listen to it now, it sounds almost innocent – in the best possible way. But it was an album that showed that these boys were passionate and unafraid. The Joshua Tree was the album that seemed to cut through the ribcage, bypass the heart and shake my soul to its very core. The sound they made together as a band was epic, exciting and majestic. Theirs wasn’t the music of tortured souls, which was the type I usually connected with as a disillusioned youth: instead, U2 were reaching for higher ground in their music. The ethereal delay and reverb from the Edge, the metronomic drive of the drums, the sheer potent delivery of each song sung by Bono. He wasn’t trying to reach the people at the back of the room but the people on

the other side of the world. It was magical. They still are magical. The 80’s were a tough time in Ireland economically and socially. There was a feeling of being utterly downtrodden. Then U2 sang ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ from a roof top in Los Angeles and all of a sudden from a small bedroom in Tipperary I felt inspired, moved, hopeful. Millions of people around the world felt the same way. The Joshua Tree was an incredible gift to the world. Indeed, U2 as a band are an incredible gift to the world. Musically they remain un-jaded and fresh. Their humble beginnings, their friendship through thick and thin, their collective desire to connect with the world through music, their individual talent coming together as a whole to create music that stirs the soul. U2 are probably the only band on the planet that are deserving of every known superlative. We haven’t even touched on all the good they have done with their privileged positions in society. What makes them special? They’re Irish, they’re one of us, and among us – but they have helped us all to dream bigger.

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IT C A N 'T B E S A ID E N O U G H H O W IM P O R TA N T U 2 A R E ... NOEL HOGA N T HE C RANBERRIE S My first time hearing U2 was on a RTÉ TV show called MT-USA – they'd play ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ every week. It sounded like nothing else at the time. The atmosphere of the track was – and still is – amazing. It can’t be said enough how important U2 were and are musically, especially for Irish musicians. When you see a band have a massive commercial success like The Joshua Tree and then go on a few years later to bring out an album like Achtung Baby – it goes to show you that there is always more to be done musically, no matter how big you become. It’s an inspiration. Boy used to be on heavy rotation, among myself and my friends, after we discovered U2. They have always been the band to watch and see what comes next. The fact that they have constantly evolved is one of their greatest strengths. They've always written great songs. When the tours are over and the band are gone, the song is the thing that will be there, on it’s own to be judged. Sometimes you hit that perfect thing of a song that works on a big stage, but it should always be about the song. U2 understand that. There is a bond in a band because of everything you have been through together. That's certainly true of U2. They have been friends for a long time. Each individual has their voice within the band. U2 have always been great to The Cranberries, from the very beginning. Always welcoming to us and there to give some advice when needed it. We will always be thankful for that.

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T H E Y ’ V E N E V E R B E E N A F R A ID TO M E S S W IT H T H E IR S O U N D... STE V E GA RRIGA N KODALINE I grew up listening to The Joshua Tree and watching the Rattle And Hum live DVD. I think I was about eight when I first stumbled across U2, I remember hearing the intro of ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ and it just blew me away. You can hear the influence of U2’s sound in bands like The Stone Roses, The Killers, Kings Of Leon... the list goes on. To be honest, if it wasn’t for U2 I never would’ve started Kodaline. The fact that they were four lads from the North side of Dublin really inspired us and made us believe that we could do it. The Edge is phenomenal. His choice of sounds is one of the unique things about U2. Bono’s raw emotion, showmanship and voice are other huge strengths. The songs are incredibly well written. Larry has a lot of feel as a drummer, unlike most who just hit them as hard as they can. In fact Larry and Adam together are the backbone of the band 99% of bands break-up for various reasons or usually just get sick of each other, but U2's chemistry on stage is as good as it ever was, I actually don’t know how they stayed together but I’m glad they did. I’ve always aspired to write big songs for my own band and still do, partly due to being a U2 fan. I believe that the songs are the main thing that carry any artist – and U2 have consistently delivered huge songs. I like the fact that they’ve never been afraid to mess with their sound and get out of their comfort zones musically. They’ve also always paved the way in terms of live production and visuals. They’ve never been afraid to push the boat out. I always find myself wondering what they’re gonna do next.

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T H E Y DE LIV E R E D A S E NS E O F P R IDE A N D P O S S IB ILIT Y LOUIZE CA R R OLL T HE BLIZ Z ARDS I first discovered U2 through my sister Lisa, who was a huge fan. I shared a room with her, and I remember countless posters blue-tacked on the bedroom wall, along with Boy and The Joshua Tree being played at unholy decibels through the house. To this day, I deeply respect my parents for having allowed this indulgence! My brother Simon used to be a metal head, which I also grew to embrace, but U2 brought a little more melodic relief into the situation. I remember being struck at that early age by the charisma U2 carried: they were so engaging to me, so addictive to look at. Their confidence, and how immersed they were in the sounds they created completely hooked you in, and took you along for the ride. Their performances were so intoxicating. All That You Can’t Leave Behind became one of the soundtracks to my own teenage years. They have always had a capacity to write and produce anthems, songs like ‘Beautiful Day’, that manage to completely entrance the ears and hearts of a stadium full of people. They really honed the craft of how to own the largest of stages – and to fill every corner of it.

There has always been an essence to the band that conveyed a stoic resistance to, and a drive to fight, injustice. It is there in ‘Walk On’ and again in ‘Peace On Earth’, the two most political tracks on All That You Can’t Leave Behind. U2 were – and are – capable of being provocative and political without being anarchic. And they were evocative without being overly melancholic. They consistently struck a balance that garnered widespread respect – not only for their talent and their music, but also for their ability to brilliantly represent our country across the globe. I think, for Ireland, they delivered a sense of pride and possibility. In fact, in many ways, they encouraged young aspiring musicians, me among them, to believe that they could aim higher, wider, broader and that – if they worked at it – maybe just maybe, they could peek their own talented heads above the noise too. They brought a lot of weight to our music industry – and showed globally just what kind of quality musicians we can grow out of this little green island. With that, though, of course came the propensity for that uniquely Irish duality of being proud but also being inclined to smack you over the back of the head to bring you down to earth, just in case, you know? But 40 years on from the release of Boy, their achievements speak for themselves. Long may they continue. • The Blizzards’ single, ‘One Good Thing', is out now.

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" T HE M US IC GOE S S T R A IGHT TO YOUR B ONE S "

M Y SW EE T B ELOV ED

DA NIELLE HA R R IS ON B YR NE MY SW EE T BELOVED In 1983, living in Los Angeles, I was a completely music-obsessed 13 year-old. When my parents took me to the Us Festival in May that year, I got to stand among 670,000 other people and experience the raw, sincere power of U2. That was the War tour. I had heard ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ – one of the key tracks on that album – on the radio before then, but everything about seeing them and hearing them play it that day struck me profoundly. I felt its intensity, even though I had no idea what the words meant. I would come to understand the true

meaning of the song when I moved to Ireland many years later and learned about the country’s harrowing history. The roar of Bono’s words – “I’m so sick of it!” – still gives me the chills. I have always felt that U2 are using their words and music to send a message to lift and unite people: that they aim to inspire empathy, compassion and strength-in-solodarity. And what’s particularly impressive is that they do all of this in a way that seems like... osmosis. One minute you’re just feeling the music and then – bam! – the words start coming together, and then you’ve absorbed the story. Then you understand... this is someone’s story. Like the way ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ just goes straight into your bones. U2 always had that quality in their music. I hadn’t listened to Boy in years but it is still really fresh. ‘I Will Fol-

low’... what a heartbreaker of a song that is. U2 are a big stadium band. I saw that in fledgling form back in 1983, and you can hear it in a song like ‘It’s A Beautiful Day’ on All That You Can’t Leave Behind. But I think, as a band, you have to just not worry about writing for this reason or that reason. Just focus on being true to yourself and then others can feel it. U2 have succeeded in that. I think they come across as kind people. I can imagine it’s difficult to stay humble, with their level of success, and to not become a jaded-ass. That they have succeeded in that, too, after over 30 years at the very top, is no small achievement. D e r e k B y r n e , g u it a r is t w it h M y S w e e t B e lo v e d , adds ... The question is often asked: what influence did U2 have on Irish bands and on Irish music? The answer: it was huge. U2’s music, image – and the huge success they had – embedded Ireland’s

musical stamp even further into the global map and gave the Irish people a massive sense of pride. It was very powerful to see that a band – coming from such a small country – could impact the world on so many levels. Having a home-grown Irish band at the pinnacle of music internationally, for young musicians here to emulate, inspired the country with creativity, imagination –and the hope to one day follow in their footsteps. It is also inspiring for musicians to see how they have stayed together as a unit for over 40 years. Clearly, they have an extraordinary commitment to one another, and a bond, which I suspect comes from doing what they love most in the world: creating music together. • My Sweet Beloved’s self-titled debut album My Sweet Beloved is out now. The Hot Press verdict: “This debut finally heralds the arrival of Ireland’s newest great alt-rock band” – John Walshe 8/10

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ASLAN

YO U C A N S E E T H E LO V E FOR E ACH OTHER.

CHR IST Y DIGNAM AS LAN

KATHRIN BAUMBACH

When I was about 17 I saw U2 and the Virgin Prunes in a local school, St. Brigid’s. During the set, Bono announced, “Our next song is a Boomtown Rats song!” The crowd cheered as the Rats were huge then. So Bono goes, “You cheer when we play a U2 song, we’re not going to play the Rats song!” I thought, “This ducker is in Finglas, he has balls!” and I’ve followed them ever since. Musically they’re one of the most important bands for 30 odd years, although they – inadvertently – made it difficult for bands in Ireland, as record companies were looking for the 'new U2', so we couldn’t use any musical parts that they used for fear of being U2 part 2! I’ve listened to Boy recently and in its rawness and naivety you can hear the emergence of something new and special. I’ve always said the hardest thing in a band is keeping the members from killing each other and U2 have done it at the top for four decades with no scandal. That’s why they’re special – you can see the love for each other. A band writes for its audience and U2 do that with grace and aplomb. Everything they do they do with class – and like Bowie before them, they’ve changed with the times. That’s why they’re still around touring as one of the biggest grossing bands in the world. I hope I don’t sound like a fanboy, but for an Irish band to achieve what they’ve achieved makes me proud!

THE S CR IP T

G O D F O R B ID T H E DAY W H E N T H E Y S TO P M A K IN G M US IC DA NNY O’DONOGHUE T HE SC RIPT

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KATHRIN BAUMBACH

When I heard Boy I remember seeing the front cover, relating to him as he was the same age – and trying to recreate the cover with my brothers. I didn’t know what it was I was listening to, but I couldn’t stop listening to it! If Ireland were a musical darts-board, U2 would be the bullseye. God forbid the day when they stop making music, it will leave an immeasurable crater in both music and philanthropy. The extent of U2’s charity work around the world has been incredible and the true scale of U2’s musical and philanthropic influence around the globe will only be truly discovered in years to come. U2 speak the truth on their own behalf – but also for every individual who has feelings, in Ireland, the UK and indeed

globally. Their bravery in running towards the fire of emotion with the water of truth is what makes most musicians want to grow up to be firemen, to fight fires with truth, to fight fires with music, to fight fires with emotion. Most of the world is on fire right now. Personally, and professionally, they have been there as friends at every level, on every stage, helping us walk the path. Nobody else understands what it is to be Irish, and what music means to an Irishman. It’s our shield, it’s our history, it’s our honour! I was a very scared young man fresh off the plane in New York to do one of the biggest TV shows in history... so far away from home. I walked into the David Letterman backstage and there – waiting for us – was a crate of Guinness! The note said, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us so I’m out of here...” Classiest thing anyone has ever done for me as a young artist.

U2 S H A UG H N M c G R AT H >> continued from page 23 The decision to use icons over actual photographs in the stamps was an aesthetic rather than a technical one. “Stamp print technology is something to behold,” Shaughn says. “But this was a chance to explore a different representation of the band, another way of creating a visual legacy. Part of that was the shape of the stamps themselves. I always loved the fifty pence piece, a unique Irish coin, and I got a chance to use that. “Would you like to make something that’s unique and interesting? Of course you would. That falls under that (An Post) brief of making good graphic design, which represents Ireland. Ireland doesn’t have an honours system – but the band being represented on a set of stamps is a great honour, for everyone involved.”

Wear ing Your Hear t On Your Sle eve Interestingly, the sleeve of All That You Can’t Leave Behind – currently being celebrated with a 20th Anniversary special edition – was a volte-face after the intentional excesses of Pop’s art. “Oddly enough,” Shaughn tells me, “this year, I was working on both the U2 stamps, and the ATYCLB box-set, with one informing the other. People consider Baby, Zooropa and Pop to be a kind of a trilogy, and visually, as well as musically, they were ultra-colourful, exploring different genres. “People would know way better than me about the idea of returning to their roots, etc. for ATYCLB. One of the notions they had, and again, Anton Corbjin and Gavin Friday were part of this, was to explore the idea of travelling. What can you bring with you? What can you leave behind? “That photo shoot happened in real time, travelling in the real world,” he adds. “In the space of an hour, the photographs were taken in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. What’s captured just superbly by Anton is that real moment of the band waiting for their connection, like any other passengers. And then, throughout the album packaging, you see the band moving from terminal to

terminal. It’s certainly not ‘everyman’, but there’s a sense of reality and monochrome honesty, without the dressage of some other photo shoots, which matched the tone and mood of the album.” Even the choice of type has to be carefully considered. “With All That You Can’t Leave Behind, I got to nerd out,” he confesses, “and use a font called Fruitiger, which was actually designed for the signage of de Gaulle airport. The airport also gave us the idea of creating little information signs and logos, something that might be universally understood – a series of icons to represent the album. This, then, kind of joined the legacy of icons: a strange U2 language that we’ve made throughout the years.” That ATYCLB stamp, with the image of the the heart and the suitcase, is particularly effective. McGrath lays out the thinking behind it. “After we had the song icons, we needed an icon to represent the album,” he recalls. “That came last, and was probably the most difficult one: like, ‘How do you sum this up?’ For the idea of travelling, we had a suitcase: that made sense. If you could only carry one thing everywhere, you’d carry the most significant thing in your life. For me, the heart image represents the most important, beloved thing you own. It could be a photograph of a loved one. It could be your own sense of integrity. It’s open-ended.” My design lecturer used to tell me that simplicity is best, and that icon is indeed beautiful in its simplicity. “Thank you. In many ways, the stamps were about paring everything back, making four unique objects, four unique shapes, with a minimal amount of messaging, and a minimal amount of colour. “I hope we’ve captured something that represents the ridiculously incredible career of this Irish institution, U2.” • Log on to hotpress.com/competitions for your chance to win a U2

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Legendary producer STEVE LILLYWHITE has worked with everyone from XTC to The Rolling Stones, not to mention the likes of The Pogues and Crowded House. Back in 1980, he found himself in the West of Ireland, watching a gang of four young hopefuls, who were determined to impress. “I could see there was something there,” he tells PAT CARTY. But what exactly? Now there’s a question…

P O R T R A I T C O L M H E N RY

efore we even get started, Steve Lillywhite cracks in with a yarn. “Just let me tell you a very funny story. The band never listened to their albums, why would they?” He’s talking about U2. “And because Boy was not such a big album, I don’t think they really thought of it as being that good. But on the twentieth anniversary, they had to listen to a re-mastering or something. Bono called me up, ‘Steve, I just listened to our first album. It’s fucking brilliant’. He was surprised, and I thought ‘Yeah, it’s pretty good’. He said, ‘I didn’t realise at the time, it’s great, but I’m not that sure about the singer!” Steve Lillywhite roars laughing, and we are off to the races. He tells a good story. By way of preparation, the night before we spoke I had listened to the Boy album in its entirety for the first time in a long time and Bono’s right, it is great. His vocals suit the material, as it happens, but he wasn’t the thing yet that he would become. “He’s not the thing he became,” Lillywhite agrees, “and maybe Larry’s not quite as tight as he became either. But Edge’s guitar parts are great, and Adam certainly had some great bass lines. I was really, really proud of that album. I was especially proud because it was the very first rock album from Ireland, made in Ireland, that was successful. Because the Rats and Lizzy and maybe even Taste moved over to England to make their records. But U2 wanted to record it in Dublin, and I

feel proud of that for sure.” Had he heard of the band before he was approached to work with them? “I was the up-and-coming young kid on the block,” he remembers. “I had some hits with XTC and The Members and Psychedelic Furs, and I was well-known. I was one of these new young punk producers, along with Martin Hannett. I don’t remember hearing ‘11 O’Clock Tick Tock’ [the U2 single that Hannett, famed for his work with Joy Division, produced], so much as hearing U23, which was the first EP. “I liked the voice, but it didn’t sound very good,” he says of the EP, “but something that I’ve tried to hold true my whole production life is that I always want to see a band live. I can learn a lot more about them than if I hear their last recording, because when I see them live, I can think how I can approach it.” T H E C R Y S TA L B A L L R O O M Come back with us now, to the Ireland of forty-odd years ago. They had planes then. Honestly, they did. But otherwise, it was a very different country. “I was flown over to the west coast of Ireland and I went to see them in this little school hall,” Steve recalls. “All the boys were on one side and all the girls were on the other and U2 came out and opened with ‘I Will Follow’. I thought, ‘Oh my God, there’s something about this’. We agreed to do a single first, which was ‘A Day Without Me’, which I didn’t think sounded very good. “I wanted to change the way that we recorded the band for the rest of the album, and it’s quite well known that I decided to put Larry out in the hallway, where the receptionist sat in Windmill Lane, because the drum sound was just not very good on ‘A Day Without Me’.

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B o y t o m e n ( l-r ) In t h e s t u d io , T h e E d g e in t h e s t u d io , t h e b a n d w it h P a u l M c G u in n e s s a n d t h e f ir s t S t e v e L illy w h it e -p r o d u c e d s in g le , ‘A D a y W it h o u t M e .’

“ T HE R E WA S NO S IGN OF M A CPHIS TO IN T HOS E D AY S . T H E Y W ER E JUS T DR INK ING HA LF PINT S OF R ED LEM ONA DE S H A N D Y.”

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The drums we recorded for the album were much more exciting.” We’re getting slightly ahead of ourselves here: we still don’t know how the initial connection was made. Who approached Lillywhite first? “I think it was the record company. But I remember I was told I would be met by a Mr. McGuinness at the airport. And this was Ireland in 1979, so I thought I’d be met by a guy with straw coming out of his hair, on a tractor. But it was ‘Hello, Steve, Paul McGuinness here’.” Steve balances the stereotypes adroitly by putting on the kind of accent you might have heard in an Ealing comedy, to impersonate the former U2 boss. They hit it off. “He was lovely, charming, and a salesman,” he smiles. “Then we had forty minutes in the car, where he proceeded to play me all the band’s demos on his terrible car stereo system. They sounded dreadful. What I love about Paul McGuinness is that he has no real taste about the quality of music. He knows what he likes, but his job was to sell the band to me. And he thought the best way to do it was to play me these terrible demos. “Really the best way would be to just see them live, but he’s never thought like that, so he was playing these things and my heart was sort of sinking a little bit. But I saw the gig and went to see them afterwards. Bono was eighteen, and, eighteen yearold boys don’t have much of a personality. There was no sign of MacPhisto in those days. They were just drinking half pints of red lemonade shandy.” This was a kind of exploratory mission, both sides feeling each other out. “You don’t have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with you – it was the same for both of us. We were seeing whether we wanted to shag each other,” Steve offers by way of explanation. “I was a little bit of a name, whereas they had become the big noise from Dublin. All the A&R rats from London flew over to Dublin to see a gig, which was

terrible, and they all flew home going, ‘Forget that band, they’re no good’. “Six months later, they managed to get the deal with Island, but at that point, Island Records weren’t necessarily the label you would sign to for a big push. McGuinness did a fantastic job, getting everyone on board, because Island had no other bands of anything like that ilk.” Once Lillywhite saw U2 live, his mind was pretty much made up. ‘Like everyone else at that time, I could see that there was something there – in the same way that Chris Blackwell saw it, and the same way that McGuinness saw it – so I was on board.” T U R N I T U P, C A P TA I N Apparently, Martin Hannett insisted on having some London equipment brought over to Dublin when he worked with the band in Windmill Lane. It was the best studio in Ireland at the time, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was the best studio for rock n’ roll. “Well, it was very good for recording folk music. It was of the variety of studio that basically was very, very dead-sounding,” Steve remembers. “Anything quiet sounded very good, but with anything loud, you just never felt the perspective of the sound. In those days, I was very much into sort of 3D sound, sound that went back as well as left and right. It was literally while I was walking through the reception – this stone room – that I thought ‘I love the sound out here’. But when I walked into the studio, the sound was just swallowed up.” One might assume that when it came to this young band, the record company or even McGuinness himself might have offered some instruction to the producer. Not so. “The great thing about McGuiness is that he has never once questioned what the band wanted,” Steve riffs. “If Bono says I want a lemon, McGuinness says how big? He never came to the studio. He never had an opinion about the music, his job was to sell,

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his job wasn’t to criticise, and that’s what I loved about him. And Island Records never had any influence on what we did. I was probably more in charge of the sound of Boy than any producer has ever been in charge of the sound of a U2 album, because they didn’t know what they were doing. We were just bungling along, but I was definitely leading much more on that album than later on in their recording career.” The role of the producer can sometimes be a mysterious one. Steve Lillywhite simplifies it. “I was the captain of the ship, making all sorts of decisions about everything,” he says. “I do remember once asking Edge if he had another guitar? And he said, ‘No, I’ve only got the one.’ We did a lot of bass overdubs and lots of different weird sounds. I think sometimes in those early days, actually it was after the October album, they could come across as a little bit ‘heavy rock’ live, but they never wanted a rock producer, and, obviously, after me, they went with Brian Eno. They always wanted something that was a little bit more art-based. “They were serious young boys,” he adds. “One thing I’ve noticed with people I’ve worked with, who have gone from sort of nothing to really big, they normally get more paranoid as they get older. Whereas, with U2, it was sort of the opposite way around. When they were eighteen, they were really serious. And by the time they were double or older than that age, Bono was starting to become like his dad, a great guy and really funny. “Adam was more the gregarious one, but the other three were very serious and into whatever they were into at that time. And, you know, we all know that.” LIK E A S ONG… The band were ready, the music was all there – although the lyrics were sometimes another matter. “They had the arrangements down but Bono would change the melodies,” Steve recalls. “And certainly, some of the lyrics had not been finished. Most people say you’ve got your whole life to write your first album, and I presumed that everything was written, but Bono still hadn’t finished second verses and things like that. He was still experimenting, trying things out, singing in his phonetics, but never actually deciding what it was he was going to sing. I was young as well – I was only 24 or something – and so it was all about pushing the envelope and using the energy.”

Surely the foot had to be put down? “Listen, Bono, the clock is ticking…” “Putting the foot down with Bono is never the way to do it. Bono is the biggest pusher of Bono there ever was, but in those days he wasn’t like he became, he was very intense. Most of the lyrics were done, but even then, there was a lot of discussion.” There were financial and time constraints, but Lillywhite wasn’t going to let those distractions bleed into the sound. “It’s a producer’s job to deliver, to make an album. The first album should not sound like it was really laboured. It doesn’t matter how long a record takes to make, as long as it doesn’t sound like it took a long time to make. U2 should never sound like Def Leppard, because U2 have to have this sort of spirit and this spark and this joy that comes from the heart rather than the head. Def Leppard records are fantastic, but it is music that comes from the head. “Like ‘Beautiful Day’. All he’s singing is ‘It’s a beautiful day, don’t let it get away’ – but it works. And you think ‘Why the fuck does that work so well, he’s singing about the weather!’ but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And that’s what U2 are always looking for.” There was no ‘aren’t we marvellous’ playback celebration either. “U2 have never had an album playback in their whole careers, as far as I’m concerned, because you’re always working on it until the very, very end. So there’s none of that listen to it, slap on the back. The band then went off on the road, and I carried on working because it was only a month, so I could do at least six or seven albums a year then. I did a lot of records in those days.” Steve Lillywhite can’t even say for sure if he felt happy about it at the time. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I’d just done XTC and XTC albums was really easy, because they were fantastic musicians. They got everything really planned, whereas with U2, there – even right at the very beginning – was this wonderful Irish sort of untogetherness.” Lillywhite slips into his stage Oirish accent here to emphasise the point. “’Ah, it’ll be alright Steve!’ This is what I love about Ireland and the people there. It’s all blagging, and they would admit to that!” There is a lot of truth in that, to be sure, to be sure. S TA R I N G AT T H E S U N The next time the band and Steve Lillywhite worked together was at Compass Point Studios in The Bahamas. This was in April of 1981, when the band was taking a break after the Boy tour. The idea was to record the next single, ‘Fire’, but who would want to be cooped up in a studio when they could be arsing around in the sunshine? “Yeah, that was a little bit of a let-down,” he admits. “And I don’t think it was one of the greatest U2 songs. Although it’s probably a bit better than ‘A Celebration’, right?” I would argue it isn’t, but maybe that’s just me. I try to persuade Lillywhite to give up more information on the supposedly chaotic October sessions, but he’s having none of it. “Hang on,” he shouts. “We’re not talking about October! Come back next year for the 40th anniversary of October!” Fair enough: hopefully we’ll have a vaccine by then and I can take the Hot Press Gulfstream to Jakarta to talk to the man in person. For now, we move on to All That You Can’t Leave Behind. As with The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, Steve Lillywhite was brought in to help out as the album neared completion. It’s a different job from the one he had with U2 Mk I. “On the first three albums, I was the main producer,” he explains. “I was in there from the very beginning. On Joshua

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“ B R IA N ENO A ND DA NNY L A NOIS JUS T PA S S M E T H E B AT O N A ND I PR E T T Y M UCH R UN THE FINA L LE G”

(c lo c k w is e ) S t e v e in r e c e n t t im e s , ‘ B e a u t if u l D a y ’ a r t w o r k a n d B r ia n E n o & D a n ie l L a n o is w o r k in g o n T he Jo s hua Tre e

Tree, they needed some help to finish it off. This is McGuinness’ wonderful logic. He said, ‘Look, you made records with Steve in like six weeks or whatever. Why don’t you get him to come in and try and help you finish it off?’ “I’ve always called myself sort of the closer. When they see me, it’s like, ‘Steve’s here, we better get to work’ – like I was their teacher when they were 18. I just come in at the end, and I help them finish, but it’s not just mixing it’s more like a relay race. Brian Eno and Danny Lanois just pass me the baton and I pretty much run the final leg, but we all work equally hard on it.” A set of fresh ears, because they’ve been at it so long? “Exactly. I sort of have a little bit more of a commercial ear than both Brian and Danny. I think I have a balance between art and commerce. I remember ‘Beautiful Day’ was the first one I did, but I’ll tell you a story about ‘Walk On’. “After I finished ‘Beautiful Day, the band said they had two songs for me. One was called ‘Walk On’ and one was called ‘Home’. So I listened to both of those songs, and I thought ‘Walk On’ had a fantastic chorus, but ‘Home’ had a great verse. They said ‘that’s weird because they used to be the same song’. The way U2 work a lot of the time, songs are like a tree, and different branches grow off the same song and another song appears. So with ‘Walk On’, we actually put them both back together again. I thought it was better to have one great song then two half songs and I was right because it won Song of the Year at The Grammys. I love that album, probably for me that’s either their second or third best album.”

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A NOT HER T IM E , A NOT HER PL A CE As even the most casual music fan might be aware, Steve Lillywhite’s name is on an awful lot of records. So does the fortieth anniversary of Boy mean a lot to him? “It means a lot to my knees because when I stand up I’m all creaky,” he jests. “No, it’s fantastic. I’ve been involved with a few albums that have that sort of milestone element to them. I’m very proud of my catalogue.” With the commercial success of War, there must have been

LANOIS / ENO PHOTO:CINETECH

S O M E D AY S A R E B E T T E R T H A N O T H E R S It should be noted here that All That You Can’t Leave Behind is the only album ever to have different tracks win The Grammy for Record Of The Year: ‘Beautiful Day’ won it in 2001 and, as Steve remembers, ‘Walk On’ won it in 2002. He had worked on both tracks – further proof, not that it’s needed, that Lillywhite knows his onions. Although it turns out that he hasn’t been that careful in hanging onto them. “I don’t have the cassette of ‘Beautiful Day’,” he admits. “That’s the weird thing, but I do remember playing my wife at the time a cassette and saying ‘This is what I’m working on, this is the first single’. She worked at MTV, so she had good music ears, but she

wasn’t sure this was going to be the song to launch them back after Pop, because Pop had not really been such a commercial success. But I don’t know where that cassette is. I›ve thrown away handwritten lyrics by Bono, so I’m not a hoarder; I’m not someone who keeps anything. But obviously ‘Beautiful Day’ became better and better when we were working on it.” It would seem that the Lillywhite hit single sheen is what the band are after. “They know which ones have at least single potential,” he ruminates. “And so that’s what they give me. They gave me ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ and ‘With Or Without You’, so ‘Beautiful Day’ was the one. On How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, I had yet another job, because that was the only time they’ve actually let the producer go, but that’s for another interview, Pat. Oh My God, I can’t give you everything!” He calms down. A bit. “It’s the same job I’ve done – post War – on everything except for How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which is a few albums: The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, No Line On The Horizon. It’s a good job and I like it, but whether it will happen again? Probably not, but hey, I’ve known this band well over half my life and they’re just great. I love them.” How about this? The phone rings next week and it’s Bono saying he’s needed in Dublin. Would Lillywhite go? “It depends on the... Yeah, of course I would. I’ve had that phone call many times. I had the phone call for the last one. I mixed it in Jakarta as that’s where I live now, in Indonesia. It was a pretty good album, but it didn’t really have that huge song on it, though.”

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other bands that wanted that big U2 sound. Lillywhite says no. “I never worked with another band who wanted to sound like U2. Obviously U2 spawned a lot of sound-alike bands, certainly with guitarists who had that jiggedy-jiggedy sound with the delay. I always said ‘no’ to them, and that’s why I’ve had such a long career, I think. Because whenever I’ve had success with an artist, I’ve always used the success to expand the sort of music I did, rather than do the same thing.” Semi-retirement would appear to suit the great producer just fine. “I think I’ve decided that it’s a different world now,” he muses. “Producing is much more about teams who sit around the computer. It’s not about musician interaction so much anymore. I’m not complaining about it, I’m just saying it’s not my era anymore. What I’m trying to do is, I suppose, monetise my past. I’m writing a book, I actually do a sort of stand-up routine, which, before Covid, I was planning to take around the world. “It’s basically playing a lot of music and telling stories. I do bits of sad things with Kirsty and I do some Pogues stuff, and U2, and all the artists I’ve worked with. It’s a two hour show, and I’ve done one performance of it, and then fucking Covid stopped me, which is a drag. But when Covid is over, that’s my plan: finish the book and tour the world with it.” More explanation is needed, Stephen. “Producing is like a muscle,” he offers. “If you don’t do it all the time, then I’m not sure whether I can be as good, and why would I want to? I don’t want to ruin my reputation. I think a lot of artists make albums when they don’t need to. Paul McCartney and Elton John, as much as I love them, I think they maybe made too many albums.” But if a good band did get in touch, with worthwhile material, could he be tempted back into the ring? “Sort of like Rocky? I’ll go back for one more fight! I have a different life now, and it’s great and I don’t want to ruin anyone’s career either. I don’t have an ego. Well, I do have an ego, but I only do things for the art. So maybe if something that really excited me came along, then maybe I would do it.”

PHOTO: ANTON CORBIJN

S T O R I E S F O R B OY S As I’m sure you can tell, Steve Lillywhite is in good form, so I take my chances and throw out a few more ‘2 related inquiries. Did The Edge beg to be allowed to put backing vocals on ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ the night before the record was due to be delivered? “It’s even worse than that,” he confesses. “We forgot to put the backing vocals on it. I don’t know if he re-did them for a later pressing. I need to check that, but there were no backing vocals on ‘Streets’, although I think they did it for the video.” What about the possibly apocryphal tale of Brian Eno having to be restrained from throwing ‘Streets’ in the bin? “He and Brian had just lost the plot on that song. It’s not their fault. Anyone would have lost the plot if they’d worked on it

as much as they had. He’s a lovely man. The great thing about Brian Eno is that he’s so intelligent, but he will also talk to you about more earthy concerns [this isn’t quite what Steve said, but modesty must prevail] as well.” Did your wife Kirsty MacColl decide the Joshua Tree track listing? “Of course she did. Everyone else was completely fried,” he recalls. “In tabloid speak, you’ve got a bubbly blonde, you’ve got a sultry brunette, and you’ve got a fiery redhead. Well, she was the epitome of a fiery redhead: she was very opinionated, and, God rest her soul, she was fantastic. She basically sat there and Edge sort of played her the beginnings of every song. She’d go, ‘Okay, that’s good. That one? First. That one? I’ll put that on side two. That one, that’s a hit. She’s the reason Joshua Tree is so front-loaded.” He’s clearly warming to the topic. “With The Joshua Tree, you’ve got side one, which is probably one of the greatest sides of music ever made. But until they went and played that album live a couple of years ago, side two, as a recording, was not as good. Side two of The Joshua Tree really came to life during those concerts. Much more than the recording, which was a little bit blurry, not as focused. But that’s U2 in general; it takes them a long time to get it all together.” OUT OF C ONT R OL Steve Lillywhite has mentioned in previous interviews that he suggested the band go out and road hone material first, before recording it. What was that all about? “Well, of course,” he says. “Especially from October. I’d go and see them play that album, which was a bit sleepy on the recording, and they really made it fiery. And it was like, ‘Can’t you just play the songs live first?’ In fact, later on in their career, they actually did that a little bit. But by that point, they were too big. And they became a bit self-conscious about it, and everyone was making bootlegs. “There was a song called ‘Glastonbury’ [played several times on the U2360 tour and, allegedly, once recorded in Edge’s home studio with none other than Niall Bloody Stokes on backing vocals! This, or any other official recorded version, has yet to see the light of day], but they didn’t quite get it all together, which is a pity.” If I were to offer Lillywhite a trip in the Hot Press DeLorean, are there any recordings he’s made with the band that he would go back and change? “The last thing I’m going to say to you, Pat Carty, is my theory of never listening to what you’ve done. When you’re working on it, you can change it and that’s good, but once you finished it, we don’t really ever listen to our records. Not many artists do. “There’s only two emotions you can have if you listen back to it,” he adds. “Either you like it, or you don’t like it. If you like it, there is a possibility of complacency; if you don’t like it, there’s the possibility of uncertainty. Uncertainty and complacency are not good emotions. We try and just muddle our way through and carry on blind. Maybe we leave a little trail of seeds behind us, so we can find our way out of the forest. Oh My GOD! Am I talking in riddles here?!?” He might be starting to go a bit Tolkien-esque, so it’s time to pull up the drawbridge. I ask the final, horrible question: what’s his favourite U2 record? “Well, as I say I haven’t really listened to them. Funnily enough, ‘With Or Without You’ is played a lot in this household. I like the big songs. I like all of them. I have sat down and listened to October, occasionally, breaking my rule. Probably that album more than any other, because at the time, it was like, ‘Oh, that was a flop’, so I have it in my head that it’s not good. “But now when I listen to it, there’s a certain tension, a certain sadness and an autumnal feel about October, that is very difficult to put on an album, because it comes from a lot of sadness.” We’ll stop it right there. As the man said, there’s an anniversary coming up next year.

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U2 F R OM T H E A R C H IV E S 19 8 0

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

That was the cover headline Hot Press used to entice fans of the big beat to read about the young Dublin four-piece U2 in the early part of 1980 – after they had signed to Island Records but before they had recorded their stunning debut album Boy. It is a powerful and in many ways prophetic ‘on the road’ piece, which highlights so many of the nascent themes that would later become important to U2 – and ultimately to fans of the band. It was written by the late Bill Graham.

P H O T O G R A P H Y: C O L M H E N RY

wilight, another time another place, where emotions will touch, collide, jostle and electrify into tantalising shapes. Into the twilight zone where this temporary lodger strives to maintain detachment. Into a twilight zone between two countries and two cultures go U2. Into this twilight zone and you realise how mistaken it is to measure magic. It’s the endlessly replayed battle between print and music. And can Bono’s ideal child read? Recollected in tranquillty are three totally dissimilar nights wherein U2 were disturbed, then contented and finally erupted. You get scared and exhilerated. worried and enthralled and then so protective of the U2 child. You know he’s long past the walking stage, you know he’s restless and impatient to cavort and provoke. You know he wishes to will miracles, to change darkness into light. And you get unnerved and forsee the grey forces that abound and bide their time. Stunned, you simultaneously admire and are alarmed by U2’s ambition. Some bands have a tryst with rock‘n’roll destiny and U2 could conceivably be one of those. Robert Fripp speaks of rock‘n’roll being the encounter between innocence and history. Unadorned, undistracted, U2’s themes are precicely that. Let’s take the boat to England. V IS I ON OF UN WA S T E D Y OU T H We’ve arrived and to what? Mucho publicity courtesy of Sounds magazine and a photo and accompanying paragraph in Time Out that’s a prestigious and encouraging recognition. This is essential because U2’s current game

is “find the audience.” They’ve played London before, and built up the first traces of a following, but amid the competing tribes of the Capital, they’ve got to mark out, advertise and populate their own parish. None among us doubt the band’s capacity to win over any audience that arrives with open-hearted curiosity towards U2 – rather it’s getting them to appear that’s crucial. And the following Thursday night at the Clarendon in Hammersmith, the gameplan appears to go awry. Afterwards we commiserate and realise that the date has not been publicised by Time Out and that Thursday is the low day before the weekend – but there’s a discouraging and unbalanced turn-out. The Clarendon is a first floor fixture in a hotel of Victorian vintage and it’s rather like a miniature version of the Trinity Examination Hall with the same high ceiling and echoing acoustics. It requires about 500 to pack it but only 200 arrive and that’s includeing a high guestlist quota of interested bands and Island records staff. I wander around looking for teenagers – they’re hard to find. And the combined circumstances of environment and audience make for a struggling, emotionally naked gig. There’s nothing inaccurate or unfeeling about the band’s playing, but the confrontation between band and the worldliest audience of the tour has its moments when the daredevil comes close to desperation. With wild determination, Bono keeps bringing his toys to them, keeps demanding ‘Look at this’ – but the chemistry is odd and you know he knows it. The audience has come to measure U2 against their burgeoning reputation as “At least this week’s thing” and won’t be willed into enjoyment. And at moments I’m wondering if some aren’t inwardly tut-tutting at Bono for lowering his front and making a disgracefully unreserved exhibition of himself. He reveals himself to the core, he shows his want; that isn’t playing the game according to the rules of that modern spectator sport called rock‘n’roll. It’s madness, another category entirely.

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“ T H I S I S A L A N D M A R K N I G H T, T H E F I R S T T I M E U 2 H AV E S O L D O U T I N A N E N G L I S H V E N U E .” I feel small clouds of bemusement in the atmosphere and partially understand Sounds writer Dave McCullough’s anger at a similar date at The Nashville, where under-20’s weren’t permitted – the empathy necessary for shared euphoria is absent. Despite a small crowd bopping around the front, Bono just can’t feel the audience. Each number gains applause, but it isn’t enough. It isn’t nearly enough. The lack is answered. Suddenly out of this unsettled climate wafts a moment of sublime dignity. A sequence of guitar chords – the linking passage between two new songs, ‘An Cat Dubh’ and ‘The Heart Of A Child’ – stealthily spirals upwards and for once the acoustics assist. Soothing, a peace offering, this vision of unwasted youth that sounds like ‘Albatros’ as reinterpreted by Eno transforms the mood and when the song is over there’s a muted, sighing cheer of recognition. Such sweet thunder! Doubt diminishes, though Bono’s still fraught on the encore ‘I Will Follow’ and a triplet of fans joins them on stage. One wears a tee-shirt of Sid Vicious, the man whose manipulated, inauthentic, self-detonating rebellion represents all U2 stand against. A small stubborn step forward for U2 has been achiev ed. B ON O IN H IS UN D E R PA N T S “It was tense, it was wrought iron, it was big because of the volume and the echo. It was vast. It was most peculiar. The audience were tense because I think they were in a place they weren’t used to being in. It was cold – it was a peculiar place upstairs in a hotel, a large dancefloor with light-shades, at the same time bare. It was the unknown, and the unknown is always very interesting. Last night was more of emotion, of the band relaxing into the audience and into the music.” Bono can be the band’s best reviewer. The first two dates are a complete contrast. At the Half Moon Club in Herne Hill, south of the Thames, a warm and comfortable pub where the dressing-room is the manager’s living room, U2 gain a full house and Paul McGuinness smilingly ambles across to inform me that this is a landmark night, the

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first time U2 have sold out in an English venue. It shows in the music also. U2 play a much more contented, less abrasive set, their ardour somewhat cushioned in this cosy pub. I like the set, I smile more than the previous night but it’s not an environment to bring out the performing extremes in Kid Galahad and his companions, even though for the encore Bono leaps off stage to serenade the audience from the raised enclosure where the mixing desk and us flunkies are located. It’s a good gig, well done boys and all that, an opportunelytimed confidence-builder for the remaining two dates at the Moonlight Club and then at the Marquee, supporting The Photos. About this point it’s customary to relate the on-the-road antics and anecdotes of the band in question. With U2 however, one isn’t dealing with a band whose alcoholically and/or otherwiseinduced acts of privileged delinquency keep their publicists merrily feeding the gossip columns with froth. With the exception of Adam Clayton, who twice escorts manager Paul McGuinness in pursuit of nocturnal revelry, U2 aren’t tempted by the bright lights. For a rock band they are early risers and early sleepers – U2’s cautious rationing of distractions is further evidence of their dedication and the manner in which their energy is channelled so concentratedly into their music. We’re also unlucky on the two nights we venture out. After Herne Hill, we drive to the Belgravia Carnival only to discover we’ve been misinformed. It finished the previous night. Then there was the great Lookalikes party mystery. Friday, tour manager Jim Nicholson meets their drummer Mike Mesbur and elicits the information that The Lookalikes will be holding a party on Saturday night in their Wandsworth house. So at the appointed time off drives the whole party to discover a totally darkened and vacated house. Tails between the tyres of our Mercedes van, we return to the Earls Court apartment the band have rented for the duration, and ring around to learn that the list of social victims extends to The Tearjerkers, Moondogs and The Lookalikes publisher. Some one excuses The Lookalikes by suggesting they’ve probably overshot on their day’s recording session but as the unofficially nominated shop-steward for the disappointed, I can say that only a fully signed and witnessed statement will be accepted in explanation. So all I can tell you and Dr. Conor Cruise O’Brien, on his Thames house-boat, is that Bono talks to The Observer in his underpants. Saturday morning in the common room of the flat, everyone’s making or eating their breakfast and immune to the chatter around him, there’s Bono in his white y-fronts nattering away on the phone to Robin Denselow, writer of the Upfront rock snippets in The Guardian colour supplement. Readers of a sensitive disposition can rest assured that both he and the rest of the band were fully clothed for the Hot Press interview which follows... Y OUN G A N D W ID E -E Y E D U2 are rebelling against many things, but the school they all attended, Mount Temple Comprehensive, doesn’t appear to be among them. “Mount Temple allowed a freedom to think out things,” Bono reflects, “because we got to know about things like girls and how they interacted with boys at an early age. So that didn’t become a hang-up. “Obviously smoking wasn’t encouraged but at the same time – and I can only really see it now – it was not so authoritarian to make us feel, right we’re going out to smoke. We’re going down the pub at lunchtime to get drunk against these people, these oppressive faces – because they weren’t oppressive so what was the point?” U2’s chemistry deriving from their beginnings as a school band may be their secret ingredient, but the receptacle for that

U2 F R OM T H E A R C H IV E S 19 8 0

“ I DON’ T T HINK W E ’R E I N V O LV E D I N W H AT I C A LL R OCK ‘N’ R OLL M A S T U R B AT I O N .”

chemistry, Mount Temple Comprehensive appears to have been a very special school. As Ireland’s first comprehensive, its pupils suffered none of the totalitarian emotional suffocation which has disfigured so much of Irish education. Nor were they conscripted into a religious system of joy; U2 come carless from their school. “Adam really knows the two sides of the coin because he was also in another style of school,” advises the Edge – and Adam who went to prep school and then as a boarder to St. Columba’s till he was 16 confirms the difference of experiences. “To be perfectly honest I rebelled against the privileged society (in St. Columba’s) even though I was part of it – which is totally hypocritical, I suppose. But I just thought there were a lot of people who weren’t really very important human beings. They were just living on something else, the fact they were part of that society was what gave them importance. And I don’t think it worked.” Refer to Bob Geldof and his embittering experiences in Blackrock College. Refer coincidentally in this issue of Hot Press to Joey Barry of the Spies and his comments about the Christian Brothers – and marvel at U2’s fortune. They haven’t had to waste energy in emotion-consuming and distorting campaigns against Church and teacher. They hadn’t to suffer the confusion induced by a system that claims to teach people to be saints but in reality compels and trains them to be rebels. It also explains the odd angle from which U2 approach rock, and its notions of rebellion. “That’s half the thrill of teenage drinking,” says Bono. “I can remember drinking because it was an exciting thing to do at an early age. It was something you weren’t supposed to do. At the same time I got very bored very quickly with it, whereas many of my counterparts in other schools around Dublin didn’t. “No, I’m not from the same privileged background as Adam. He lived in Malahide whereas I lived in Ballymun, and the people around me didn’t get so bored with it so easy. I questioned even things like smoking. Obviously I used to smoke paper or whatever it was. But I got bored very easily with those terms of rebellion because, unlike my neighbours, I wasn’t being told all the time not to do this. “I wouldn’t question anybody’s leisure time if there’s been a decision behind it. But I’m afraid where I’ve come from, there’s a very definite thing which is drinking tonight, drinking tomorrow night, drinking Thursday night, drinking Friday night. That is the trend of people at 18. “Why? Because they’ve nowhere to go. Why? Because they can’t really think of anything else to do. Why? Maybe because things are apathetic now, so other forms of lesiure – even football – are declining. That is a pattern they’re falling into and they’re not so much thinking about it as just wandering there, being headed there. And it’s a safe thing.” And he continues by criticising the double standards of Governments that promote Health Education campaigns against drink and nicotine whilst simultaneously raking in vast revenues from the habit. Matters of attitude, the means to avoid con tamination of the spirit and will – these are the points Bono is arguing, though he is careful not to be perceived as a crusading misanthropic puritan. He adds: “I’m not anti-drink... all of us drink occasionally. But I don’t think we’re involved in what I call rock‘n’roll masturbation, which is that you’re in a band, you get wrecked with other members of other bands and it gets in the papers and everybody laughs ho ho ho.” It was this exact refusal to participate in the rock‘n’roll swindle

and to be manoeuvred into a sub-culture of gratuitous wasteful squabbling and easily policed and controlled rebellion that made U2 controversial through ‘78 and ‘79. They weren’t to be rerouted by the tyranny of fashion. Although it must be stated that U2 were lucky. It isn’t every individual who finds, as these four did, the right chemistry of friends, allies and circumstances. Nonetheless Bono’s point about their differences with other factions in Dublin remains: “We are anti-laziness, we are antiapathy with no direction. I am really glad to see that some people with whom we’ve had previous disagreements are actually doing something positive themselves. I’ve no time for cynicism with no direction. I’ve no time for people who complain and sit around looking into space. There’s a guy in Dublin who we all know, Brummie, who’s at least trying to arrange concerts. Whatever. I still can’t relate to the guy himself but I like that – that I can appreciate. But I’ve no time for people who are casual rebels. They remind me of the hippies of the past who would get stoned and sink into the day.” The Edge enters with his contribution, the guitarist talking about the ‘pregnant’ Irish author: “It’s a term I’ve heard in literary circles and because he’s always in the middle of his novel he can always slag off everybody else’s. And you know he’ll always be in that position telling everybody what they’re doing wrong.” Bono contrasts such attitudes with their own: “A lot of people knocked U2 at the start because we were young and wide-eyed and they weren’t doing anything themselves. At least U2 realised we had problems. We realised we were wide-eyed. We realised we must find people who did know and find out – and we worked hard and that’s the point.” And Adam tells of his incredulity about ‘A ridiculous discussion with another Dublin band. “I was shocked,” he avers, “because

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“ W E B E LIE V E D, B E C A US E W E W E R E N’ T G OIN G T O B E S E C ON D, W E W E R E N’ T G OIN G T O D R OP OUR A IM .” they were advocating that the only way to get on in Dublin or the music business anywhere was by crapping on people.” Saving that band’s embarassment by naming them, his story concerns an incident wherein said outfit played petty power games to headline. Adam was arguing that “Goodwill among Dublin bands had been sacrificed” by their methods – but he was met by the counter-assertion that it was a victory, the band had headlined and ‘it was more important than the goodwill of people’. “And I said, if you’re thinking like that, it’s no wonder you‘re still in the position you are in Dublin. Because I think that’s terrible and it’s even worse to admit it.” Bono takes up the theme: “Maybe it was sent down from the Rats that, to get on, you go your own way, you have a direction and you fight to get there. But we were never like that. We realised that as a self-sufficient band we couldn’t break through. Let’s accumulate knowledge, let’s talk to the people in the different areas and find out. And we found out knowledge, we discovered knowledge. We went to the right people at the right time. We got the right manager and that’s always been the way. And in music we always put in the same effort.” But not everybody was sympathetically responding. D E M OR A LIS E D A N D B R OK E There was a crisis point when U2 almost crashed to earth, when the bravado of their idealistic plans met the music industry in recession and cynical turmoil. The six months before U2 finally came to reside with Island Records became a period when the organisation was under severe financial pressure. As manager, Paul McGuinness’ assets have included not only his ability and prior experienc, but also his lucrative career as a director of advertising films, a factor which both allowed him to invest money in U2 beyond their contemporaries and to approach his bank manager with more self-confidence than other managers when circumstances required. But when, last Autumn, U2 planned their first venture to England, they were shook by their first taste of shortsighted London Machiavellianism. Their dates were meant to be financed by the advance of a publishing deal, but the company involved, at the last and most pressurising moment, halved the advance in the hope of swinging a cheaper deal. McGuinness put down the phone and in 48 hours he and the

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band made up the shortfall by borrowing £3,000 from friends and family. A blow parried – but at the start of the year it was followed by the EMI debacle. Negotiations had already fallen through with both CBS Records and A&M, but EMI – through the advocacy of their A&R man, Tom Nolan – were taking a much more serious interest. Two other EMI executives travelled with Nolan to Dublin, whereupon the party sat down at the back of the Baggot Inn – and then departed to watch The Specials on the Old Grey Whistle Test! The ironies of the incident were black, and morale-shattering. EMI, who despite Nolan’s insistence had already passed on The Specials, sacked him – and U2 retired to recover. “We were demoralised and we were broke. What should we do then? Lie in our own self-pity?” Bono asks rhetorically. “No,” he answers himself. “We decided what we were going to do. We were going to play a headlining concert tour around Ireland, and we were going to headline at the National Stadium and that was our way of fighting against the pressures, to go in exactly the opposite way and to show people we were full of confidence.” And it was at the Stadium that Bill Stuart of Island arrived and according to Bono ‘offered us a deal on the spot’: “Which, and this should be noted, we complained about. We still knew what we wanted and we disagreed with this, this and this, like it or lump it, we’re going. And if they had left, where were we? But we believed, because we weren’t going to be second, we weren’t going to drop our aim. And in fact they have honoured that.” But the soul of a band must be finally located in its music. The same application and dedication informs their working methods. At this point U2 could justifiably relax but each available week-day in Dublin, they trek out to their Malahide rehearsal room to continue their course of musical selfimprovement. This results in U2 possessing an intimidating amount of songs – over forty by their estimate – when the time arrives to decide on material to record for their debut album this August. And such prolific creation also means a set that is in a state of constant flux – so here in London, besides the affecting ‘An Cat Dubh/Heart Of A Child’ pairing, U2 are also debuting ‘Saturday Night’ and ‘I Will Follow’. The Edge likens their work methods to that of a sculptor in his studio: “We get a block, or if you like three pieces of rock, and you’ve just got to chisel away with them and get them into shape.” Larry Mullen who’s been sitting quietly so far explains a key change in his role: “Adam and Dave and Bono used to write songs and say Larry you come down at four and we’ll put drums to it. And in fact in a review by Peter Owens in Hot Press, he said, ‘I saw U2 before and I thought the drums were the weak link’. And that was very true because Dave, Adam and Bono were writing songs and I was coming down to put the drums on and I wasn’t seeing how the songs were being made. So now myself and Adam are writing songs together, so the bass and drums are working in a way they weren’t before.” One detail, one anecdote, one teacher left – Mannix Flynn. This person remembers wandering through Stephen’s Green one Sunday lunchtime to find Bono and Gavin of the Prunes with their drama tutor. Bono flares with affection when I

GLOSSARY S OUN D S M A G A Z IN E mention Mannix. “Mannix Flynn is a guy I respect. I just love him, his whole thing. He’s Dublin to me – he’s great. He’s evolved from a very rough part of town. He has no cynicism – like he wouldn’t resent Adam because Adam lives in Malahide. He’s quite open on all areas, and he treats people like people. He has a cut of knowledge about the ‘space’ which is what he calls the stage. And how to be on that stage and how your body is on that stage and how to talk to people with your body. And we studied mime with him and with people that he knows.” Adam concurs about the importance of Mannix, the former Project actor, collaborator in ‘The Liberty Suit’, ex-borstal inmate and occassional shop steward of Grafton St. “I think in terms of somebody to talk to, he was crucial because his ideas and perspective on life are really important.” Bono adds: “That was an important area for us. That’s why we studied the mime, to loosen us up, to try and perform on stage – and we’re only at the beginning of that.“ As London finds. A DY N A M O IN S E A R C H OF A D E S T IN Y It was a rising at the Moonlight. A superlative, extraordinary affair that prompted Paul McGuinness to honour it by buying the band a bottle of champagne, a rare ritual for very special performances. The ‘Find The Audience’ game was over, the house was packed forty minutes before U2 took the stage, with Adam having to embarassedly placate a late-coming group of fans who’ve arrived from Herne Hill. U2 just raped, pillaged and plundered the Moonlight. It was Bono’s instinct again. I don’t believe his associates ever wavered from the same level throughout the three dates – if anything they made more mistakes tonight than in the other two – but the theme of this tour is how Bono reacted with such intuitive accuracy to each environment. He conducts and re-generates the mood, and tonight any anxiety or tempation to relax is passed. Every ploy in the book, including the Iggy swan-dive into the audience, works. He just energises through to that well-nigh fanatical power of rock, where you don’t know whether to savour, be exalted or frightened, now that the beast is roaming the hall. You feel a rare power and intensity, one that doesn’t hide itself or role-play within accepted styles. You feel exhilaration, obvious pride and then shudder, because unlike 99.99% of the company, you know this is only the beginning. In Ireland, U2 and Bono have existed in a well-protected enclave; they can’t look back now. Such is the emotion – the details are secondary. You saw Larry smiling openmouthed like never before, you felt a band and a performer whose existential grasp of the drama of rock could push and shape this entertainment into shapes not previously premeditated. You got careful, you got too fearful, too protective, too grave. You note an intensity, a desire for communion that extends far beyond matey, laddish revelry or anguished mutual therapy. A force unleashed, a force controlled, a dynamo in search of a destiny. And a destiny in search of a new dynamo! Afterwards in the flat I ask Adam about the dressing-room comments. What did the fans say? What was their line? He says they were wary, they thought we’d be superstars. And Peter Owen’s lady Linda suddenly gets embarassedly reverent. She implies I almost shouldn’t be talking to Adam, elevates him as if by some unconscious media-induced in stinct. And we all know she knows better; and I know she said she was too old fo feel like that about a band. Hell, we couldn’t even get to a Lookalikes party.

Conceived in 1970 as a “left-wing Melody Maker”, Sounds was one of the ‘big three’ rock inkies in the UK at the time, alongside that paper and NME. It was generally outshone by the latter in terms of assumed hipness, but – as with the poppier Record Mirror – it provided valuable early UK support for U2. Among its star writers was fiery Northern Irish man Dave McCullough. Sounds closed in 1991. R OB E R T F R IP P Originally guitarist with prog rock maestros King Crimson, Robert is regarded as one of the greatest players ever, going on to work with Brian Eno and David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and David Sylvain. R OB IN D E N S E L OW Music critic with The Guardian, Robin also reported for the BBC on politics and international conflicts, winning awards for his coverage of Gulf War Syndrome in 1993. T H E L O OK A LIK E S A talented Dublin band, Billy Gaff (manager of Rod Stewart and owner of Riva Records) famously came to Dublin to see U2 and signed The Lookalikes. They moved to London to make their debut album, but sadly never achieved commercial lift-off. J OE Y B A R R Y / T H E S P IE S Joey was lead singer with The Spies, a band from Howth close to where Adam Clayton and The Edge lived. He went on to front Thee Amazing Colossal Men – which also featured sometime U2 producer and mixer, Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee. The Spies also included guitarist Gerry Leonard, later MD with David Bowie. ENO As the tenor of this article confirms, Bill Graham (who also lived in Howth) was extraordinarily prescient. Among the details here is – with the benefit of hindsight – a truly remarkable reference to exRoxy Music man Brian Eno,

a whole four years before he worked with U2 as producer of The Unforgettable Fire. There were, indeed, times when Bill surpassed even himself... C B S R E C OR D S U2’s first EP, U23 was released by CBS Records in Ireland. But – hard as he tried – Jackie Hayden (later of Hot Press) couldn’t convince the company’s UK bosses to make U2 a proper offer. Until The Unforgettable Fire album, U2 records were released on CBS in Ireland. CBS was later subsumed into Sony Music. T H E N AT I ON A L S TA D IUM Ireland’s largest music venue throughout the ‘70s, and regarded as the pinnacle of what an Irish rock band could aspire to: it hosted extraordinary gigs by Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy and Horslips, among others. Including it in their Irish Tour was a brave move by U2, who attracted more than 1,000 people. It was a seminal moment for them. T H E N A N D N OW Revisiting an article of this kind, from 40 years ago, presents all sorts of potential dilemmas. For one, do you go with the original headline or not? In this case, we have applied the headline that we used on the front cover, rather than the one that accompanied the article inside. There are also other minor tweaks: the cross-heads are new, adding a bit more structure to the article than we were capable of back in the day. There was another, more significant dilemma. Towards the end of the piece, Bill describes U2’s performance in what we might call Viking terms that none of us would dream of applying now. It was the language of the time, used by Bill with what I can say with conviction was complete innocence. Rather than changing it, the feeling is that it should be left as it was – with this acknowledgement that the awareness which has since developed of how implicitly sexist language can be is hugely important and welcome. As Bono acknowledges more than once in the article, we live and – hopefully – learn.

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THEY CA R E M A N, THEY C A R E ... So says NOEL GALLAGHER of U2, a band he’s been up close and partied with on numerous occasions. STUART CLARK helps recall those memorable moments....

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with Noel telling us: “Before going to see U2 in Manchester recently, me and me girlfriend were saying, ‘I wonder what it is with Bono and God?’ Anyway, we’re sat round a table after the gig and I go, ‘Explain it to me ‘cause I was brought up Catholic and it means fuck all to me.’ We had a good three-hour conversation about his religious philosophy, which is basically, ‘Go to God, tell him what all your flaws are and say, ‘Can you work with me?’ Which is completely different to the ‘Don’t drink, don’t screw, don’t take drugs and always go to church’ bollocks you get taught at school. “I didn’t think a whole lot more about it until two days later when there’s a knock on the door and the recorded delivery guy hands me two books - Searching For The Invisible God and What’s So Amazing About Grace?, which are both by Philip Yancey - that have been sent by Bono. There’s also a little note, which reads, ‘I don’t know if you were serious the other night, but here’s something that might give you a bit more of an understanding.’” Getting more and more reflective as the pints went down, he suggested that, “Bono’s like Liam – always agressively pursuing his muse and bigging up U2. The Edge and me, on the other hand, are the Yoda figures at the back going, ‘Alright it will be.’ If Oasis have been out of the limelight for two years I never panic ‘cause I know what’s coming next. Liam on the other hand…” Noel wasn’t overdoing the sympathy in 2015 when the subject of Bono falling off a bike in New York and shattering his arm came up. “That’ll teach him to try and stay fit!” he chuckled. “I said to him the other day, ‘Remind me not to get in a car with you anytime fucking soon!’ Doors of jets falling off, fucking flying off bikes… the guy’s a one-man disaster magnet. Stay away! “He’s actually been very sweet with my two lads who’ve become huge U2 fans and are having a kind of love-in across the Irish Sea with him at the minute. Bono’s sent Donovan some

PHOTO: LAWRENCE WATSON

omeone who’s got to know U2 and, in particular, Bono well down through the years is Noel Gallagher. Oasis opened for them in June 1997 when the PopMart tour touched down for two sell-out nights in Oakland, California. Acquaintances were renewed last year when Noel and His High Flying Birds tagged along for a sizable chunk of The Joshua Tree Tour. He’s ended up drunk as a Mancunian skunk at Bono and Ali’s house, sipped some very cheeky vintages with them in the South of France and met the kids including Eli whose band Inhaler were first on when Noel played his own Malahide Castle headliner last summer. They are, to quote their mutual pal Bruce Springsteen, the ties that bind… “U2 get a lot of shit thrown at them but here they are, 20 years on, still making alright records,” Noel reflected after that ’97 Oakland double-whammy. “I don’t particularly like stadium shows but I liked PopMart because it didn’t take itself too seriously. I mean, it was serious from the point of view that there were 50,000 people there but it didn’t pretend to be anything other than a rock ‘n’ roll show. “U2 are the same as Oasis in that they came from very humble origins and had to work their bollocks off to get noticed,” he continued. “For a while, my two favourite bands were them and The Smiths who could have been U2-sized if they’d wanted but pulled back. Which is kind of similar to the position we’re in at the moment.” Asked whether there’s a song of U2’s he’d like to cover, Noel nodded his moptopped head and said: “There are a few off Rattle & Hum that are quite good and I love ‘All I Want Is You’. Yeah, I’d have a go...” We’ve checked the release schedules and still no sign. By 2007 their friendship had ramped up another couple of gears

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(What’s The Story) Oasis Glory It was a record made for its times, the definitive Britpop statement, which 25-years on – where did the time go? – still makes you want to dance like a pilled-up eejit. Forged as much in Mayo as Manchester – Noel and Liam’s Irish roots have always shown, and let’s not forget that Guigsy and Bonehead’s folks both came from Northern Ireland – it continues to influence young musicians, which is why to celebrate its silver jubilee we decided to get some fresh-faced Irish men and women in to cover ten of the tunes. When it comes to the freak-out-ery of ‘The Swamp Song Versions 1 & 2’ you really did have to be up all night and wired in Rockfield Studios, but otherwise they’re made for getting stuck into! Here’s what can be feasted on now on the Hot Press YouTube... Happy Out – ‘Hello’ Dea Matrona – ‘Roll With It’ Shaefri – ‘Wonderwall’ St. Andrew’s College Choir – ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ Touts – ‘Hey Now!’ The Clockworks – ‘Some Might Say’ Steo Wall – ‘Cast No Shadow’ Crome Yellow – ‘She’s Electric’ Somebody’s Child – ‘Morning Glory’ Nile St. James – ‘Champagne Supernova’

U2 strike a Songs Of Innocence pose and (inset) the Gallaghers hanging with U2 at PopMart

“BONO’S ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PEOPLE. EVERYONE THINKS OF THE POLITICS AND SAVING THE WORLD, BUT ALL I FUCKING DO WITH HIM IS TALK MUSIC.” of his glasses and pictures and all that. Top man!” The only cloud on the Gallagher horizon that day was a Paul Weller-shaped one. “I’m not sure if he’s talking to me after the U2 thing,” he said, which obviously made us ask: “What thing?” “The album,” Noel explained. “He’s never liked U2, mainly because of the haircuts. And the clothes. And the shoes. The day Songs Of Innocence miraculously appeared I got a disgusted text from Paul saying, ‘Why do I have their fucking album on my computer? You’re a mate of Bono’s; you must have known, you cunt!’ I was like, ‘Why would they keep it secret from everyone else in the world except me?’ It didn’t change anything; Weller still thought I was a cunt! “It’s not something I’d do myself, but U2’s people obviously crunched the numbers and, with all that money from Apple, releasing it that way made sense.” Paul Weller’s disdain for north Dublin’s finest cropped up again in 2017 when Noel treated us to one of his fabulously namedropping stories. “We were out in the south of France with Bono and Elton John who’s also on Weller’s hate list. We were having the craic – please note the correct use of an Irish colloquialism – and I said to them, ‘Let me get a picture of you two sat with me and send it to Weller ‘cause he’ll fucking explode in his boots.’ So, I send him the photo with the message, ‘E and B both send their regards.’ Almost immediately I get a text back saying, ‘You’ve gone too far this time!’” Noel then treated us to an even more fabulously namedropping story about “the fucking carnage” that followed U2’s Joshua Tree Tour homecoming in Croke Park. “It was the best, just the best!” he enthused. “I fucking lost me voice ‘cause I was doing two gigs a night. I was singing mine for an hour and then singing all the way through theirs, pissed, for two-and-a-half

hours. You can’t have any more fun than you have with Bono; it cannot be done. We had a brilliant, brilliant time. It was just like, ‘Fucking, wow!’ - and, ‘Fucking, ouch!’ following the after-show. We left at something to six in the morning when the party was still fucking throbbing. I woke up to the phone ringing and Bono saying, ‘Where are you?’ I was like, ‘I’ve no idea… I can see trees and the sea.’ ‘You’re in my guest-house.’ ‘Am I?’ ’Yes, you are. Get up ‘cause everyone’s here.’ ‘Why, what’s happening?’ ‘The lunch I’m throwing in your honour is about to start.’ ‘You never told me that.’ ‘Didn’t I?’ ‘I don’t fucking think so.’ ‘Well, anyway, the Prime Minister’s just turned up.’ “The lunch started at three and went on until four in the morning, and then we got up the next day and flew to Paris. I managed to be really drunk and really hungover at the same time, which is fucking rough. I get off U2’s jet – at this stage we’ve been at it for three days with just a tiny bit of sleep and a few bacon sandwiches – and Bono goes, ‘I’ve got to go off and do something. I’ll see you back at the hotel.’ I’m like, ‘Fuck, I need to get to bed…’ Anyway, that something turns out to be a live press conference with the President of France! I’m thinking, ‘Who puts the batteries in this fucker?!’” Asked for a final word on their bromance, Noel paused for a second and then said: “Bono’s one of my favourite people. Everyone thinks of the politics and saving the world, but all I fucking do with him is talk music. He’s so passionate about the new U2 album (the then soon to be released Songs Of Experience) – and rightly so. There’s a track on it, ‘The Showman (Little More Better)’, which is one of the best things they’ve ever done. Of course, it could be a dub reggae song by now. U2 have this habit of playing you a ‘finished’ album and then tweaking it for another year. You’re like, ‘Let it go!’ but in their minds it’s got to be as good as Achtung Baby or The Joshua Tree. They care, man, they care…”

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NOW

HERE

BEA

F E AT U R E B E A B A D O O B E E

Dirty Hit darling – and the best thing to happen to grunge-pop in recent memory – Beabadoobee discusses her debut album Fake It Flowers, getting tattooed by Mac DeMarco, and why she might yet become a nursery school teacher.

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ublin and Canada are two of my favourite places!” Beabadoobee says enthusiastically, down the line from her home in London. “My band and I supported Mac DeMarco for his Dublin show, and we got super drunk afterward, and went to a karaoke bar.” She can’t remember the name of the place – “It’s probably the only one in Dublin,” she frets – but I’ve since deduced from a hazy description that it was the cavernous basement karaoke room of Marrakesh, on Capel Street. “He stick-andpoked a face on my arm! His really nice friend – I forget his name – helped out, and we used vodka to sterilise it. It was quite fun.” Since then, Bea’s situation has changed drastically due to (say it with me) the global pandemic. Though she assures me the overall situation has been good for her mental health, it’s been difficult for the burgeoning rock star – whose stage name is derived from an old Instagram handle – to stay off social media. “Twitter is a fucking hell hole,” she laughs darkly. Nevertheless, it’s where a growing number of the population get their news. Even she is susceptible to its trappings. “There are definitely times of the day where I’m scrolling through post after post about everything that’s happening in the UK, and it blows my mind that people in this world are that corrupt,” says Bea. “Sometimes I get off Twitter after scrolling for ages, and realise I have so much boiled anger in my body that isn’t being released. I feel like all I can do is repost, share and bring awareness to issues as much as possible. “I try to be a positive person. When the world is in a better place, and shows are on, and I’m able to play live, I hope people can really appreciate the world, music and each other so much more, because of everything that’s happened. I feel like we’ve gained togetherness because we’ve all been through it. “But I’m trying to take it one day at a time. As if I’ve been given this time to reflect on everything so far, and really appreciate the hard work I’ve done.” Bea’s accomplishments have indeed been remarkable. In the short space of three years, the 20-year-old has picked up a guitar, decided she wanted to release music, and signed to a record label (The 1975’s Dirty Hit). From humble beginnings as a shy loner, stoner, and the unsuspecting brunt of jokes in a Mean Girls-style group chat, Bea has shared stages with the likes of Clairo and Matty Healy, and can count Rina Sawayama and The Japanese House among her labelmates. Does sheregret not finding her niche sooner? “Everything happens for a reason,” she says, her usual giddiness deflating ever-so-slightly. “I feel like I found my ‘thing’ at the best time, because that was my saddest point. Still, there were definitely moments in secondary school where it would have been nice for me to know I could write songs and play guitar. If I had known that at 14, I would

have been able to enjoy it more, and be passionate about something. But it made everything so much more precious when I finally did find it”. Bea was given her first guitar by her father in 2017, and released ‘Coffee’, her first song, shortly after. Minimalist and cutesy, the track speeds up and slows down at Bea’s will. The tripping-over-its-own-shoelaces melody is offset by Bea’s lyrical gravitas, and before the singer-songwriter (then 17) knew it, she had a viral hit. Now, with her debut album complete, it’s possible to work through her catalogue chronologically and observe Bea’s musical progression in real-time. Her debut album, Fake It Flowers, beautifully marries her idiosyncrasies to her obsession with ‘90s grunge rock. “The one sound that really inspired this album was Veruca Salt, because I was listening to ‘Eight Arms To Hold You’ constantly,” she says. “I came into my career without expectations, or thinking that this would ever happen to me. Going into the industry, I had no idea what a lot of things

“I came into my career without expectations, or thinking that this would ever happen to me.” were. That lack of understanding has helped me separate myself from everything that’s happened. “I was never a music nerd growing up. I still want to be a nursery teacher. I enjoy making music for now, but mostly, I just don’t know what’s going on! I was speaking to my boyfriend’s Mum about it, and I said, ‘I feel like I’m not a hundred percent satisfied with who I am, and I think I still need to figure out certain things about myself’. I’ve always had a passion for teaching, especially young kids. “I’ve always wanted to inspire them, and at the moment, I feel like I’m doing that in some way with people who are listening to my music. I get satisfaction from knowing people relate to and are helped by my songs. I do want to make music for as long as I can, but I also want to teach.” In signing with Dirty Hit (back in 2018), Bea feels like she’s been given a licence to do both things. “Honestly, I’ve just been given the freedom to be myself without changing. I’ve been wearing what I want, making the videos I want, exactly the way I want them to look.” It’s a common thread with female artists on Dirty Hit. Rina Sawayama told me the same thing. “Rina is so badass,” Bea enthuses. “Her album is so good.” Might the two artists collaborate? “I would never say no to that,” Bea laughs. “I really look up to her, especially as an Asian woman. It’s great that we’re in this scene, representing ethnic minorities. Even though we make quite different music, I feel like it’s still for the same purpose. I really respect her.” • Fake It Flowers is out now.

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E WILL ROCK YOU

EELS main man E discusses the band’s defiantly hopeful new opus Earth To Dora, the legacy of his famous physicist father, and onstage hi-jinks at Dublin’s Olympia.

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els’ ringmaster, Mark ‘E’ Everett, answers the phone to Hot Press from an LA that - if reports to be believed - is bordering on apocalypse. The pandemic has exposed many long-standing problems in the City of Angels. Rows of tents - long an ignored fixture in parts of East LA – are appearing in traditionally more affluent areas such as Venice Beach. Tens of thousands are homeless and unemployment is soaring past 20%. There is an exodus of citizens. Their supposed leaders are more akin to bar-room brawlers than noble statesmen. All of which isn’t to mention the wildfires that have so far burned a mind-boggling four million acres in California in 2020. What does E make of the whole situation?

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P H OTO G RA P H Y G U S B L AC K

“You know it’s a shitshow like everywhere else,” he says. “It’s probably a little bit easier for people like me who tend to live a reclusive lifestyle anyway, but even for me, it is extreme. Then there’s the fires and the smoke - you can’t really do anything right now. But you know, it can always be worse.” I tell E that at a juncture like this, more than ever, Eels are essential listening. He simply laughs. E has been recording songs about the dark side of human nature for almost 30 years, some of which have been informed by the personal tragedy he has experienced. He had just finished high school when he discovered his father – the brilliant quantum physicist Hugh Everett – dead from heart-failure. After the release of his impressive debut, Beautiful Freak, a record that championed the underdog, he was confronted

F E AT U R E E E L S

“It’s probably a little bit easier for people like me who tend to live a reclusive lifestyle anyway, but even for me, it is extreme.” with his sister’s suicide and the end stages of his mother’s cancer. On his second record, Electric Shock Blues, E transformed his dreadful experiences into stoic transcendence through songs like ‘Elizabeth On The Bathroom Floor’, ‘My Descent Into Madness’ and ‘Cancer For The Cure’. Contrary to some reviews, it is not a macabre meditation on death - rather, it is a record about the triumph of the human spirit. E is in similar form once again on new record Earth To Dora, which has the feel of a tonic for these tough times. “Oh good, I’m so happy to hear that,” E enthuses. “I wrote them all pre-pandemic except the second one, ‘Are We All Right Again’, which was done during the early days of Covid. It was like a quarantine day dream I needed to have.” It’s what E does, when his world is falling apart: he writes songs like ‘Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues’, ‘Novacaine For The Soul’, ‘It’s A Motherfucker’, ‘Today Is The Day’, ‘Prizefighter’ – songs to get you through. With his famous father Hugh in mind, I ask him if he feels we are all living a more Everettian existence these days? “Well,” he laughs, “I wouldn’t mind getting into a different world for a little bit, you know?” I recommend checking out E’s BAFTA-winning documentary, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, in which he talks with physicists about his father’s many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In 1957, this brilliant young physicist published a paper which used mind-blowing mathematics to predict the existence of parallel universes. His theory met with opposition from the most decorated minds of the physics world including the grandpappy of them all, Nils Bohr. Hugh Everett’s theory remained in the wilderness for years, only surfacing again in academia shortly before his death in 1982. It is now widely accepted. In the documentary, Professor Max Tegmark, physicist at MIT says, “I would put it right up there with Einstein’s relativity theory, Newton’s theory of gravity. And I think 50 years from now, he is going to be even more famous, when more experiments have been confirmed that this seems to be the way that the world works.” I ask E for his response to such lofty praise. “Yes, it’s nice that he is getting some credit now,” he says. “It’s too bad it didn’t happen to him when he was alive, but it’s nice that it is happening to him now. Better late than never.” It is remarkable to think that Eels have been doing their thing now for a quarter of a century. Indeed, Earth To Dora is their 13th record - is E superstitious? “No, unless it does really badly and then I’ll become superstitious.” So, who is Dora?

“Dora is someone who worked on the Eels crew for a few tours,” E explains. “One of the technicians - we’re old friends now, and I was just trying to cheer her up one night. We were texting and most of the lyrics just came directly from texts I sent her.” I think it’s safe to say that E is not the type of chap to chew the ear off you. When asked about the interesting album sleeve for the new record, which is of a clown head in the style of Wurzel Gummidge, his reply is short and sweet. “It’s been hanging in my bathroom for the last 10 years,” he says. “One day I looked at it and just thought, that’s the album cover.” As a kid, E obsessively played the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band record. You hear the influence of Lennon on more than a few of his songs, including ‘Of Unsent Letters’ from the current album, which could have been found on the cutting room floor of Abbey Road Studios. “Yeah I thought in my position, it’s good to expose people to little known bands,” E chuckles. “I thought I should expose people to this obscure one called The Beatles.” Earth To Dora is saturated with great melodies - E seems to roll them out like a machine. “I wasn’t conscious of it when I was making it,” he reflects. “I clearly wanted to do some tunes this time, that’s one of the most fun parts of it, just coming up with melodies.” Fair enough. It must be strange not getting to tour the record? “That’s the worst part for me,” rues E. “We had big plans for touring, we had so much fun on the last two tours. We just couldn’t wait to get back on tour, and it’s hard not knowing when we can get back out there. We might do some virtual gigs, but that’s not too exciting to me, it’s just sterile. “It’s kind of a bummer, but if we don’t have another choice, we might do something like that. I don’t know, nobody knows, people still want to listen to music - so let’s just give them some music and see what happens next.” He is hopeful that the band will get to perform dates in 2021, including Dublin. I remind him of his unorthodox method of arrival on the Olympia Stage when he played the venue in 2003. On that occasion, he clambered down from the circle boxes. “Yes, that was one of my favourite moves,” he says. “We love playing Dublin - we definitely had some great times at the Olympia.” Notably, the very last time Eels played live was at the Albert Hall, Manchester in September 2019, and the final song of the set was The Beatles’ ‘The End’. “Wow,” deadpans E. “I hope it wasn’t too prophetic!” • Earth To Dora is released on E Works on October 30.

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A Night

On The

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F E AT U R E M AT T B E R N I N G E R

Following the release of eight lauded studio albums with The National, lead singer Matt Berninger has finally gone solo, with Serpentine Prison. He tells us about working with producer Booker T. Jones; his Catholic altar boy upbringing; and why Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘WAP’ is a modern work of art. I N T E RV I E W L U C Y O ’ T O O L E

or a man who’s penned some of the most profound lyrics on the human condition in living memory, Matt Berninger’s nervous energy is unexpected – as is his giddy likening of his new Booker T. Jones-produced solo album, Serpentine Prison, to Jaws. “I needed Booker,” he tells me from his home in Venice, California. “I wasn’t going to drive this thing into a lake. Booker was driving the boat. I was just the captain. I was Quint, and Booker was everyone else. “I needed all the musicians to know that they were in good hands,” he elaborates. “I had 20 different people coming and going from Airbnbs over the 14 days, in a tiny studio. I needed them to be focused on the one central person, and it couldn’t be me, because I can’t sit still. I’d be running around doing 50 things, with this nervous energy, making terrible jokes all the time. They kept having to ask me to leave, because I’d be so amped, and excited, and wired – and they’d be trying to figure out the harmony, or what’s the right key for something.” Despite guest appearances from Andrew Bird, The National’s Scott Devendorf, Bowie’s bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, Willie Nelson’s harmonica player Mickey Raphael, and Brent Knopf, the other half of Berninger’s supergroup EL VY, among others, Serpentine Prison is a powerful solo statement – featuring dark, insightful ruminations on the state of the world, and the state of the people within it. Yet, as Berninger reveals, the project originally started life as a covers album. “That’s why I called Booker in the first place,” he explains. “I was feeling like, ‘Okay – time to take a break from this life and this craziness’. We had just done I Am Easy To Find, and finished a big phase of this Cyrano musical. Sleep Well Beast had happened just before that, too. So the intention was to do a covers album and just chill out!” Of course, Berninger’s famed productivity didn’t make that so easy. “When you’re making stuff, you can’t just sit it out,” he reflects. “You’ve got to keep making stuff, and keep putting it out. I have to learn to do other things with my life! I can wake up and spend all day writing songs – but then I forget to do the rest.” “So we started making this covers album, but I had a bunch of half-written songs with people from my first band Nancy, and people from The National and EL VY. I also had all these half-baked song ideas with people like The Walkmen and Hayden Desser. I started sharing those originals with Booker. He said, ‘Why don’t we just focus on those?’ So we went in, and in 14 days we did a bunch of originals and a bunch of covers. They’re all part of this whole thing, but we decided to release the originals separately, because it just made sense.” He promises that we won’t have long to wait before the covers are unleashed on the world, however: “Either as

part of a bonus deluxe edition, or for other charitable or political mercenary missions,” he laughs. True to his word, his cover of The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’ has already found its way onto a star-studded Bandcamp project in aid of voting rights organisation Fair Fight, while his rendition of Mercury Rev’s ‘Holes’ was released earlier this year as part of the 7-Inches For Planned Parenthood series. This tendency to confront the political alongside the personal has long been a defining feature of Berninger’s songwriting with The National – and comes to the fore more compellingly than ever on Serpentine Prison’s title track. “Whether you’re a painter or a novelist, or whatever you do – you’re just letting the world come at you, and letting it soak in,” he posits. “An artist is a sponge. And when a sponge gets filled so much, and you can’t fit anymore in, it starts coming back out. Artists just squeeze themselves, and stuff comes out. It’s the same stuff that went in, but it’s through their filter – coming out in a new, hopefully more helpful way.”

“You’ve got to keep making stuff, and keep putting it out.” Like the sewer pipe draining into the sea imaginatively referenced in the title, there’s something inexplicably dark and lonely about ‘Serpentine Prison’ – with lyrics that delve into addiction on a personal level, as well as the wider ills of the modern world: “Cold cynicism and blind nihilism.” Is that what he thinks the world has turned into in 2020? “A lot of people are really nihilistic, and it’s a shame,” he sighs. “Especially now with the white supremacy and all the racism in America. But there’s also these people who are younger than me, who have literally had enough, and will not take any more bullshit – and they’re our best hope. All we’ve been doing is feeding them bullshit. Look at the planet. Look at what my generation has handed my daughter’s generation. It’s shameful. We have to take responsibility for the world we are leaving our children. If we don’t have the backbone and character, then I certainly hope they do. And I think they do.” According to Berninger, that “blind nihilism” also extends to the Catholic Church. “I’m not a big fan of the Catholic Church, or any other Christian churches, but it’s a big part of me,” he says. “I’m a Catholic, and I think I’m a good Catholic. I’m pro-choice as well, and I think any Catholic worth his or her salt would know exactly what I’m talking about – especially now. So the fact that even the Catholic Church has this nihilistic, cynical, self-destructive impulse to follow these self-

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F E AT U R E M AT T B E R N I N G E R

“For me, Nick Cave is the best songwriter alive. And I’m aware Bob Dylan is alive.” serving, fearful ideas is a real shame.” Growing up in a family with Irish roots, Berninger’s early years in Cincinnati were in many ways centred around Catholicism. “My mom’s side of the family is Irish,” he explains. “Their last name is Dwyer, and that’s sort of the wilder side of the family. My mom’s dad used to hike through Alaska with a firearm on his side. I came from a weird family of Midwestern, gun-toting liberals. The weirdest part is that the gun-owners in my family are all the liberals, and the ones that don’t really like guns are the Trumpies. Complicated family!” He also credits his altar boy years as his first taste of performing on a stage. “I liked going to church when I was younger,” he reflects, laughing softly. “All the girls were there, it was quiet, and there was good music. The church was built in this beautiful A-frame, with incredible stained glass windows – but it also had the Stations of the Cross, which is, you know, Jesus being murdered slowly… “So it’s this weird combination of guilt, because it’s our fault that this really awesome 33-year-old guy was tortured to death, but it’s also your neighbourhood – because you’ll go, ‘Oh, there’s Jenny from down the street. And there’s Uncle Phil. And there’s my baseball coach.’ And then I get to feed them all the Eucharist! I get to feed girls I had crushes on – and their moms – the body and blood of Christ! And I’m wearing a cloak with gold things on it, and I’m ringing bells! Awesome.” Berninger recently revisited these years on social media – posting a photo of himself and a group of his white peers during the ‘80s, as he reflected on the Black Lives Matter movement, and his own white privilege: “Singing ‘We Are The World’ in Cincy in the ‘80s,” he captioned the photo. “I didn’t really get to know a person of color for another 10 years. It took me a long time and a lot of listening to begin to understand racism in this country. Still learning.” “That was my grade school, Our Lady of the Visitation,” he tells me. “I think we were in 7th or 8th Grade in that photo. Those are the kids I would have gone to church with. A bunch of them are probably Republicans now. And of course they are! Maybe every single person in that photo is, except for me. I don’t know. But I do know that they’re all awesome. I mean, I’m not going to go back for a reunion or anything! But I have an empathy for white people inside a white bubble. It’s not a sympathy – it’s an empathy.” Did music play a role in helping him to burst out of that bubble?

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“Yeah, I think so,” he considers. “I remember listening to the Violent Femmes. They had some really progressive lyrics on a lot of their songs – a lot of which they wrote when they were in high school. And also The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths, and Louder Than Bombs, which my sister brought home. Listening to what those dudes were singing about, and the freedom of reckless, weird poetry, and the attitude – they all made me realise, ‘Oh – there’s something more to music than background stuff’. Then bands like Pavement and Guided By Voices made me think, ‘Oh wait – I can do this.’ A 38-year-old school teacher can say, ‘I’m going to switch and become a rock star now’. That’s what Robert Pollard did. “Also as a kid, my parents played Willie Nelson and Roberta Flack,” he continues. “They didn’t have a lot of records, maybe ten in total, but they played some really good ones, over and over and over again for my whole childhood. So listening to that kind of stuff, and then discovering those weird bands – all of those were different moments of, ‘Oh – I should do this with my life’.” In more recent years, Berninger has also connected with the next generation of music legends – through collaborations with the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and CHVRCHES. And he’s more than willing to gush about the calibre of the current crop. “I really do think that there are better songwriters writing songs right now than ever,” he says earnestly. “So many artists are doing their best writing right now. Like Nick Cave, and his last couple of records. For me, Nick Cave is the best songwriter alive. And I’m aware Bob Dylan is alive. Nick Cave has even gone past Cohen and Tom Waits for me – and that’s my trinity! “It’s because of these past four years, of just being saturated with absolute bullshit from the news and information,” he continues. “Everyone knows it’s bullshit. Even the culture – the TV shows, the pop music, and everything else. Nobody can choke it down anymore. I don’t know any artists – and I mean the ones that are really artists – who aren’t making their best stuff right now.” To Berninger, there’s a distinct difference between art and craft: “And you have to do both,” he argues. “Sometimes you have incredible craft, but the art’s just not there,” he notes. “Just tell me something true! Tell me something new, and real! For example, ‘Wet Ass Pussy’ [WAP]’ is a beautiful work of art – because it’s fucking true. And it’s bold, and it’s beautiful. And it’s fun! That song has both the art, and the craft – because they crafted it into such a banger! The video’s amazing too. Everything about that is art. I think everybody’s tired of packaging these little ideas into something safe. Everybody’s like, ‘Fuck it – blow it all up’.” • Serpentine Prison is out on now.

MATT BY CHRIS SGROI/TOM BERNINGER; NICK BY KERRY BROWN

CAVE NEW WORLD: (left) Matt in the studio and Nick working his magic

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E XCE S S A LL AREAS

A number one bestseller that lays bare the excesses of the John Delaney era in the FAI, Champagne Football is the most talked-about book of the autumn. Co-author MARK TIGHE discusses the extraordinary saga, Delaney’s downfall, and Irish fans’ fervent hopes for a new start. Interview Paul Nolan

hen Ireland commenced their Euro 2020 qualification campaign 18 months ago, precious few could have envisaged just how exactly it would conclude. Indeed, the grand finale to this most fraught of campaigns was one of those moments which suggests that, truly, life is stranger than fiction. In an empty stadium in Eastern Europe, Matt Doherty stepped forward to take the decisive kick in a penalty shootout that would decide Ireland’s Euro playoff fate: progress to a final or instant elimination. For a split second, the only audible sound was the reverberating woodwork, as Doherty’s shot crashed off the crossbar. It quickly gave way to the cheers of elation from

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Slovakia’s squad, management and backroom team, as they celebrated reaching the playoff final. There may have been no fans present due to Covid-19, but the Slovakians were rightly jubilant. Cruelly for Ireland, Slovakia’s big showdown would take place the following month against Northern Ireland in Belfast. Characteristically, the Irish team under Stephen Kenny had shown serious grit and resolve, and asked a few probing questions of the opposition. Uncharacteristically – at least in recent times – they did so playing some quality football, notably carving Slovakia open to create a couple of gilt-edged opportunities for Conor Hourihane and Alan Browne, both frustratingly spurned. Of course, it wouldn’t have been a big Irish game without controversy somewhere in the mix. Two of our most promising young players, Aaron Connolly and Adam Idah, had been last-minute withdrawals from the squad due to being close contacts of a suspected Covid case. Apparently, on the flight over, they’d both changed seats and ended up sitting beside a non-playing member of staff, who tested positive for the virus upon landing in Bratislava (a false positive as it turned out). Against a somewhat chaotic backdrop of more suspected Covid cases in the camp, media speculation, last-minute call-ups, and players departing and returning as if on a carousel, Kenny’s depleted team did well to produce some more decent attacking football in the following week’s Nations League games against Wales and Finland – even if goals remained as elusive as ever. Perhaps appropriately, it was a bizarre way to cap the most bruising 18 months Irish football has experienced in living memory.

F E AT U R E C H A M P A G N E F O O T B A L L

Mark Tighe

GRIPPING READ

“No football association in Europe had such a deep-rooted problem.”

PHOTO: EILEEN MARTIN

To say the very least, the FAI could badly have done with the financial boost that would have come with the team’s Euro qualification. The fraught 14-year period under ex-CEO John Delaney is chronicled in Champagne Football, an absolutely gripping read from Sunday Times journalists Mark Tighe and Paul Rowan, which is easily the Irish sports book of the year. Starting with a report about Delaney’s €100,000 bridging loan to the FAI in March of 2019, throughout that spring, the Sunday Times produced a remarkable series of stories detailing both the association’s chaotic finances, and how Delaney ran it as his personal fiefdom. On the Saturday night Ireland played Gibraltar in a Euro qualifier that March, dramatic events were taking place behind the scenes, as Delaney and the board rushed to respond to the impending ST report about the FAI paying the rent on Delaney’s €3,000-a-month Wicklow mansion. As beleaguered as the association was, Tighe acknowledged in a recent interview that he couldn’t have imagined the story the concluding as it did, with the exit of Delaney and the FAI old guard. “The week before the Gibraltar game was when we broke the 100k story, and John Delaney failed in his injunction attempt,” Tighe explains to Hot Press. “We didn’t know it would escalate so quickly. It was great that we were able to break the rent story the day after the Gibraltar game. On March 1, we sent in the queries to John’s new PR person Cathal Dervan and his solicitor. As we detail in the book, little did we know that three days later, there was a board meeting where John had set in train this Executive Vice President plan, where he basically designed his exit.” Like a lot of football fans, I couldn’t help but find a degree of hilarity in the FAI’s immediate response to the controversy: apparently, an independent review had conveniently found that Delaney should immediately move to the newly created role of Executive Vice

President. Handily, the position would involve Delaney forsaking most of his domestic duties whilst retaining his plum role at Uefa. Indeed, as well providing a brilliant insight into the mismanagement of Irish football over the course of more than a decade, Champagne Football also offers plentiful black comedy – often, the FAI’s attempts to stave off financial and organisational meltdown take on the feel of a Thick Of It episode. Then there are the numerous bizarre side details, like kit man Johnny Fallon forging Roy Keane’s signature on jerseys given to charity, due to a fear amongst FAI staff of asking the fiery Keane to do it himself. “People in football are kind of funny people, and there’s a lot of unintentional humour,” notes Mark. “People are great at recalling stuff, and there are some great anecdotes. I think Liveline are doing a piece on Johnny Fallon Sr and his Roy Keane impression on his signatures. “There is a lot of high farce and we wanted to get that across. It’s so crazy, you’re not going to believe it – this stuff actually happened. I didn’t want it to be a dry book about blazers and the fights for power. We were going, here are the personalities and the crazy stuff that happened as well.”

DEBT

The crazy stuff also included Delaney – already on a base salary of €360,000 a year – running up almost half-a-million euro in credit card debt between 2015 and April 2019, including spending on jewellery, hotels and limousines. This is in a climate where many FAI staff had been forced into pay-cuts during the financial crash, and the association was struggling to pay off the debt on the Aviva Stadium redevelopment, their masterplan of selling off Vantage Club tickets to the corporate sector turning into yet another debacle. In his research, did Tighe find there was a comparable FA in Europe in terms of the endless controversies?

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Ireland team in 2016

“Every association, or the rugby unions or whatever, they have their problems with blazers,” he replies. “You have volunteers rising to high positions and not really keeping corporate governance. So I think that’s a common problem, but definitely no football association in Europe – and they all have their issues – had such a deep-rooted problem that it affected their solvency. “I’ve asked people in Uefa about it, and football correspondents across Europe: has there ever been an equivalent where an association had to be bailed out by its own government? Or literally faced pulling out of Uefa or Fifa competitions because it was going bankrupt? No one could point me in the direction of any comparable case.” Tighe says he started to take a serious interest in the Delaney saga when business mogul Denis O’Brien first committed to partly financing the pay of the international managers, which started during the Giovanni Trapattoni reign and continued into the tenure of Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane. In 2014, meanwhile, Independent News & Media – where O’Brien was then the majority shareholder – commissioned the cringeworthy documentary John The Baptist. “A complete low point in Irish journalism,” says Tighe. “For me, that brought together so many different stories. You had Denis O’Brien, who has boasted about not being interviewed by his own media, but here is as the largest shareholder in INM, and he’s giving this famous laudatory quote: ‘John Delaney could run anything, especially Fifa, and better than Sepp Blatter.’ “This is the media organisation that he has huge influence over, and he’s supporting John Delaney financially through the money to Martin O’Neill, as it was then. He’s there, praising him to the rafters, and you had Eamon Dunphy and others quoted in it. Such a soft focus piece, and it was launched in the Sugar Club. For me, that was going way over the top, it was just bonkers.”

N E E D F O R A P P R O VA L

Delaney comes across in the book as a somewhat Trumpian figure, thanks to his narcissistic streak and need for public approval. “There is a lot of narcissism, and a need to be loved,”

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nods Mark. “I was talking to someone close to him only recently, and the fact his face is on the number one selling book in Ireland now is actually something he’s quite chuffed about! I think he enjoys being talked about, though obviously he wants it to be positive coverage. Famously, Kevin O’Keeffe said that to him in an Oireachtas hearing: ‘You’re like the Trump of the FAI.’ “It’s in the book, and you could see John warming to him. Another one is that John and Trump would both appeal to people’s base nature, and also to their patriotism and nationalism. John was always talking about what a nationalist he was, that his ancestors fought in the War of Independence. He’d get tearful when Amhran na bhFian was playing. Obviously, a lot of football fans would come from that same hue. Singing the rebel songs would be a big part of it, and John would see himself as part of that cohort of people.” In general, the political oversight during Delaney’s tenure left a lot to be desired. “Unfortunately, a number of sports ministers and Sport Ireland – the Irish Sports Council as it was – missed opportunities to actually put pressure on Delaney. Again, that goes back to his ability to actually put it up to politicians. He’d always invite them to matches and they’d do well in terms of local clubs. Right up to Shane Ross, he was there doling out kits and tickets, and giving the minister credit.” Following the tumult of Delaney’s exit, the FAI endured another obligatory controversy following the arrival of the so-called ‘Visionary Group’ of Niall Quinn, Gary Owens and Roy Barrett. Grassroots clubs around the country felt they were in danger of losing their voice under the new regime, though that seems to have dissipated somewhat following the securing of government funding to see the association through the Covid era, as well as the exits of Quinn and Owens. welcomed the €10m cash boost that would have come with qualification for the Euros.

FUTURE

What does Tighe see as the future for the association? “The financial legacy is disastrous and there are decades of debt repayments ahead of them,” he says bluntly. “New debt had to be taken out to keep the association solvent. So unfortunately, it’s very hard for the FAI to get out from under that legacy. If you’re going to be realistic about it, Covid is an 18-month to two-year problem. That’s a big difficulty in terms of getting fans back in the door for internationals and the League of Ireland. But it’s going to get huge government support. As Gary Owens said at a recent Oireachtas hearing, at least this time it’s not their fault. “But there is an opportunity now. I think yes, there was a problem with the three guys from the Visionary Group being too close. Roy Barrett is still there, and he is a very capable businessman. He did well in securing the government bailout, which Shane Ross swore wouldn’t happen only a few weeks before Barrett arrived. So give them credit for that, cos that’s a lot of mistrust with the FAI, understandably.” Ultimately, Tighe feels there are grounds for a small degree of hopefulness. “I’m an optimist, so I’d hope the new guy is commercially orientated, and he can help build up the grassroots and the League of Ireland in a sustainable way, where they’re not looking at Thomond Park or county GAA grounds in envy. That they’ll have good standards when we finally do get the crowds back in. But hopefully they don’t repeat the many mistakes of the past and have proper governance in place.” • Champagne Football is out now, published by Penguin Ireland.

WELCOME TO

MALI If

With their third album, Optimisme, Malian rock n’ rollers SONGHOY BLUES deliver a blistering commentary on the problems in their home country. “It takes time, but we have hope,” they tell Pat Carty.

we take the 2007 release of Tinariwen’s third album, Aman Iman, as an admittedly rough starting point, the last decade or so has seen a very welcome and consistent stream of great music emanating from the West African nation of Mali, a balm against the constant barrage of indie and mainstream mediocrity. It’s a simplistic way to put it, probably, but something feels real and genuine about the music of Tinariwen; Vieux Farka Touré – the son of Ali Farka Touré, the man who put the desert blues on the world map; Amadou and Mariam; Samba Touré; and many others, including the great Songhoy Blues. And you can dance to it too, which helps. The various Songhoy band members originally hailed from Northern Mali, but political turmoil drove them south to the capital city of Bamako. Bass player and founder member Oumar Touré – bear in mind that Touré is a popular West African surname, he’s no more related to the others than I am to that Carty woman you met in the pub in Roscommon – takes up the story, down a Dublin/Bamako phone connection that’s doing neither of us any favours. “2012 was a difficult year for us, we were young students and musicians so we went back home to see

our parents,” he explains. “At that moment the terrorist rebellion group, they take the North of Mali. They take control of all the big towns of the north and they install Sharia law and they ban all music, all activities for young people, like sport, like music, like going to the clubs.” The group Oumar is referring to here is most likely Ansar Dine, the jihadists who seized control of northern towns during the Tuareg rebellion in 2012. The rebellion was an early stage of the Mali War, waged against the government with the aim of attaining independence for the northern region, known as Azawad. “At that moment we can do no music in the north, so we decided to move back to Bamako,” Touré continues. “In Bamako we studied, and protested against what was happening. A lot of people were protesting, so we decided to put together a band. If we make a band, we can have an audience and we can play and invite politicians to come and speak, and we can also speak about what’s happening in the North.” THE WEDDING The story goes that the musicians were hanging out in places like the Domino pub and it was the wedding of vocalist Aliou Touré’s cousin that brought them together.

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F E AT U R E S O N G H O Y B L U E S

“ W E W E R E J U S T P L AY I N G I N T H E N I G H T C LUB , W E N E V E R IM A G IN E D T H AT O N E D AY W E ’ R E G O N N A M A K E M U S I C A R O U N D T H E W O R L D .”

“Yeah, Aliou’s cousin have a wedding and usually there are some bands who play for the wedding, so Aliou says, ‘I’m gonna call some guys, call some musicians and they’re gonna try to do the wedding’. He called me and Garba [Touré, the band’s lead guitarist] and I called a drummer, and the four of us, we play in the wedding, and from the wedding we take decision to make a band to protest together.” After playing the music of Ali Farka Touré and Tinariwen at that wedding, the band took their name from the Songhai ethnic group of which they are part, and began writing songs in their native Songhai language. Like any band anywhere, they played what local haunts would have them and tried to make connections. “We start playing in the nightclubs,” Oumar recalls. “We write the songs and we decided to look for someone else who can push us, even if it’s going to be just a record in the studio. We thought about one great guy here, which is Ardo Gallo. Ardo used to be the bass player for Ali Farka Touré, so we go to see him and we asked if he can help us to record just a demo. He say ‘yeah, I can do that, but I have another project for you guys. Maybe it’s gonna be interesting. We have some people, which is Africa Express. They’re gonna come here, and I want to give you guys Marc-Antoine Moreau’s number.” Africa Express, an organisation dedicated to the facilitating of collaborations between musicians of Africa and the Middle East with their counterparts in Europe, came out of Damon Albarn’s disgust at the fact that the 2005 charity event, Live 8, could only find room for one African artist. The organisation’s first endeavour was to take western musicians to perform at the famed Festival au Désert in the Sahara outside Timbuktu. Africa Express responded to the banning of music in Northern Mali by visiting Bamako in 2013, and Moreau was part of this expedition. Songhoy Blues were apparently living in a one-room shack at the time. YOUTH CLUB “At that moment we played in a club called Tropicana. We take Moreau’s number, call him and then he come see us playing,” is what happened according to Touré. Moreau, who would also help bring Amadou and Mariam to the world, and who sadly passed away in 2017, remembered things slightly differently when he spoke to The Quietus in 2015. “I have known Bamako for over 20 years and a sound engineer, who used to do sound for them in a small bar, talked to me and said, ‘Oh, you should check out this band, they are from Timbuktu, they are very interesting.’ And so I went to a bar called Tropicana and the music was amazing, kind of what you are listening to now, blues rock, with that

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strong influence, and I just really loved it.” With Moreau and his pal, Yeah Yeah Yeahs man Nick Zinner, Songhoy Blues recorded ‘Soubour’ which would go on to be included on the Africa Express compilation, Maison Des Jeunes. With this, things started to happen. Quickly. “We make these songs and then after one month, they call us and say to go to Dakar to make some passport and visas and then we flew to London for the first time,” says Touré, laughing at the memory. “It was very quick, it was very impressive and it was very, very exciting for us. We didn’t think we were going to get international acclaim like that, we were just playing in the nightclub, we never imagined that one day we’re gonna make music around the world.” The band’s debut album, produced by Zinner and Moreau, was released under the title Music In Exile in 2015 to deserved universal acclaim, and the band played everywhere from Glastonbury to Bonaroo. A second album, Résistance, followed in 2017 and that promotional jaunt found time for a stop in Dublin’s Button Factory for an incendiary performance. The heat is not what Oumar recalls though. He remembers what Dublin was like in November. “Very, very cold,” you can nearly hear him shivering at the memory. OPTIMISM Which brings us to album number three, the brilliant Optimisme, which might seem like an odd title to put on the outside of a record in 2020, but there’s logic behind it. “It’s because a lot of things have happened in Mali, a sad situation with terrorism, since we did the second album, Résistance. We were resisting, now we need to go to the next level, which is to believe in peace, which we are fighting for, that is why the album is called Optimisme. And also around the world, not just in Mali, a lot of problems happen, like COVID-19, so we need the people to be very optimistic.” You can’t argue with any of that. It’s a record that leaps out through the speakers and sounds like the band are playing in the room beside you. This was intentional too. “We are most of all a live performance band, that’s why in the studio, we try to have the same energy. It’s very important to show in this record how we are more live performers than studio ones, which is why you can hear all the energy.” Matt Sweeney, who has worked with everyone from Johnny Cash to Billy Corgan, and who produced the band’s Meet Me In The City EP, is back behind the desk again, but it could have just as easily been Nile Rodgers – the band played at London’s Meltdown Festival when Rodgers curated it. No disrespect to Mr Sweeney, who

F E AT U R E S O N G H O Y B L U E S

“ NILE R ODGER S PR OM IS ED TO DO S OM E T HING W IT H US V ER Y S O O N . W E R E A L LY WA NT TO W OR K W I T H H I M .” has done a marvellous job and delivered a vibrant album, but the disco king working with these African princes sounds like a match made up above. “We were looking for Nile Rogers, but he was very busy so we didn’t catch him. Matt Sweeney is a great producer and he brings us this kind of energy to build this more live performance. Nile Rodgers promised to do something with us very soon. We really want to work with him.” STOMP AND SHOUT The record kicks off with the breakneck pace of ‘Badala’, which sounds a bit like early Zeppelin deciding to try on a glam-rock stomp with added shouting. The title translates, roughly, as “we don’t give a fuck”. “It’s basically talking about a woman fighting against a man who is trying to control her life,” Oumar explains. “That’s a problem happening a lot in Mali because a woman has no rights. They have to just accept it; this is why we want to have a song about how women want to take their freedom. It’s the woman who says, ‘I don’t give a fuck, I want to take control of my live’. That is another step for African women.” ‘Gabi’ – another furious, circular riff – would appear to be something similar then, as it deals with arranged marriages. I’m nearly right. “’Gabi’ is different from ‘Badala’. ‘Badala’ is about freedom for women, but not about marriage. ‘Gabi’ is about parents giving ladies for marriage without their consent here in Africa.” ‘Worry’ is the first time the band has recorded in English. “Since we start the band, people say ‘we like your music, but we don’t understand what you’re singing about’. With this third album, we write the song first in Songhai language and then we try it in English, maybe we can touch more people, more people can understand the message behind Songhoy Blues, that’s why we decided to write ‘Worry’ in English.” It’s impossible to stay still listening to something like the hyperkinetic ‘Fey Fey’, and its lyrics speak to the fallout from the Mali war, with the band determined that they’re “not going to give into division”. “People talk more about separation between tribes, the war affected the living together of the different tribes in Mali. ‘Fey Fey’ is about how we must not have a separation between people because we used to live together for 100,000 years

before. You can see this kind of song on the first album, we’ve always written about that, and we’ll continue to write songs about that because if you write only one song in the context of Mali, people are going to forget, so we will write more songs about the situation.” FOR THESE THERE IS HOPE Is there cause for hope for the future in Mali with all that’s going on? The second military coup d’état in eight years took place only this past August, leading to the detention and subsequent resignation of President Keïta. “We have hope, which is why we call people to be optimistic,” Oumar offers. “The tribes in the north, they want to come in with Mali to have a situation change and negotiate with the government, we hope the people can have rights like people do in the US, in France, in the UN, it takes time but we have hope.” What’s exceptional about the music of Songhoy Blues is the way it combines the influence of the Malian music they come from, with the western music they heard growing up. Guitarist Garba Touré has previously stated that “we grew up listening to old music by The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker. But our main diet was hip hop and R&B. We can’t stay in the traditional aesthetic of our grandparents: that was another time. Besides, we love electric guitars too much.” You can go back and listen to that first song ‘Soubour’, which does indeed sound like John Lee Hooker, back from the beyond, and properly plugged in, or their most recent single, ‘Barre’, where fires off guitar lines that would have made Hendrix proud, to hear what he’s talking about. Oumar leaves me with this summation. “Our music is for all generations and maybe the future generation, so we are in the middle,” he says. “We listen to a lot western musicians, and also we have a deep influence of traditional music. Our music is the mix of Malian desert blues, which is Malian desert music and Western music. We are a new generation of Malian musicians of the north. Maybe in the future they’re going to lose completely the traditional music. We are lucky to have both, traditional and modern music. That is the best description I can give.” That’s good enough for me. • Optimisme is released on Transgressive on October 23.

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INTERVIEW MARY BUTLER TD

TACKLING IRELAND’S MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

Fianna Fáil TD Mary Butler, Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, opens up about the impact Covid-19 is having on people’s mental health, her own experiences with postnatal depression, the impulsive behaviour of Donald Trump – and lots more besides. I N T E RV I E W: LU C Y O ’ TO O L E a daunting challenge – presiding over the country’s response to some of its most vulnerable people during a time of unprecedented stress and uncertainty. While Fianna Fáil TD Mary Butler describes her appointment as Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People back in July as the highlight of her career, she also admits that it’s “a huge brief.” With over €1 billion allocated to mental health alone in Budget 2021, an increase of €50 million on last year’s budget, she’s not wrong. It is inescapable that the country is exhibiting all signs of being on the verge of a mental health crisis – with the collapse of industries, job losses, social isolation, and a pervading sense of fear impacting all aspects of people’s lives. As such, a suitably mammoth response is required from the Government. Butler, a Waterford native who ran her family’s grocery shop in Portlaw for 17 years, was first elected as a TD in 2016 – topping the poll, and becoming the first new female Fianna Fáil TD elected in nearly a decade. Although she previously served as Fianna Fáil’s Spokesperson for Older People, her involvement in mental health is a whole new undertaking...

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It must be a worrying time for you, as Minister of State with responsibility for Mental Health. The current crisis is having a significant impact on people’s mental health and well-being. Everybody is trying to cope with new and emerging challenges. Two weeks ago, before we moved to Level Three, there was huge uncertainty – people weren’t sure what was happening throughout the country. This causes a lot of anxiety. So how do you deal with that? The most important thing we can do is try to adapt as quickly as we can. And, for the past seven months, 90% of all mental health supports for those who were already in the system were retained – which is very positive. Everything has changed in this country, so we’ve moved to a blended approach. Instead of having the face-to-face consultations, we moved online very quickly – within the space of a week for some organisations. Now you’re talking by phone, by email, by Zoom, or Microsoft Teams. We had to adapt very quickly. Were you expecting to be appointed as a junior minister? I never had any expectations when he was appointing senior ministers, because we have a three-way coalition, with a split of six, six and three. But I had been Spokesperson for Older People for the past four years – and it was a role that I really enjoyed. I’ll be honest with you – I was hopeful, when the Taoiseach was appointing Ministers of State. So when Micheál Martin contacted me on that particular Wednesday, and said that he was going to appoint me as Minister for Mental Health and Older People, it was the highlight of my career. I was absolutely delighted. Were you apprehensive? It’s a huge brief. It’s two briefs in one. We have the new Sharing The Vision policy now, which is a hugely 10-year

M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L

MAXWELLS

I was acutely aware that there are gaps in the services, and that the CAMHS waiting list is too high. WORRYING TIMES: Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin have acknowledged the impact lockdown is having on mental health

policy, with a whole of government approach. But the most important thing is that it puts the individual front and centre of the service delivery. On World Mental Health Day, I launched the National Implementation and Monitoring Committee. It’s put in place to oversee progress – it will hold me, the department and the HSE to account.

and eating disorders, is because there’s an awful lot of online bullying. People can be very cruel, and they might not realise the impact it has on a young person, when they’re alone in their bedroom at night. It can have a really profound knockout effect, and lead to eating disorders, self-harm, a sense of isolation, anxiety, and panic attacks.

Prior to being appointed to your role, what was your assessment of the mental health services in Ireland? As a TD since 2016, I would have dealt with many people from my own constituency who would have had many challenges. I’d dealt with various cases locally – for example, young teens or adolescents that might have had to be admitted into an adult psychiatric ward. Last year, for example, 54 teens or adolescents had to be admitted to an adult psychiatric ward during the course of the year – because there wasn’t a facility available for them. So I was acutely aware that there are gaps in the services, and that – at over 2,200 children waiting to be assessed the CAMHS waiting list is too high. That’s something that we’re going to look at immediately.

How can you address that? I’m launching leaflets into 4,000 secondary schools over the next week, which highlight 12 different organisations that can support young people who have mental health challenges. I’ve met with many groups of young people, and a lot of them come back to me to say that they didn’t realise that these supports were there, until it was too late – after one of their friends had taken their own life. Or they had friends that might have been self-harming.

Would you have had any prior experiences of the mental health services in Ireland through family or friends? I had prior experience through a family member who was a service user – a cousin of mine. I’d have been in the Department of Psychiatry in University Hospital Waterford, on several occasions over the years. There is an increasing impression that children could be badly affected by lockdown – in terms of both their social development and their mental health. Absolutely. Children have been out of school for so long – they missed their friends, their teachers, and even the routine. I’ve talked to many parents, especially parents of teenagers, whose children were in bed half the day and up half the night, on their phones and laptops. Last year, there were 496 teens and adolescents admitted to acute services within the mental health services – 65% of them were girls. And the majority of the presentations were in relation to eating disorders. That’s one of the main challenges we’re facing with teens and adolescents. Why do you think those kinds of issues are on the rise for teenagers? I think a lot of it is in relation to social media. It’s related to body consciousness, and body image, and what they’re seeing on Instagram or TikTok. They’re not really sure how to cope with this, and they’re trying to reflect what they’re seeing. That’s hugely concerning. One of the other reasons why young girls are really feeling challenged with self-harm

There seems to be a greater willingness on the part of doctors to prescribe psychiatric medication for children in recent years – do you think that’s a good thing? I am Minister for Mental Health – but I wouldn’t have a clinician’s background. So I would always be slow to condemn a clinician who would try and determine exactly what’s the best course of course of action for the patient in front of them. But, certainly, there are a lot of great therapies out there now – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy – which is hugely important. Unfortunately, DBT has stopped during Covid. It’s very important that those supports are there I definitely think we need a mix of supports. For some people, medication may not be the only answer. The mental health of young LGBTQ people is also a concern. At what point do you think a young person should be allowed to self-declare their gender? Sometimes it can depend on the individual – but I would be mindful of the fact that people become adults at 18. Again, I’m three months into the job – I have a huge amount to learn, and I’ve met with the key stakeholders. But my current thinking would be that 18 is the age where young people become adults. To make a decision prior to that, you’d certainly need strong supports of organisations, family, and your clinician. There’s ongoing talk of banning conversion therapy in the UK – and in Ireland the Prohibition of Conversion Therapies Bill is currently in committee stage in the Seanad. What’s your stance on conversion therapy? I would be completely opposed to that. I campaigned for marriage equality, and I believe that everyone is entitled to live the best life they possibly can.

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MIGUEL RUIZ

INTERVIEW MARY BUTLER TD

HAPPIER TIMES: All Together Now Festival in 2019

We’re also seeing a growing mental health crisis among musicians and other people in the live entertainment industry. Musicians, and all the arts, have been really seriously impacted because of Covid-19. We all love listening to live music. Obviously all the bands that would have played at weddings and parties have had all their work stopped completely. That’s been hugely challenging. Are you a music fan? I’m a big music fan actually – classic rock! I would’ve spent a lot of time going to concerts in my younger days with my husband. That’s all gone now, and everyone misses it. My own daughter had tickets for Electric Picnic, and that’s been put on hold till next year – so hopefully it will happen. We have this fantastic festival, All Together Now, here in Portlaw – where I’m from in Waterford. That festival was on in the Curraghmore Estate for the last two years, and it was hugely successful. There was such disappointment in the local community when it didn’t happen. Is there not a real danger that the impact lockdown has had on the live entertainent industry will lead to an increase in the incidence of suicide? The early data indicates that from the onset of the pandemic, there was no spike in either suicide or selfharm. However, the figures are evolving constantly, and at the end of the year, we will know more. Connecting for Life is the suicide prevention strategy, and last year, for example, we learned that approximately 421 people took their own lives in this country. But you will also learn that quite a lot of the people who take their own lives are not involved in mental health supports or services. Leo Varadkar recently said that the people involved in NPHET wouldn’t know what it’s like for people who have to claim PUP, or lose their businesses, due to Covid-19 restrictions. How did you react? To be honest, I think the Tánaiste was speaking out of a sense of frustration – because there was a lot of uncertainty. The last thing we want to do is give any more uncertainty, and to cause any more anxiety to people, without having the clear recommendations. It’s very important that we have clarification in relation to where we’re going. That clarification did not come until Taoiseach Micheál Martin, came out on Monday night on the Nine O’Clock News, and made it quite clear that we

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NPHET’s job is to advise – the Government’s job is to govern. were moving to Level Three at midnight. However, the uncertainty that had prevailed on the Sunday evening and the Monday was not fair on people. I can understand where the Tánaiste’s frustration came from. Do you think NPHET should have to take into account the impact these kinds of statements have on people’s mental health? No, NPHET’s job is to advise – the Government’s job is to govern. So the Government takes on board what NPHET has to say. NPHET will just look at public health. They will look at the statistics, the criteria, the trends, and the graphs. And they will see that our figures are rising – with really frightening numbers in the last week especially. But the Government has to take into account the social issues, the economic issues and the health issues. You have to take into account the mental health of our people – and also people who are ill with non-Covid related issues. The services have to run now in parallel with Covid. Even before Covid-19, the statistics surrounding mental illness and suicide in the Traveller Community were shocking – with seven times more Traveller men and six times more Traveller women dying by suicide than the national average. Many people feel this crisis has been ignored by the Government. You’re quite right. I met with the Travellers’ organisations recently, and I met with Senator Eileen Flynn, at the launch of the National Traveller Mental Health Network submission. It was actually the first engagement I had as Minister. I met them outside the gates of Leinster House, and they presented to me their Mental Health Network submission. I think it’s fantastic to see Senator Eileen Flynn in the Seanad. She’s a great young mum – full of energy. She knows exactly the challenges that Travellers are facing. It’s great to see somebody from an ethnic minority being appointed. What’s important to note is that Sharing The Vision is a policy for everyone – and it does recognise ethnic or minority groups. The National Implementation and Monitoring Committee will have an independent chair, and it’ll have lots of subgroups – including Travellers’ organisations.

M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L

Think back to when Donald Trump was talking about injecting disinfectant into people... it’s hard to put it into words.

DONALD TRUMP: Super Spreader of misinformation: (inset) Neale Richmond

One mental health issue that still remains somewhat stigmatised is postnatal depression – despite the fact that it affects 10-15% of women during the first year after giving birth. Postnatal depression can be very tough – I actually suffered from it myself, after my youngest was born. I’m a mother of three. My eldest is 27, he’s a teacher of history and economics; my daughter is 23, and she’s currently doing a Master’s in local government; and my youngest, 15, is in third year. After she was born I suffered from some anxiety and panic attacks, as a result of a difficult birth. There is no doubt about it – lived experience is hugely important. Postnatal depression can be hugely challenging – especially during the lockdown. When anyone has a baby, we all turn to our mothers! If your mother is living in a different county, and you don’t have the access to that support, that can be very challenging. Pregnant mothers at the moment are finding things extremely difficult, because of the restrictions on going to maternity hospitals. Currently, they’re not able to bring their partner or a family member with them for scans, or for antenatal classes. Thankfully, the partner is able to be present at the birth now. Did you feel there was enough support there for you, when you had postnatal depression? I had an excellent GP. He nearly spotted the symptoms for me. I had great support from my own husband and my family, as well. My three sisters live quite close to me, as does my mother. And I have a brother in Waterford city. So I’m lucky to have a lot of family support – which is absolutely great. That was in 2005, when I had my daughter, and I know supports have come a long way since then. But I also think what’s important is that people are more inclined to talk about postnatal depression now. Talking about it is so important. For some women, the effects of postnatal can be lifealtering – and it can have quite a big impact on their families, and especially their partners. It absolutely can. I heard one of the new TDs, Neale Richmond, speak about that recently – his wife had postnatal depression. It impacts the whole family. When you think of mental health, you probably don’t think of postnatal depression as being a part of that. The thing about postnatal depression, however, is that the recovery rates are extremely good. Reflecting back on the Ireland you grew up in – there were people in every community who would’ve been known as ‘a character’. Nowadays, they would probably be seen as suffering from a mental health issue.

As my husband says to me, back when we grew up, we would’ve heard ‘their nerves are at them’! That was the line down where we live. Also, going back 30 or 40 years, somebody might have had dementia, and people would say, “Oh, they’re a real character!” They mightn’t have actually recognised what exactly was wrong with that person. But there’s a huge acceptance now, and there’s way more information. Information is key – so people know where they can get the supports. I was born in the ‘60s, and things have evolved so much in 50 years, it’s actually unbelievable. Finally then – as Minister for Mental Health, what’s your take on Donald Trump, and these impulsive words and actions being broadcast around the world on a daily basis? What really worries me about Donald Trump, is that he nearly tried to ridicule, or normalise Covid-19. Saying, “Look, I got it, it’s a great thing. I’ve never felt better.” When you consider the amount of people who have lost their lives all over the world, and especially in the USA, because of Covid… I just worry. When you think back to when Donald Trump was talking about injecting disinfectant into people – to ridicule such a serious health pandemic, to the likes of, “It’s great – go and get it and you’ll feel so much better afterwards” – it’s hard to put it into words. When I heard him saying that, I said to myself, “He’s definitely after losing the election.” It’s hard to know… It is hard to know. Some people believe every word the man says, and unfortunately that’s the challenge we’re living with – people believe what they want to believe. But it’s bad for any world leader to try and ridicule how serious this Covid pandemic. The world will never be the same again. It will be a long time before we go back to the normality we had last Christmas. As we’re facing into Christmas now, uncertainty is the key word at the moment. This is a really difficult time for people, but the most important thing we can do – and I can’t say it often enough – is recognise that it’s okay not to be okay, and it’s okay to ask for help. Some people are not designed that way – they find it hard to talk about their feelings and reach out for help. If we can lessen the stigma on a daily basis, it will be a job well done, as far as I’m concerned.

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M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L

‘We need the community around a young person to support their mental health’ Jen Trzeciak is an occupational therapist with Jigsaw. In the past year, she has moved to Jigsaw’s online services as the E-Mental Health Clinical Manager. We spoke to Jen about the services offered by Jigsaw and the importance of youth mental health services in Ireland.

igsaw has always offered direct services and shortterm intervention, but now, the organisation has launched online services to young people. “Over the past couple years, we’ve realised that a lot of young people are online – and that’s where they’re looking for support,” notes Jen Trzeciak, an occupational therapist with Jigsaw. “Young people can ring up and request an appointment, but there’s obviously a limited amount of space on offer. Sometimes people will have to wait, whereas with the online services, there’s no referral criteria, and people can speak to somebody straight away. There’s a kind of instant access. “We’re in 12 locations – Cork, Donegal, Dublin South West, Dublin 15, Dublin City, Galway, Kerry, Laois/Offaly, Limerick, North Fingal, Meath, Roscommon – but Jigsaw Online is accessible across the whole of Ireland.” Jigsaw deals primarily with young people ages 12-25, and Trzeciak says they’ve seen a huge influx of young people using the online service since the start of COVID-19, despite its relative newness. “What we’re finding is a lot more of the older cohort from ages 18-25 – are coming online, because coming out to make an appointment might have been more of a challenge.” In addition to dealing directly with young people, Jigsaw offers services to educators and adults who work with youth. “From our perspective, we need the community around a young person to support their mental health,” Trzeciak notes. “And it’s not just a services issue, it is about everybody being aware. One of the things we work on with parents is to encourage them to listen, and to be open to hearing about mental health. “What often happens is that they want to reassure young people by saying ‘don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal’. For a lot of young people, they just want to be listened to, and for someone to acknowledge that they are experiencing stress.” So what’s her advice? “Don’t be afraid to ask a question about what’s going on, or to check in. We’re also trying to facilitate schools becoming more aware of how they support mental health. It’s great having World Mental Health Day, but actually, discussion of mental needs to be spread across the year.” This all might seem relatively straightforward, but according to Trzeciak, it’s often the simplest things that fall by the wayside in schools.

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“It can sometimes be practical things, like knowing the hours that your guidance counsellor’s office is open, or where you can go if you need a little bit of time out.” Part of the way Jigsaw encourages open conversation about mental health is by ensuring that their services are as inclusive and accessible as possible. “Some of our premises are a little bit older, and if we can’t see people – if they have a disability, for example – then we find an alternative place to be able to see them,” says Trzeciak. “We don’t want people to feel that there’s any barrier to accessing services.” Since the pandemic started, Jigsaw have also been offering different types of appointments: phone- and video-based telehealth support is now available for people in more rural areas. “We cover some very wide catchment areas,” says Trzeciak, “so inclusivity is something we’re always working on.”

“Don’t be afraid to ask a question about what’s going on, or to check in.” Jigsaw uses community engagement workers to accomplish this mission of inclusivity, but perhaps their most important effort – aside from the online service – is their youth advisory panel. “Their role is really to highlight the gaps, and hold us to account for how we’re delivering services,” says Trzeciak, “to make sure that what we’re offering is acceptable and accessible for young people across a range of different backgrounds.” The key is to know you’re not alone. “I know that it can feel difficult to take that first step, but actually Jigsaw online is a really good option,” says Trzeciak.”You can be completely anonymous, log in and just have the conversation about what your needs are and what might be helpful. If you want more face-to-face support, we can look at how we can enable that to happen. But don’t keep it to yourself.” • Jigsaw has live online chats, group chats, a free phone number (1-800-JIGSAW), and an email (help@jigsaw.ie) where you can speak to someone directly.

M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L CHARITIES & ORGANISATIONS

There’s Always Help At Hand These are challenging times but whether on the phone, through a computer screen or in person, Ireland's mental health organisations are there to support you.

THE SAMARITANS

During these unprecedented times, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and hopeless. At Samaritans, they believe that – no matter the issue – if given the time and space to talk, you can find a way through your problems. The organisation has volunteers, who are available 24/7 to help those in need explore their options and make the right decisions for their mental wellbeing. Many people are suffering from loneliness, stress from working at home or increased pressure from family, while others may be facing unemployment or increased financial debts. “That’s why Samaritans are there,” says Niall Mulligan, the company’s executive director. “For 60 years people have been talking to us, in their own way, about whatever’s getting to them.” Last year, volunteers answered

over half a million calls in Ireland, and the organisation strongly urges those who are struggling not to wait until they feel suicidal to get in touch. “Unfortunately, some people do not have the support of friends or family,” Niall says. “Others do, but will sometimes find that speaking with someone neutral is, at times, beneficial. “Many people find talking to someone else is the best way to get help. It just needs to be someone you trust. “If you’re worried about someone and want to ask how they are, give them the space to talk, ask open questions, listen to what they say, and let them know you’re there for them. But make sure you have support too, if you’re helping a friend.” • If you need to talk, call Samaritans on freephone 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.ie.

MINDING CREATIVE MINDS

Founded in June 2020 by Dave Reid, Minding Creative Minds is Ireland’s first 24/7 wellbeing support programme for the Irish Music community. The organisation offers support to musicians, artists, songwriters, managers, event production crew members, publicists, marketers, live music administrators and venue staff. “The expansion of Minding Creative Minds will give all musicians and people involved in all areas of the Irish Music Sector the opportunity to mind their mental wellbeing,” says Reid. “They will be able to contact qualified counsellors and experts in different fields such as financial planning, legal and career matters enabling expert advice and helping to manage personal issues they might be facing.” With funding from partners like First Fortnight, IMRO (Irish Music Rights Organisation), IRMA (Irish Recorded Music Association), MCD Productions, RAAP (Recorded

Artists, Actors & Performers), Universal Music Ireland and the BAI (Broadcasting Authority of Ireland), Minding Creative Minds’ counselling services include: a 24/7 Dedicated Phone Line; Short-term intervention counselling of up to six Sessions; Telephone Counselling; Secure Video Counselling; and an extensive web portal and app enabling live chat function with a counsellor. Minding Creative Minds also emphasises support for the whole individual, and as such, the programme offers access to a number of additional services structured to help users with various issues they may face such as: advice on practical, day-to-day issues that cause anxiety and stress; legal Assistance for a range of issues; financial assistance and consumer advice; career guidance and life coaching; support for non-Irish nationals and their families; and mediation for conflict resolution. • Telephone: 1800 814 244 Calling from NI - 0800 0903677

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M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L SPONSORED CONTENT

Men’s Development Network The Men’s Development Network has played a major role in promoting change and equality within Irish society, by working with men across a variety of areas. CEO Sean Cooke and Advice Line Supervisor Derek Smith tell us about their Male Advice Line, for male victims of domestic abuse. Sean Cooke

ince its formation in 1997, The Men’s Development Network has been guided by one central mission: “That men play an active part in all aspects of their lives”. The non-profit organisation, headquartered in Waterford City, works with men on various levels. Their aim is to create more spaces for new conversations with men; increase supports to men, women and families; advocate for social change and greater gender equality; and influence the policy, practice and processes of engaging men. “There are certain aspects of masculinity,” CEO Sean Cooke explains, “which are detrimental to men’s health, and detrimental to their relationships with their children, their partners, their families and their communities – because there are socially-conditioned restraints, and traditional norms imposed upon them.” CEO Sean Cooke explains. “In all of our work, we’re looking at the whole idea of gender equality by transforming masculinities and developing healthy

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masculinities.” In addition to their counselling, development, health and MEND [Men Ending Domestic Violence] programmes, the Men’s Development Network launched the Male Advice Line last year – offering confidential advice and support to male victims of domestic violence and abuse. Over lockdown, Advice Line Supervisor Derek Smith has seen a notable increase in demand for the service. “The number of calls increased hugely in April – we had a total of 185 calls,” he says. “People couldn’t go anywhere, so they were very restricted. If there’s any crack in a relationship, it will show up big time. Lockdown is certainly not the cause of domestic abuse, but it can trigger domestic abuse.” Although the men using the Advice Line come from a variety of backgrounds and ages, Derek notes that they all have one thing in common – the need to be listened to. “I had a call there recently from a guy from the Midlands,” he reflects. “For the first

half-an-hour of Derek Sm ith the call, he was just crying. It’s so important to let men just talk – because the first step to recovery is to be listened to, and understood. At the end of the call, he thanked me, and said, ‘I feel a bit lighter now’. I asked him if he wanted me to call him back in a couple of days time, and he said, ‘Yeah’. “So, I called him back,” he continues. “The upshot of that call was that the relationship had come to an end – and all of this emotion was bottled up inside him. To be able to talk to a stranger in a safe place, that will listen emphatically and be non-judgmental, can be huge for a man. We don’t find it easy to talk about our emotions, and we certainly don’t find it easy to talk about our feelings. To give a man that space can make a big difference.” • For more information, see mensnetwork.ie. Male Advice Line – Freephone: 1800 816 588

M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L

Positive Notes Some of Ireland’s rising musical stars tell Lucy O’Toole and Tanis Smither how they’re minding their musical health during Lockdown.

Jack Rua David Keenan

wear the Green Ribbon of SeeChange Ireland to promote positive mental health awareness, understanding, and the many dialogues which surround it. Loneliness and isolation are silent killers, the pressure to conform to societal norms or the general consensus both online and in the real world can be crippling. We must embrace our vulnerabilities now more than ever as humans experiencing the human condition, removing the hyper competitive desire to be weller than well all of the time while devoting more energy to our online avatars than we devote to ourselves. Speak to your friends, tell them you love them often, challenge their views, let them challenge yours. Embrace your eccentricities and fallibilities, do your best, celebrate your weirdness. Don’t allow social media to act as the judge who scores your efforts out of ten. Take a break from your phone and spend time in nature, get into the sea. Allow yourself to grieve and heal. This year has been a battle for many and as the restrictions and the static continue to ebb and flow, remember to check in with yourself and the ones that love you for all that you are.

It must have been difficult to be separated from your boyfriend during the first lockdown. It was, but I don’t want to revel in the suckiness of it, because I’m sure everyone was in a similar boat. The song was pretty expressive of that feeling for me, but I also wanted to make it a universal thing that people could relate to. I tried to say everything that I was feeling, which was not only missing my boyfriend, but also missing physical and sexual intimacy.

space of a few days, that schedule was taken away and everything was up in the air. So I tried to schedule myself. I would wake up at 9am, regardless of when I went to sleep, or if I had anything to do the next day – which was very unlikely because I wasn’t going out. The best thing I did was build that

“I tried to say everything that I was feeling.”

What did you do to keep in touch during the worst of it? We would try to FaceTime every day, and text all the time. But the thing about texting is that I find it quite draining, because I don’t find it to be the most authentic form of communication. The tension of the whole situation made it really difficult to maintain a new relationship.

schedule for myself. I would also write two pages of freehand writing in a journal every morning, which was a good way for me to verbalise my feelings. And then to remain pragmatic and useful, I was learning to record my own vocals and produce. Those were the things I used to keep my mental health in check. I needed my brain to be operating on a productive level.

It’s impossible to give other people advice on how to maintain their mental health, but what else do you do for yourself, to keep a healthy mindset on a day-to-day basis? I was working full time before Ireland went into lockdown, and I was rehearsing for all these gigs, and I had a schedule. All of a sudden, in the

I’m a big fan of journaling... It’s great for me. I read this book called The Artist’s Way back in 2016, and they call it ‘the morning pages’ – journaling whatever’s going on in your head, even if it’s complete nonsense. It’s a good way of exercising your brain. • Jack Rua’s ‘Isolation’ is out now

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M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L

Aoife Power Laoise How did you cope during the first lockdown? I have mixed feelings, and I don’t know if I’ve completely processed them. I started therapy weekly, back in January. I had wanted to do that for a really long time anyway, and it wasn’t like I was in bits or there was any kind of rock bottom, I just wasn’t exactly processing thoughts the way I wanted to. Luckily,

“There were definitely days where my sense of purpose was very hazed” I was able to continue therapy throughout all of the lockdown. I’m a bit of a homebody, I like Netflix and cups of tea. I’m not a huge partier, so when the pandemic happened I had been training for it. But there were definitely days where my sense of purpose was very hazed. I’d wake up and not have anything to do for the day, and that was quite challenging for me. I am the type of person who likes to give myself things to do, and to have purpose. Did you find comfort in the idea that everyone else was going through the same thing? I compare everything to everything colours to colours, one outfit to another - but then I also unwittingly end up comparing myself to others. In a way, there was a relief during the pandemic,

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whenyoung knowing that nobody else was able to do anything. Your new single touches on mental health... It’s called ‘Healthy’, and it took me a while to name the song, but there’s a lyric in the pre-chorus that says, “I don’t’ know why I’m not thinking I’m messing this up, I guess it feels healthy, I’m used to unsteady.” Initially, I wrote that without thinking about the title, but the more I listened to it the more I went, “This is it”. It’s about a romantic relationship that I’m in, where I always had this feeling of, “you don’t seem like you’re going to leave, you seem like you’re here for the long haul...” It was weird for me, but I also felt like if they did leave, I wasn’t going to fall apart. It was healthy but not codependent. Do you have any best practices that help you keep healthy on a daily basis? It’s finding out what your version of healthy is, I think. ‘Healthy’ isn’t all fruit and vegetables and running and getting up early every morning and not drinking. It’s balance, and what works for you and makes you thrive. For example, I don’t gravitate toward exercise. Making things easy on ourselves is something we don’t do in Western society, and that can be quite damaging. Making things as easy as possible, especially during a time like this. If you feel like you need some air, you don’t need to go on a 30-minute hike, you can just go sit outside. • Laoise’s ‘Healthy’ single is out now

t the end of 2019 I made a decision to look after myself. For years I had been neglecting my wellbeing. At the start of 2020 we decided to take time away from touring to write our second album. This gave me time to begin a programme of self-care which I am still working at – and forever will be. Looking after your mental health is an ongoing, difficult job. I am wearing a See Change pin to show my support for mental health awareness. I want to thank all the brave people who talk openly about their struggles as they have been guiding stars for me. Sending love and strength to everyone who struggles!

Our list to help you through the bad days... 1. Curtis Mayfield ‘Move On Up’ 2. Solange ‘Cranes In The Sky’ 3. U2 ‘One’ 4. Snow Patrol ‘Heal Me’ 5. Ariana Grande ‘Breathin’’

TOP 5 POSITIVE SONGS

M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L

MOVEMBER: LOCKDOWN, SHAVE DOWN, GET DOWN

Paul Tully It’s unusual to see mental health being discussed openly on an upbeat country song – like you do on ‘Anxiety’. I wrote ‘Anxiety’ when we were in the thick of the pandemic, back in April. It’s about lockdown, but it’s also about other internal and external things that were going on. It’s taking inspiration from songs like ‘Dancing In The Dark’ – it’s quite upbeat, but when you dig into the lyrics, it’s heavy stuff. I didn’t want to hide behind hidden meanings. I wanted to deliver my experience of anxiety. Any time I’ve written a decent song, or a song I really believe in, it’s when I’m telling the truth about myself in it. ‘Anxiety’ just came out. So I said, “Okay – I’m going to write down how I’m feeling here, warts and all, and see how it goes”. It was very therapeutic. When I sent it to a few of my mates, I was very self-conscious about it, to be honest. I suppose I still am, to an extent! But I hope it resonates with people. Anxiety’s a big thing, for so many people. It’s great that people are talking about it a lot more. How have you been looking after your own head over lockdown? I’ve had my ups and downs. I’ve been going for jogs and meditating. Or sometimes I’d just stick the headphones in, and listen to a favourite album, or some new music – just to pass an evening. I’m back calling and FaceTiming my friends as well. I might spend 20 minutes catching up with friends – even if we’ve nothing to say to each other. It’s great to have a conversation, because otherwise you can end up looking at the four walls, and getting lost on Netflix. Netflix is anxiety-inducing enough, with all the murder mysteries! Some creative people put a lot of pressure on themselves to use lockdown productively. How do you find it? I don’t put myself under any pressure to write anything. I was actually going back to enjoying just playing the guitar again, because I wasn’t performing as much. Music should be a joyful experience. I never, ever want to lose that. This song just came to me – but the enjoyment of the process was the big thing for me. After writing it, I contacted my two friends, Peter Doherty and David McGaughey, and we spent the day recording it. The whole process was really enjoyable, and that was the most important thing.

One man around the world dies by suicide every minute – that’s over half a million fathers, partners, brothers and friends each year. In an effort to encourage healthy conversations about mental health, Movember have launched Lockdown, Shave Down, Get Down. The men’s health charity is teaming up with stylist Lawson Mpame, broadcaster Darren Kennedy, rugby player Harry McNulty, Men’s Circle facilitator Darragh Stewart and high performance coach Pat Divily, to help men take positive steps towards speaking up about their struggles. “I am honoured to be a

Movember ambassador this year,” says Lawson. “The incredible guys who are part of this community helped me at a time when I needed it most, and when I was at my lowest point in life. So it’s truly amazing that I can do my part to help stop men dying young – especially at the difficult time we are currently living in.” Every year, participants around the world help Movember to make a real difference in mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer. • Movember kicks off on November 1. For more information, see ie.movember. com.

Free 24/7 wellbeing support programme for the Irish Music Sector If you’re working in the Irish Music Sector and need to talk, don’t hesitate to contact Minding Creative Minds for any of the following free services. • 24/7 Dedicated Phone Line • Counselling Service (Short term intervention) • Telephone Counselling / Video Counselling • Web Portal & App enabling live chat function with a counsellor • Advice on practical, day-to-day issues that cause anxiety and stress including legal, ﬁnancial & career assistance and advice •

1800 814 244 (ROI) 0800 0903677 (NI) www.mindingcreativeminds.ie

• Paul Tully’s ‘Anxiety’ single is out now

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M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L SPONSORED CONTENT

H I G H F I E L D H E A LT H C A R E

‘We encourage people to show themselves compassion’

(left) Dr. Naughton and (below) Laura Collins

Highfield Healthcare has a long-established history of providing an exceptional level of care for people with mental health issues. Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Leena Naughton and Clinical Nurse Manager Laura Collins tell us about Highfield’s new day hospital, and how they’ve adapted their services during Covid-19.

ith a focus on empowering people to live mentally healthy lives, Highfield Healthcare has continued to grow and develop its services since first opening its doors in 1825. Located in Whitehall in Dublin, and currently run by the sixth generation of the Eustace family, Highfield is highly regarded for its acute and specialist mental health services. Following the success of their first acute day hospital service, Highfield opened their second day hospital in March 2020 – a recovery-orientated service which offers people a range of supports and treatment options, to meet the individual needs of each person. The therapeutic programme at the day hospital consists of many multidisciplinaryled sessions, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Occupational Therapy, Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP), health promotion and more. Over the years, Laura Collins, the Clinical Nurse Manager at the new day hospital, has seen a positive shift in people’s attitudes towards mental health in Ireland. “What has helped is the media coverage, and the sports and pop stars coming out and sharing their own experiences – people like Bressie,” says Collins. “As part of our psychoeducation sessions in the day hospital, we explore that stigma. Through the group therapy programme here, people can connect with people their own age, who have similar experiences – and that really helps to normalise what they’re going through. “People can also have an internal stigma around what they’re experiencing,” she adds. “That’s something we explore on a one-toone basis. We encourage people to show

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themselves compassion, and learn about what they’re going through. It’s important that they know that it’s a biological thing they’re going through, and their experience is valid.” An emphasis on recovery is at the heart of Highfield’s approach. “Highfield really looks at working collaboratively with individuals, to develop a care plan that really fits their own needs,” Collins explains. “All the services are based upon that recovery model.” Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Leena Naughton also emphasises the importance of a holistic approach.

“It’s not just about treating the illness – it’s about instilling confidence in people.” “It’s not just about treating the illness – it’s about instilling confidence in people, so they know they are part of the community, and they have equal rights to lead quality lives,” Dr Naughton says. “In the day hospital, we’re teaching young people how to live with their illness, in a positive way.” Of course, shortly after the opening of the new Day Hospital, Highfield was faced with the challenges of Covid-19 in Ireland. As Dr Naughton notes, due to the stress, isolation and disruption of the pandemic, “People who have had mental health issues are finding it even tougher, and some people have developed new issues.” “With the inability to socialise, patients with anxiety problems – who were avoiding

socialising before Covid-19 ever came – have worsened,” she explains. “Through the treatment, we would have encouraged them to socialise more, but because of Covid-19, they now have a reason not to go out. “We have noticed that a lot of substance misuse has increased,” she adds. “People are at home, and bored. They’re drinking more and they’re using cannabis more. Another disorder that has really worsened is OCD. For people with fear of contamination, we’ve found that Covid-19 has deepened their condition and their fears.” To meet the various challenges of the pandemic, Highfield moved quickly to adapt their services. “Teletherapy was developed to enable the teams to continue delivering interventions and providing support to those who needed it,” Laura explains. “Over a short space of time, the entire therapeutic programme in the day hospital migrated to an online platform – with assessments, group therapy and oneto-one work all being facilitated using Zoom and telephone.” “In our programme, the medium of delivering care has changed, but the groups and interventions have still remained the same, to a certain extent,” she adds. “One of the programmes that we deliver is called Decider Skills. It’s based on CBT and DBTbased skills, and it enables people to manage stress, regulate emotions and increase mindfulness. That’s a huge help, considering that people are trying to manage a huge, totally unexpected event in their lives.” • If you have any concerns around the issues raised in this article or need further help please contact your GP or reach out to Highfield Healthcare at 01 8865441 or at referrals@highfieldhealthcare.ie.

M E N TA L H E A LT H S P E C I A L

MENTAL HEALTH CONTACTS A LUST FOR LIFE A mental health charity using content, campaigns and events to facilitate positive mental health in young people. alustforlife.com ACTION MENTAL HEALTH (NI) A local charity working to enhance the quality of life and the employability of people with mental health needs or a learning disability in Northern Ireland. Tel: 028 9182 8494 amh.org.uk ACTIVE CONNECTIONS Adventure therapy programmes for people in need. Tel: 085 747 9283 activeconnections.ie AWARE With an emphasis on depression support, they run a helpline, Aware offer email support, and support groups nationwide and online, including in Northern Ireland. Helpline: 1800 80 48 48 aware.ie / aware-ni.org BELONG TO National youth service for LGBTQ+ young people. belongto.org BODYWHYS National voluntary organisation supporting people affected by eating disorders. LoCall Helpline: 01 210 7906 bodywhys.ie CONNECTING FOR LIFE Irelandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s national strategy for suicide prevention 20152020. hse.ie/eng/services/ list/4/mental-healthservices/connecting-forlife FIRST FORTNIGHT Centre for creative therapies providing free

mental health services to the cultural sector, art psychotherapy services for adults with experience of homelessness, and more. firstfortnight.ie GAY SWITCHBOARD DUBLIN GSD Support and help for LGBT people. Tel: 01 872 1055 between 6:30-9pm Monday to Friday; Saturday 2-6pm; Sundays and bank holidays 4-6pm. GROW Support service for people with mental health difficulties, with a network of over 130 groups in Ireland. Tel: 1890 474 474 grow.ie HIGHFIELD HEALTHCARE Evidence-based therapy programmes tailored for each individual. Tel: 01 837 4444 highfieldhealthcare.ie HUMAN GIVENS Solutions-focused therapy by five fully-qualified, accredited and experienced therapists, available seven days a week. Tel: 01 289 4097 e-mail: info@ dublinhumangivens.ie HSE Government body with responsibility for protecting all areas of health including mental health. hse.ie IACP The Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy can connect you with accredited professionals near you. Tel: 01 230 35 36 iacp.ie JIGSAW Provides support to young people (aged 12- 25) going through a hard time or for those worried about a

young person. Online live chat services, with someone always available. Tel: 01 472 7010 jigsaw.ie MENTAL HEALTH IRELAND National voluntary organisation promoting positive mental health and actively supporting persons with a mental illness, their families and careers. mentalhealthireland.ie MENS DEVELOPMENT NETWORK Programmes include a counselling service, as well as the Male Advice Line for male victims of domestic abuse. Counselling Confidential Line: 051 87 88 66 Male Advice Line: 1800 816 588 mensnetwork.ie MINDING CREATIVE MINDS Formed by Dave Reid, Minding Creative Minds is a mental wellbeing support programme for musicians and the music community. The organisation offers mental health counselling as well as legal advice, career guidance and meditation services. Tel: 1800 814 244 mindingcreativeminds.ie MINDINGYOURHEAD An online resource which provides a comprehensive list of services covering the complete gamut of mental health needs and services in Northern Ireland. mindingyourhead.info MINDWISE A registered charity, Mindwise is an advocacy and support agency for Mental Health and well-being, offering its wide-ranging services from locations across Northern Ireland. mindwisenv.org NURTURE Irish charity offering timely

and affordable professional counselling surrounding pregnancy and childbirth, mental health illnesses and emotional wellbeing to women, their partners and families. Helpline: 1890 717 717 nurturehealth.ie ONE IN FOUR Professionally supporting men and women who have experienced sexual abuse during childhood. Tel: 01 662 4070, MondayFriday, 9.30 to 5.30pm oneinfour.ie PIETA HOUSE Provides free, therapeutic approach to people in suicidal distress and those who engage in self-harm. If you are suicidal, selfharming or bereaved by suicide, see pieta.ie or call their free 24/7 helpline 1800 247 247. REACH OUT Youth mental health service providing information and support on a variety of mental issues. ie.reachout.com SAMARITANS Samaritans run a superb free helpline service, which people can access at any time, about whatever might be bothering them. 24-hour helpline: 116 123 (Includes Northern Ireland) e-mail: jo@samaritans.org samaritans.org SEE CHANGE Working in particular for young men, in partnership with national and community-based organisations, See Change is dedicated to ending mental health stigma. Tel: 01 541 3715 e-mail: info@seechange.ie SHINE Supporting people with mental ill-health and their families and friends. Emails received by phil@

shine.ie are viewed and responded to by trained psychotherapists, within a 24-hour period between Monday and Friday. The service is confidential. shine.ie SPUNOUT Information, support and opportunities for 16-25 year olds, covering everything from alcohol and drugs, to sex, mental health, politics and protest. spunout.ie TURN2ME.ORG Online e-mental healthcare and registered Irish charity, providing professional online mental health services across Ireland, 24/7, 365 days a year. turn2me.org YOURMENTALHEALTH.IE A place to learn about mental health in Ireland, and how to support yourself and the people you love. yourmentalhealth.ie TALK TO TOM Suicide Prevention organisation that breaks down barriers with financial, emotional and educational support. Helpline: 0818 30 30 61 talktotom.ie TRAVELLER COUNSELLING SERVICE Provides culturally inclusive and appropriate counselling services to members of the Traveller community. travellercounselling.ie YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION IRELAND Provides mental health awareness and suicide prevention programmes to schools and colleges, with facilitators work directly with students to promote awareness, provide skills and advice, and support teachers and staff as needed. Tel: 1800 828 888 yspi.ie

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IF I DON’T PLAY THE EXACT RECORD THEY ASK FOR I’LL STEER THEM TOWARDS SOMETHING SIMILAR I THINK THEY’LL LIKE. IN EFFECT, I’LL BE THEIR ALGORITHM

PLAY IT AGAIN,

RONAN

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F E AT U R E R O N A N C O L L I N S

The Ronan Collins Show on RTÉ Radio 1 has the biggest listenership of any music show in Ireland, north or south. Here, the self-effacing Dubliner Ronan Collins talks about his early days in 2fm, appearing naked on the cover of Hot Press, the National Lottery “fix”, the end of music radio, nostalgia for the showbands – and the current state of Irish music. I N T E R V I E W J A C K I E H AY D E N

n May of this year, Ronan Collins celebrated his 41st year with RTÉ. Originally from Glasnevin on the Northside of Dublin, he began his career as a ‘legitimate’ broadcaster with the new-fangled 2fm – or Radio 2 as it was known at the time – when the station launched in 1979. He has been a feature on the national airwaves ever since, making the switch to RTÉ Radio 1 in 1985. He has also featured on television, notably fronting the National Lottery programme, becoming one of the best known names in Irish broadcasting. Looking back over his packed career, he still reckons that now is the most exciting time for him. His current daily show on Radio 1, from noon to 1 pm, attracts the biggest listenership of any music radio programme on the island, north or south. But does he like the music he plays on his programme? “I don’t like all of it”, he tells me when we meet for a chat in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel. “But it’s not about me. I enjoy people asking for a specific record and I enjoy playing it for them. There’s lots of music I like that wouldn’t fit, like the jazz-rock of Weather Report, guitarist Lee Ritenour or drummer Steve Gadd. My own experience as a drummer brought me into a world I cherish to this day, the world of musicians. I don’t care what they play. I get great joy from the company of musicians.”

FEEDBACK FROM LISTENERS I remind Ronan that when Radio 2, the early incarnation of 2FM, was being set up an old guard within RTÉ radio deeply resented young upstarts from pirate stations coming to take the jobs. “It was very exciting, going from a pirate station to RTÉ,” he says. “But it was also very difficult. I probably wasn’t very good. I didn’t have much experience and I was surrounded by others in the same boat. We were making it up as we went along. Back then we saw the job as music radio, although that doesn’t seem to have much priority anymore.” So what did you learn? “I learned the need for a structure and a policy rather than just playing any record you fancied. I learned about rules and boundaries. As a producer, Bill O’Donovan encouraged me to bring my personality to bear within those limits. But it wasn’t until I moved into the morning slot that I settled down with people seriously interested in music radio. They gave me two years on the Breakfast Show to make it work. I actually did it for five years.” Collins was accepted as part of the RTÉ family. He became the first to front the Lotto draw, presented a game show on television, did Eurovision duty on radio, and later became the poster boy for the Showband revival, both on TV and off. He bemoans the general decline of music radio, where music is played for its own intrinsic value rather than just to fill airtime. “Music radio has practically disappeared,” he says. “Some RTÉ broadcasters see music as a kind of interruption in their chat or a break from the programme, rather than a fundamental part of it. To me, music has always been central. I’m criticised for it now because I mention artists’ birthdays and anniversaries. Allegedly, that’s not what the kids want. “But sure kids aren’t listening to the radio! They rely on algorithms to lead them to what to play, even if they don’t know

they’re being led. But I’ve always relied on the feedback from listeners. If I don’t play the exact record they ask for I’ll steer them towards something similar I think they’ll like. In effect, I’ll be their algorithm. That’s part of my job.” ANTI-SPOTIFY Ronan Collins is a DJ. He is, as it happens, also a drummer. Having played with top notch outfits like The Others and the Dickie Rock Showband, he’s acutely conscious of the current difficulties Irish musicians are facing, trying to earn any kind of living. Does that factor feeds into his selection of music? “I’m absolutely terrified about the way radio is going for Irish musicians and songwriters,” he confesses. “My support for Irish music has been well documented down the years, but I have a problem with the tendency these days to record everything at home. A lot of stuff gets thrown at people like me that’s not a lot better than demo quality, even before Covid.” Some of what he has to say might be seen as a put-down of Irish talent. It is certainly not intended that way. “I think too many write the songs and then sing themselves when they really shouldn’t,” he offers. “Because the song gets lost in the weakness of the performance. A lot of the country dance bands record music specifically for dances, but there’s not many people up for dancing when I’m on air! Then again, I haven’t supported artists who have gone the X-Factor route because they’re simply using music to become famous. I still believe the message is the music.” The very first broadcast Gavin James did on radio was with Ronan. “What I really love about Gavin and others like him is the support they give each other,” he says. “It’s not like thirty or forty years ago. There was no way Bob Geldof was going to help anyone when he started! I probably feature at least one new song by an Irish artist every day. That said, I have to balance my desire to support them as much as possible with the expectations of the listener. So I’ll play it if it fits. “But I bristle a little when artists ask me for support because income from radio play is their only income, while they’re giving their music away for practically nothing on Spotify and elsewhere! They’ll argue that if it doesn’t go on Spotify nobody will hear it. But if you don’t put it on Spotify you can plough your own furrow as Luka Bloom did recently!” Is Ronan anti-Spotify? “Absolutely! I most definitely am. I refuse to encourage anybody to look for anything on Spotify.” He’s enthused about the increased support being shown on RTÉ for female performers. “I always support the RTÉ album of the week,” he says, “whether it’s male or female. I can’t imagine playing a record purely on a gender basis. But I’ve featured lots of Irish women, people like Ailbhe Reddy, Emma Langford, Roisin O and terrific grafters like Wallis Bird and Aoife Scott. I play them not because they’re women but because they make great records. Leaving aside issues to do with the Pandemic, the Irish music scene is actually in great shape. ”

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I WAS DELIGHTED WHEN I WENT TO THE RECENT HOT PRESS COVERS EXHIBITION TO SEE IT UP THERE. THERE WERE COVERS OF RORY GALLAGHER, PHIL LYNOTT, U2, GELDOF – AND ME!

I put it to him that he’s generally seen as a safe, conventional man. “Oh, yes. I think I’m a simple, straight-forward man. I’m still married to the same woman, Woody. I’m conservative in my behaviour and my appearance. My best friends are people I’ve known for at least 40 years. I don’t drink alcohol or use drugs. But I’m a moody fucker, which my wife and family have learned to live with.” On the other hand, Collins has had a few public spats over the years. “I had a go at Louis Walsh over the group Six,” he recalls. “They did a cover of a ‘70 hit ‘There’s A Whole Lot of Loving’. Louis is very good at picking songs that have been hits already, and then he criticises acts for not being original. “At the time I felt sorry for the Six kids, launching their career with a cover of a very ordinary pop song and doing their first gig in front of 20,000 people as if they were already stars. This was going to be their life: instant fame for winning a TV programme. But I said, ‘They’re not stars and you’re giving them a completely false environment’. After that, it got very personal!” Phil Coulter was another to attract Collins’ ire. “It was during another of those TV talent shows, Phil told one of the acts that they should ‘lose the guitar’. I wondered how he, as a pianist and a writer of wonderful hits, as well as some ordinary stuff, would have reacted to being told as a kid that he should lose the piano?” FANTASTIC SCRIPTS Alongside his career as a broadcaster, Ronan Collins has emerged as a kind of frontman for the Showband Revival, presenting hugely successful shows around the country. Bob Geldof famously dismissed showbands as “typical Paddydom”. As presenter of Reeling In The Showband Years, how does Ronan feel about that? “I don’t know what he meant,” he says. “I’m not sure that Bob ever saw a showband in their heyday. But I think their popularity today is about nostalgia. The showband scene was a big social thing. Reeling In The Showband Years played in the Siamsa Tíre venue in Tralee, which would never have had them in the old days. But now it’s ok because showbands are seen as having been part of the cultural and social fabric of the country.” Collins achieved a level of notoriety in 1984 when he appeared apparently naked on the cover of Hot Press. It was a brave thing to do at the time,. Why take the risk? “I did it for the laugh and because you asked me to do it,” he smiles. “I got no negative feedback about it at all. As you know, it was intended as a send-up of the Sunday World of that era and even they saw the joke. I was delighted when I went to the recent Hot Press covers exhibition to see it up there. There were covers of Rory Gallagher, Phil Lynott, U2, Geldof – and me!” His early radio memories go back to the pirate era, before Radio 2.

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“A lot of the time it was totally shambolic, with no planning or no direction,” he remembers about the pirate scene. “But there were some real jocks involved, people like Declan Meehan, Mark Storey, Robbie Irwin, people who saw the value in music and radio without any expectation of a full-time career. I sometimes did a phone-in show and I’d be given these fantastic scripts to help me tee-up the controversial topic for the day. They were written by Pat Brennan, who worked later in the RTÉ newsroom, and Gene Kerrigan, the columnist with the Sunday Independent.” In the early days of the Lotto draw on RTE television, which Ronan presented, the country was awash with conspiracy theories that it was fixed. “I was the first to present the draw and did it for 19 years. We heard the rumours and had a good laugh at them. You would have daft notions like it’s never won in Dublin if it’s over 4 million and then the reverse theory would do the rounds. Even we could never figure out how you would fix it properly.” PRECARIOUS EXISTENCE After 41 years of dedicated service, Ronan Collins’ future with RTÉ is now uncertain. His contract is ending this year and there have been rumours that Una Healy – who deputised for him for a week earlier this year – might be replacing him permanently. “I’ve always believed that if I wake up one morning and don’t want to do the job, I’ll stop,” he says. “I’ve never felt that. But there are forces at work who want to make the decisions about what I do, and where I do it. They want to make those decisions without me now. I can try to stand up to them, but ultimately somebody else will decide. “In five years time, I’ll be a couple of years into a change in direction I’m looking at and, hopefully, that change in direction will have worked. I don’t see myself working at radio in RTÉ five days a week. But I would like to continue with what I am doing for a couple of years yet. “My demographic is not a popular one with either advertisers or the younger management,” he adds. “So there’s a big question-mark now, over whether RTÉ will try to attract younger listeners to Radio 1, and risk alienating existing listeners.” Even after 41 years, you can’t really escape the fact that broadcasting in Ireland is a precarious existence. “When somebody else makes that decision,” Ronan concludes, “they won’t be asking if it’s all right with me.” • The Ronan Collins Show is on RTÉ Radio 1 from Midday to 1pm Monday to Friday.

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SISTERS OF CHARITY FRONTLINES

THE CONTROVERSIAL CLOSURE OF ST. MARY’S (TELFORD): NEW ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE LEVELLED AT SISTERS OF CHARITY A blind resident at the Care Home on the Merrion Road that is being abandoned by the Sisters of Charity has accused members of the order of committing atrocious abuses at the School for the Blind. Meanwhile, former staff also feel that they are being abused by the nuns, after long years of service.

REPORT SHAMIM MALEKMIAN

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here were moments recently when Clare Heffernan thought she was losing her mind. She kept hearing strange noises in her apartment. Voices off-stage. It had her badly spooked. She felt her skin crawl, as a torment of fear crept up on her. She didn’t know what was going on, but she didn’t like the sound of it. Not one bit. Clare is a blind resident of St Mary’s disability centre on Merrion Road in South Dublin. It is the only home she has ever known, really. The centre is comprised of several houses and apartments, the construction of which was originally paid for by Dublin City Council. The buildings stand on lands owned by the Religious Sisters of Charity – who, apparently, now own the properties, DCC’s 20-year hold on them having expired. Clare Heffernan eventually worked out that the sounds she was hearing were coming from an empty apartment above her. Having been vacant for a long time, it was now occupied – but no one had bothered to inform her. “They didn’t tell me that a care assistant had moved in and was staying in the empty apartment directly above me,” she says. “For weeks, I was hearing noises and thought I was going crazy.” Studies suggest that blind people have an enhanced sense of hearing. In one series of studies by neuroscientists at McGill University, blind subjects scored higher in a test devised to gauge an individual’s ability to locate sounds. But the unexplained noises that Clare had begun to hear also played on something more visceral: the fears and anxieties that are perfectly understandable in a visually impaired woman, living on her own in an increasingly ghostly area, in a big city. Clare Heffernan also complains about a fire alarm that was accidentally set off, in a nearby apartment. The smoke alarm was wailing “for ages”, she says. Heffernan was worried about her guide dog, Uma, whose eardrums, she says, are

quite sensitive. “Normally, the care assistants are supposed to be trained to turn off the fire alarm as soon as they are notified,” she says. But even that minimal level of skill haseems to have gone missing-in-action in the Care Home on the grounds owned by the nuns. Clare Heffernan is not alone in her concerns. Over two weeks after the High Court green-lighted the liquidation of St Mary’s Centre (Telford), blind residents of the social housing units on the land are finding things extremely difficult. They are entitled to ask: does anybody care about us? Because one conclusion seems inevitable: the Sisters of Charity certainly don’t. LETTER TO A BLIND RESIDENT

Baker Tilly, a firm of financial advisers, are joint liquidators of St Mary’s (Telford). They succeeded in having the company which ran the care centre wound up recently, thanks in part at least to a last-minute pitch that was put to the judge. Baker Tilly told the court that they might lease St Mary’s campus’s social housing units to the HSE for two years, so that its current squad of 18 blind, disabled residents wouldn’t have to be immediately turfed out. Mr Justice Michael Quinn seems to have taken the promise at face value; he issued the insolvency order. Over two weeks after the liquidator made the proposal to keep 18 residents living in the centre, no deal has yet been agreed with the HSE. Meanwhile, residents say that new, untrained staff, brought in by Baker Tilly, are not providing the support they need. In addition, the women – stressed out from the uncertainty, disruption and anxiety into which they have been plunged – are having difficulty accessing mental health care. St. Mary’s (Telford), a company that is wholly owned by the Sisters of Charity, had already transferred 35 more elderly women, most of whom have visual impairments, from the centre’s nursing home units to places all over the city. The women

SISTERS OF CHARITY FRONTLINES were given no choice in the matter. Despite being the sole shareholders in St Mary’s Centre (Telford), the Sisters of Charity bizarrely deny any responsibility for the company’s liquidation. This, notwithstanding the fact that two of the nuns also sat on the board of directors of the company. So how can they hope to credibly claim to have had no involvement in the way it was operated; in its closure; or indeed, in the subsequent fate of residents? It is, indeed, a mystery. In a letter written to one of the blind residents, which has been seen by Hot Press, Sister Patricia Lenihan, the General Leader of the Sisters of Charity in Ireland, reports that she is waiting to hear from the company’s joint liquidator about the fruits of their negotiations with the HSE. There are those who might say: “Why don’t you pick up the phone yourself?” T O L D BY T H E L I Q U I DAT O R

Then again, you can see why the Sisters of Charity might want to distance themselves from what has been happening in their Dublin 4 enclave. St. Mary’s (Telford) let over 20 nursing home staff go without pay – and without any redundancy arrangements. How does that square with the claim implicit in the name of the order, or indeed with their status as a Charity? Some former employees of the Nursing Home have been redeployed in the apartments. One former staff member, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Hot Press that the nursing home staff are not qualified in social care, and that they do not have the type of skills that are required to support the independent disabled residents of the housing units. For her part, Clare Heffernan says she has seen several new staff arriving without being introduced, prompting confusion and sometimes fear among the remaining residents. “It’s getting very, very tough to put up with all the inexperienced new care assistants,” she says. “It’s very distressing.” To complicate matters, one resident of the apartments was identified as a suspected case of coronavirus. In a letter to residents, Dessie Morrow of Baker Tilly broke the news on October 12. “I wish to advise you that a resident in House 2 is displaying a number of Covid-19 symptoms,” he wrote. He then went on to advise residents of Houses One, Two and Three to restrict their movements, and their interactions with others. Before the liquidation of the company, and the announcement of its closure in June, according to staff, both the nursing home and the disability centre had remained completely free of Covid-19. Now, under the control of the liquidators, that enviable track record was in danger of being undermined – though in this instance it proved a false alarm. A letter to residents on October 19 confirmed that the

“I was a victim of despicable behaviour of withholding of food.”

swab was returned negative. A failure to care for the mental health of the residents is also potentially becoming a serious issue. Clare Heffernan says that as soon as news of the liquidation broke in July, she requested counselling. Nothing had been organised for her, until Hot Press asked both Baker Tilly and the HSE last week why no arrangements had been made for counselling. The query triggered a belated response. Clare Heffernan now has an appointment. A spokesperson for the HSE told Hot Press that they are engaging with residents and their representatives. “It is the intention of the HSE that the wishes of residents are respected where practicable in terms of relocating them to services appropriate to their assessed clinical and broader social needs,” they said. When it comes to the promised two-year takeover of the centre, however, the HSE understandably said they couldn’t determine a timeframe for their negotiations with Baker Tilly. They added that if the negotiations proved successful, they would move ‘swiftly’ to engage with residents “to determine an individual plan for each resident.” In a statement to Hot Press, Baker Tilly also said that they are continuing to engage with the HSE “with regards to the handover of the disability centre and to liaise with the clinical team at St. Mary’s to ensure the care needs of residents are met.” Clare Heffernan, however, says she was told that immediate relocation remains a distinct possibility – and the prospect of being forced to leave St Mary’s worries her deeply. “I was told by the liquidator that any one of us can be relocated at any time. It could be three months or it could be 18 months, depending on the HSE’s availability,” she says. Baker Tilly say that they won’t comment on individual cases, but in the same October 19 letter, they noted that another resident had been transferred away, leaving only 17 in the houses and apartments. There are also issues about post, which is apparently being diverted to the offices of the liquidators. “The residents’ mail is being redirected to Baker Tilly offices in the city,” Clare Heffernan told Hot Press, “and someone in the liquidators’ office in town opened one of my

letters, addressed to my ex-husband, who is using my address due to personal reasons of his. So everything is chaotic here, and there is only one staff left.” C A L L I N G T H E S A M A R I TA N S

Of course, this story has roots much further back than most people realise. Long before St Mary’s was a nursing home, or a disability centre, it was an all-girls boarding school for the blind. Known as St. Mary’s School for Visually Impaired Girls, the school was formed in 1868 by the Sisters of Charity. Film footage from 1966 shows thenPresident of Ireland, Eamon de Valera, visiting the institution. He sits beside a Sister of Charity, who is dressed in black religious attire. As the crowd watches, blind girls line up to enjoy a swim, jumping into the water one by one. “With heroic courage, the blind children face the darkness of their lives,” the narrator says. The order of Roman Catholic nuns ran the blind school. Some of the remaining residents of the disability centre are former pupils of that same boarding school. One resident, who recalls that she was a student at the time de Valera visited, has – for the first time – made allegations to Hot Press of very serious cases of abuse at the centre. The blind woman, who wishes to remain anonymous for now, has carefully laid out accusations of extremely cruel physical and emotional punishments and humiliations, that were carried out by one, named, Sister of Charity. Hot Press has seen the letter that was sent to Sister Patricia Lenihan, and signed by the relevant individual, setting out these charges. “I was a victim of despicable behaviour of withholding of food,” the resident says, “denied my free time by standing in a corner for hours at weekends outside her cell [….] and slapping on bare skin with her hand and hairbrush when undressed in a dressing room in the presence of at least 25 girls.” She goes on to describe her experience of watching a small boy suffering “terrible abuse.” Some former students have received compensation. But she has not. This isn’t just about redress, though that is likely required. The former pupil argues that she and others who have lived in the apartments for years deserve to keep their

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SISTERS OF CHARITY FRONTLINES “I assume Sr. Martha’s was on the same grounds,” she told Hot Press. “But bear in mind that the Sisters of Charity owned – and indeed still own – a lot of land from Nutley Avenue, where the Elm Park Golf Club is, all the way to St Vincent’s and the back of Herbert Avenue down to our grounds,” the former staff member says. It is, by any measure, an extraordinary property, with a value likely to be in hundreds of millions. And the same people, who own this vast tract of land, are refusing redundancy payments to former staff of the Care Home? Truly it beggars belief. SILENT PROTEST OUTSIDE SISTERS OF CHARIT Y OFFICES

homes, as a form of compensation from the Sisters of Charity. Given the legacy of abuse she describes at the centre, she writes, “I feel it is now time for the Sisters of Charity to come clean… At least in a general way by ensuring that the land at St Mary’s remains in the status quo.” Sister Patricia’s response to the heartrending letter is brief and formal. She says merely that she will pass on the information to the relevant authorities. “I am sorry to read about the matters set out in your letter,” Sister Patricia writes. “Please note that in light of the contents of your letter we have an obligation to report the matters to the relevant authorities for follow up. Those authorities are An Garda Síochána and the Child and Family Agency (TUSLA).” A spokesperson for the HSE says they had not received any reports about the mistreatment of former residents at the blind school. “The HSE has no knowledge of this matter at present,” Hot Press was told. “Residents will be advised to engage fully with counselling/support services and if necessary the HSE’s Safeguarding Team if matters arise appropriate for further consideration.” Clare Heffernan, for one, is not happy. ”Yesterday,” she said, “I finally got a slot to talk to a counsellor, at 2pm next Wednesday. But I am still very unstable and insecure with a lot of new staff coming and going.” Heffernan told us that she had been calling The Samaritans in the absence of mental health support in the Care Centre. T H E M YS T E RY O F S I S T E R M A R T H A’ S I N D U S T R I A L S C H O O L

The new complaints of abuse at the School for the Blind run by the Sisters of Charity pose an important question: where do former ‘inmates’ of St. Mary’s stand in relation to restitution, if grievous wrongs were done to them? St. Mary’s School for Blind Girls was mentioned in the Residential Institutions Redress Act of 2002. The act was drafted to financially compensate child victims of abuse during their time in individual religious-run residential establishments. In the legal document, two institutions have been listed under the same address as the blind school: Sr Martha’s Industrial School and

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Madonna House. The address for these three institutions is listed as Merrion, Dublin 4. Industrial schools were part of a web of orphanages, ‘mother and baby’ homes for unmarried mothers, Magdalene Laundries and other institutions in which the Roman Catholic Church participated in locking up tens of thousands of young Irish citizens. In an appalling example of kowtowing to religious vested interests, the State colluded in and encouraged this sordid form of punishment and exploitation. It is believed that an astonishing 10,000 women and girls were forced to serve time, and labour without any form of payment, in the laundries – which, scandalously, were run for profit by the nuns. They had committed no crime whatsoever, but were locked up

“I feel it is now time for the Sisters of Charity to come clean…” anyway, because they were cast aside by both Church and State and shunned by families and neighbours, as women of so called ‘loose morals’. The Irish Government has never properly acknowledged its share of the responsibility for facilitating these institutions, although at the time, the Gardaí would return to the twisted embrace of the nuns anyone who escaped. The connection between St. Mary’s blind school, Sr. Martha’s Industrial School and Madonna House remains unclear – but the likelihood is that they were just different branches of the commercial machine of the Sisters of Charity. We are currently awaiting answers from the Redress Board as to what payments, if any, have been made in relation to events that took place in these three institutions – and whether or not the nuns made any contribution to the cost. A former staff member at St. Mary’s Nursing Home, confirms that the name Sr Martha’s Industrial School rings a loud bell. She says she had spotted a plaque with those words inscribed on it while working at St. Mary’s Nursing Home.

And yet St Mary’s is just one of the residential care facilities, owned by the Sisters of Charity, that they have abandoned during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, citing financial difficulties. They have also closed St Monica’s Nursing Home in Dublin 1 and Caritas Convalescent Centre, which was on the grounds of St Mary’s campus. The closures have imposed numerous job losses on workers, during an increasingly uncertain time. Trade unions are battling the religious order, in the Labour Court, for redundancy payments for the workers. How far they will get in that endeavour remains to be seen. In response to a letter from representatives of SIPTU, UNITE and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), which has been seen by Hot Press, Sister Patricia Lenihan insists that they need the permission of Charities Regulators to release any funds. “Because of the unusual circumstances and because the Congregation is a registered charity regulated by the Charities Regulator,” she wrote. That position does not seem to tally with the claims: (a) that the nuns had nothing to do with the running of these premises; and (b) that there is a meaningful distance between the Sisters of Charity and a company like St. Mary’s (Telford). On October 1, Sister Patricia informed the unions that the Charities Regulator had advised the congregation to liaise with their solicitors regarding the matter. “In light of this response, we have turned to the Congregation’s solicitors and hope to receive their advice on this,” the letter reads. Meanwhile, workers and unions have been staging silent protests outside the Sisters of Charity’s head offices on Gilford Road, Sandymount, also in salubrious Dublin 4. Staff members who lost their jobs say that they are currently looking for employment. But, inevitably, they will be wary of giving their all to any future employers, given that decades of loyalty, and dedication, can apparently be disregarded so lightly. Meanwhile, the Sisters of Charity sit on a land-hoard in one of Dublin’s richest areas that is worth a vast fortune – and the likelihood is that they will be rewarded by the State for this, with ownership of the National Maternity Hospital, in a form that has yet to be made clear. It is the kind of outcome that makes you ask: can this really be happening?

THE WHOLE HOG FRONTLINES

THE WORLD IN CRISIS: FIRST WE MUST GET RID OF DONALD TRUMP The backdrop to the US Presidential election could hardly be more alarming, with Covid-19 causing all manner of havoc, environmental disasters mounting and democracy itself under threat, not least in the United States itself. The first step in a process of recovery and regeneration is to elect Joe Biden...

ause and effect. We think we have them nailed. Action begets result. Easy. Or that very often is the working assumption. But it’s not that simple. There may, for example, be totally unintended consequences. And as effects move downstream they can amplify each other’s impact, combining in choppy and unpredictable ways, generating forces we don’t expect and can hardly contain, becoming bigger, wilder, more extreme. Look at the wildfires in the western United States. For decades people said they were part of the natural cycle. And they are. Indeed, coast redwood trees in California have a balance of adaptive features which allow individual trees to withstand fire and promote regeneration following fire. But that’s before the new climate normal revealed itself. The catastrophic drought of 2011 to 2016 killed over 150 million trees in California. In a sense, that and a lightning strike, is all it took to unleash a conflagration. The heat has been unimaginable, compared by some scientists to the firestorms that wasted Dresden in World War II: “firenadoes” of 200kmh, plumes of ash rising to 15,000 metres, drifting thousands of kilometres over the Rockies and the Plains. In San Francisco the smoke and ash were thicker than any fog ever had been. Our family members in Colorado described the ash falling silently, steadily, like black snow. This cataclysm is a fitting, glowering, apocalyptic backdrop to the looming general election in the United States of America. They’re at a moment of truth in the States, a fork in the road. There’s a clear choice. If they elect Trump, or if he steals the election, the US and, inevitably, the rest of the world, will hurtle ever faster towards immolation. If they elect Biden, we still have a chance. W I T H O U T A VAC C I N E

Perhaps Joe Biden is not as radical a figure as the world needs right now, but at least he’s on the right page. He’s a consensus guy, with a platform aimed at winning over the floating voters who drifted to the Republicans in 2016. If he were standing in Europe, we’d style him a Christian Democrat like Angela Merkel – and all in all she hasn’t

done too badly. After the chaos and hysteria of Trump’s four years that may be the best answer out there. Trump, and everything he’s connected to, has corroded and parched political discourse in the US and desiccated its culture and society. He has quite deliberately fostered division and chaos and confusion. Institutions and processes have been undercut and hollowed out. The great wildernesses have been invaded and defiled. The rich have grown richer at the expense of everyone and everything else. Using, and abusing, social media, Trump and his menagerie have courted and encouraged a cast of grotesques: fascist thugs, fundamentalists and apocalyptics, local militias and white supremacists. His deliberately inflammatory rhetoric and encouragement of thuggery and armed resistance may well be the lightning that

“Trump, and everything he’s connected to, has corroded and parched political discourse in the US and desiccated its culture and society.” starts the fire. If he loses the election, we may yet see an attempted coup. In which case, it won’t just be the forests that burn. But if the coming weeks are enormously important for the US they’re important for everyone else too. What happens there ramifies across the globe. We humans face a series of existential threats. Which is why we desperately need to act together. Of these, the Covid-19 pandemic is the most immediate. Of course, it’s not going to wipe out humanity but its impact on global health, economic, social and cultural impact has already been immense. And it ain’t over yet. Everybody is getting angrier by the day, and not only in Ireland. There’s fear and loathing in equal measure. Some still revere the public health celebrities, but many more are resentful and rebellious. At least there’s reassurance in history. All pandemics pass and usually quite quickly.

The last great coronavirus pandemic struck in 1890-1892. It came in three waves of which the second was, by a distance, the most deadly. That’s where we are right now with Covid-19. Then, after the third wave, it disappeared. And that happened, for the record, without a vaccine. I M PAC T O F S O C I A L M E D I A

This is not to understate the seriousness of the situation, nor the importance of finding a vaccine – and ever more calibrated treatments. But when it’s done, what then? Well, then our health service’s response to Covid-19 should be subjected to a cold and independent reckoning that shouldn’t shy away from the wider social and economic damage. Would we have the present panic if there were greater ICU capacity? When might this have been set in place and by whom? After that, we must turn to the other existential threats we face and with equal urgency. In the geopolitical sphere there’s the rise of China and the decline of the US; there’s Brexit; there’s the rise of authoritarians and fascists. There’s the vast, and growing dislocation of populations by war, hunger and climate change. The global order is busted. Democracy is under enormous threat. How do we fix that? In the social sphere, there’s the impact of social media and how its platforms have facilitated asocial individualism, chaos, disruption, a nasty form of anarchy and an almost incomprehensible disintegration of civility and community. No, it’s not universal and nor need it be permanent. But just imagine how appalling life would be if things continued downwards as they have been going for the last decade or so. Above all, we must arrest and, if possible, reverse climate change. There are vast wildfires on all continents. The ice-caps are melting at an ever-increasing rate and ocean currents are slowing. The tipping points are clearly visible on the horizon through the smoke and dust. Whatever the result of the upcoming Presidential election, the US will eventually have to come to terms with itself after the appalling decline ushered in by Donald Trump: its ragged response to the pandemic; its failure to engage with climate change; its ugly self-absorption and global anti-social behaviour. But those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Indeed, we in Ireland may be all the more culpable for knowing what should be done and then not doing it. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2020 is a start but making it work is a taller order. Those infernos in California and elsewhere aren’t a form of disaster fiction any more than Covid-19 is a contagion fantasy. All this shit’s for real and if we’re not part of the solution to these existential threats we’re part of the problem. Seatbelts on! The Hog

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McCANN FRONTLINES

THE WANDA STUFF

A recent Sunday Times list of the best films directed by women erred spectacularly in omitting Wanda, a 1970 masterpiece from Barbara Loden. EAMONN McCANN

ou know the way you sometimes see lists of the 25 greatest novels of the 20th century, or the ten best Irish footballers of all time, or the 100 most enjoyable sins you can commit in a church, and you snort in angry derision that such-and-such a blindingly obvious example has inexplicably been omitted? The Sunday Times recently carried a list of the 50 best films directed by women and managed to miss Wanda, released in 1970, starring, written, produced and directed by Barbara Loden, with a crew of three and a budget of $100,000, set in the anthracite wilderness of eastern Pennsylvania, about a woman in her thirties who, drained of life by the life she’s lived, gives up her children, goes on the run with a disastrously incompetent petty thief who is shot dead the first time he tries to up his game and rob a bank, sleeps with men she casually meets who casually degrade her, wanders into a saloon where strangers good-heartedly buy her beer and cigarettes, and wonders listlessly at the edge of their conversation what’s going to happen next, at which point we leave her. I have often mused on whether the film, and Ms. Loden, might have found some semblance of the respect they were entitled to had she not been married at the time to Elia Kazan (On The Waterfront, East Of Eden, A Streetcar Named Desire). Critics of her work seemed blinded by his light. She never found funding for another feature film, died of cancer at 48 worshipped as a

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great auteur by French new-wave directors, virtually unknown and consigned to the margins back home. Wanda is easy enough to find on YouTube. It isn’t a laugh a line, doesn’t go anywhere except deeper into the darkening soul, is yet uplifting in its fearlessness and unflinching gaze, maybe the best movie you’ve hardly heard of. Then there’s Billy Browne. Earlier this month, RTÉ2 carried a documentary on Irish Showbands originally broadcast by BBC4. It was terrific fun, presented by Ardal O’Hanlon, clear-eyed about a short-lived, distinctively Irish cultural phenomenon now routinely dismissed as an embarrassment by all except everybody with some knowledge of the genre (Oh yes, showbands were a genre!), and a proper love of popular music. Billy, from Larne, was in the Freshmen, on keyboards, sax and anything else that was needed, sharing vocals with my old classmate Derek McMenamin (“Derek Dean”) from Strabane. Derek’s memoir of life on the road, Unzipped, offers one of the

“Up ahead there’s radiance and joy. Nothing is ever futile. Beauty always lingers.” best accounts ever of how Irish teenagers took to sex. He makes an erudite argument that one of the key factors influencing change in Irish music in the 1960s/’70s was the introduction of the contraceptive pill. Derek was into hazardous music from an early age. He was once essaying a swivelhipped rendition of ‘C’est Si Bon’ at the St. Columb’s College French department’s annual concert when head teacher Fr. Anthony McFeely, later bishop of Raphoe, in which capacity he schemed to ensure that priests who had sexually abused young boys needed show no contrition nor do any penance, stomped onto the stage, stilled the music and ranted against “Le jazz Américain”, which, he averred, would surely lead us away from the path of righteousness and onto the road to hell. Like all showbands, the Freshmen mainly played covers. I remember them segueing through half-a-dozen Beach Boys numbers at the Wexford Inn, a sustained blast of beautiful noise, five-part harmonies in perfect time, perfect pitch, then straight

into the exuberant punk of Billy’s ‘Never Heard Anything Like It In My Life’, a quirky take on the same theme as John Prine’s ‘Dear Abby’, about an agony aunt (Where have all the agony aunts gone, now when we need them?) called Judith, modelled on the Sunday World’s gorgeous Judith Elms, whose response to every broke-heart tale begins, “I’ve never ‘eard anyfink like it in me life.” NME Record of the Week, reached five in the UK charts. Billy also wrote ‘Cinderella’, the story of a two-finger piano player in a pick-up band living in a small midlands town when a touring opera company comes through, presenting Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” (“Man you shoulda seen me, diggin’ Rossini”). Cinderella in the production he chanced upon was performed by Suzanne Murphy from the North Circular Road, a member of classy folk band We4 prior to achieving international celebrity as an opera singer. “I fell in love with Cinderella / Magic princess really stole my heart / Well, maybe not exactly in love with Cinderella / But with the girl who sang the coloratura mezzosoprano part”. We might note in passing that Cinderella’s godmother was a revolutionary. In another version, when the young one’s spirit wilted and she despaired of going to the ball, comrade godmother clenched a fist: “Because there are always impossible dopes / Keeping a hold of impossible hopes / Impossible things are happening every day”. And didn’t she turn out to be absolutely right? Billy had a second UK hit with a brilliant pastiche of Jerry Lee Lewis, ‘Look What Jerry Lee Did To Me’. The Freshmen also had Tiger Taylor on guitar. John Waters, late of this parish, now a fierce campaigner for a faith-filled fiorgaelige Ireland, was a roadie for the Freshmen before he took a wrong turn. But despite all, the Freshmen didn’t rate a mention in Ardal’s hour-long documentary. As Thomas Grey observed in a country graveyard, “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen / And waste its sweetness on the desert air”. Except that sweetness is never wasted. And flowers are ever reborn to blush again. Up ahead there’s radiance and joy. Nothing is ever futile. Beauty always lingers. Wanda still jostles in my memory alongside Cinderella. Such are things the young people of Ireland need to know, these being terrible times to be young.