Stevie Wonder

After years of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Stevie Scullion, AKA Malojian, is about to take his rightful place at Northern Irish rock’s top table.

Colin Carberry, 02 Feb 2012

Depending on the mood in the room, it’s sometimes possible to make the case for Stevie Scullion to be considered the North’s best songwriter over the last half decade. Alongside Johnny Toman, Scullion created a body of work for Cat Malojian (two albums and a host of EPs) that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with any of their more celebrated peers. However, while the gods of creativity rained blessings on the pair; the gods of fortune showered them with something a little more pungent.

For every high profile support slot with Snow Patrol (including the huge 2010 Ward Park gig), there would be a dismaying experience with a label. For every stellar tune, a disheartening gig.

The central irony of Cat Malojian’s career is that while the material came coated in self-confidence, the guys themselves spent much of the time not knowing which way to turn.

So, when last summer the long-promised record deal suddenly loomed into view, and then just as suddenly disappeared again – there was a sad inevitability to the news that they’d split. 

“There’s no animosity or anything like that – we just drifted apart,” reveals Stevie. “We’d had a few too many set-backs, and I think Johnny lost heart. He was always a folk purist and he started working on another project that concentrated on that. I just started writing my own stuff. It was sad but the time had come.”

Considering the pair had known one another for over a decade, Stevie could not have been blamed for taking a break to plan his next step. But no sooner had the band split, than (with one half of the name tucked under his arm) he’d set off along a new direction. One lit by another gifted maverick with a knack for knock-down choruses.

“I heard Pat Dam Smyth’s album The Great Divide one day, and it blew me away,” Stevie admits. “I had never really listened to much local music, but I couldn’t believe how great it was. It’s a genius record. It sounded how I always wanted to sound: loose, spontaneous. Cat Malojian records took ages to make. There was a big element of perfectionism there. But when I started writing songs, I used to bang them out on a four-track. And I wanted to go back to that. I looked to see who produced Pat’s album, and found out it was Barrett Lahey. I think I listened to the album for the first time on the Saturday, and by the Monday I’d booked studio time with Barrett.”

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