Letting the chat out of the bag!

Never mind the International Monetary Fund – now there’s an album title! – if anything’s going to bring our beleagured nation back from the brink it’s the HP-8 Christmas Summit, an elite cabal of Irish rock ‘n’ rollers who are gathered in Dublin’s Central Hotel to pick over the tumultuous year that was 2010 and outline their own blueprint for economic recovery.

Sitting round the table and downing hot whiskeys like there’s no tomorrow – which of course there mightn’t be if financial Armageddon strikes – are:
MayKay – the flu-gripped Fight Like Apes singer who started the day guest presenting Phantom 105.2’s Pure Morning, and will finish it performing a selection of tunes from her band’s fab The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner album on Newstalk’s Green Room arts show.
Andrew Strong – having spent the past 15 years being a household name in Scandinavia, the soul man is back home and preparing for next March’s The Stars From The Commitments reunion tour.
Jinx Lennon – Dundalk’s very own manic street preacher whose new National Cancer Strategy album should be Guantanamo Bay-style force played to every traitorous politician and banker until they realise the error of their ways.
Conor J. O’Brien – on speakerphone from Antwerp where Villagers last night gave their Mercury-nominated Becoming A Jackal album another live airing as part of the Crossing Border festival.
Maud Reardon – recently returned from exile in New York and hoping to put a serious dent in the charts with ‘Push Me Under’, the debut single from her Maud In Cahoots outfit who won this year’s Guinness Our Thursdays competition.
Jeremy Hickey – the Artist Also Known As R.S.A.G. comprehensively nailed it with June’s Be It Right Or Be It Wrong, and is currently building his own studio in Thomastown where the even more sonically adventurous follow-up will be assembled.
Conor Adams – main songwriter with the Cast Of Cheers, the Dublin post-rockers who began the year as virtual unknowns and, courtesy of their incendiary Chariots debut, go into 2011 as the Irish indie band most likely to…
Stuart Clark – scurvy Hot Press hack who’s been presiding David Dimbley-like over the HP Christmas Summit since its inception in 2002.

Stuart: Before we get to the depressing stuff, what are your personal 2010 highlights?
Conor J: Later… With Jools Holland was pretty amazing, even though it was a bit of a sore point with the rest of the band. The guy who booked me, Mark Cooper, had seen the solo thing and really liked it, so that’s what he asked me to do. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but I enjoyed the performance and found it quite liberating being able to play the song exactly as it was written. I was on the same show as Gogol Bordello, Marina & The Diamonds, Hot Chip and Paul Weller who tapped me on the back and said, “Good on you kid!” He did the same at the Mercury Awards, which was cool ‘cause he’s a big songwriting hero of mine. Another rather different sort of memorable moment was when we got locked up. I was told not to say anything, but we didn’t get charged so it’s probably all right! Unbeknownst to us, somebody not in Villagers had a little bit of contraband, which was discovered at the border crossing between El Paso and Juárez in Mexico – probably one of the worst places in the world to have something illegal on you. Anyway, we got taken in and I found myself sat next to these two completely fucked looking Mexican dudes who had sand all over them, presumably from being out in the desert. We got escorted into these two cells at one in the morning and were left there for eight hours without being told anything. It’s a good story now, but at the time we were shitting ourselves!
Maud: For me, it has to be the Arthur’s Day gig we did in the Guinness Storehouse with a load of bands including Snow Patrol. I was already apprehensive about appearing in front of so many people when the day beforehand I got a call from this guy called Scott asking, “Would you like to sing a song with the lads?” I was like, “What lads? What are you on about?” Turns out he was Snow Patrol’s manager and they wanted me to do Martha Wainwright’s part on ‘Set The Fire To The Third Bar’. I said, “It’d be an honour” and then ran home going, “Fuck, shit, bollocks!” because although I knew the melody, I didn’t really know the words. 24 hours later I was up on stage after just one rehearsal feeling so nervous I thought I was going to vomit!
Stuart: Did you end up needing the sick bucket?
Maud: Thankfully, no! I was sure I was going to puke up to the moment when I started singing and had what I can only describe as an out of body experience for the following three minutes. I really don’t remember much about it.
MayKay: The night before we released the album we did a midnight show in Tower Records, which was really, really good. They took everything out and let people go nuts, so it wasn’t your usual instore. Entering the chart at number three was cool – although it would’ve been even cooler if we’d topped it! – and Electric Picnic was brilliant as well.
Stuart: Did Tina Turner’s people have any problems with the title?
MayKay: We asked if we could use her name and her legs on the cover – she said “yes” to the name but “no” to the legs. Isn’t that weird?
Conor: So whose legs are they?
MayKay: Some bird off Google!
Maud: You’d have thought having the best legs in the world that she wouldn’t have minded!
Jinx: The highlight for me this year was being at a gig in Manchester where there were Paddys, British people, Africans, Indians, Pakistanis and half-a-dozen other nationalities probably all dancing to my song ‘Stop Giving Out About Nigerians’. It’s the first time I’ve had such a melting pot of people at my shows and it felt great.
MayKay: Crowds are definitely a lot more mixed in the UK.
Jinx: That’s because they’ve got a 50-year head start on us in terms of multi-culturalism. It’s starting to happen here, which I think will throw up all sorts of interesting musical collaborations.
Andrew: Mine was meeting up with the rest of the guys from The Commitments after God knows how many years, not knowing for sure what the vibe was going to be and discovering that we all wanted to play these amazing songs again. There’d been a few minor fallings out down through the years, but we had our Dr. Phil moment and let bygones be bygones. There’s this perception that Glen was the one that needed the most persuading, but a couple of years ago he was calling everybody going, “We’ve got to get this together!” Glen’s well up for it – he doesn’t want to sing on it or anything, he just wants to play guitar. Actually, as a singer I’m envious of that because he can be out ‘til all hours having pints while I’m back in the hotel looking after my voice.
MayKay: Yeah, I wish I’d been a bass-player!
Conor: Or Bez! All you have to do is go on stage and shake your maracas.
Stuart: Oo-er, missus!
Andrew: I think it’s a good time to do it right now because all of us have had our own journeys in life, and all navigated ourselves back home.
Stuart: The obvious next question being, “Does this increase the likelihood of there being a The Commitments 2?”
Andrew: I’ve met a couple of writers over the years who’ve been commissioned to do it but the material was never strong enough. I honestly can’t see a sequel happening now. It’s 100% at the moment about the live thing.
Stuart: Any major Commitments fans among you?
Conor J: Totally! That was the first place I heard ‘Try A Little Tenderness’, and every version I’ve heard since then, Otis Redding included, has been a letdown! I was seven when I first saw it and was incredibly excited watching the band scenes, and them walking round parts of Dublin I recognised. I’ve seen it four or five times since and it’s still just as good.
Jeremy: I’ve been over in France a lot playing these sort of mini-Electric Picnics. You’ve all these 16, 17 and 18-year-olds off their heads on drugs and vodka and Red Bull going mad for music, which isn’t really that great!
Stuart: Except for R.S.A.G. of course!
Jeremy: Well, I didn’t want to say it! I’ve done four or five of them in the past couple of weeks and it’s been so much fun watching people just dance themselves silly. Another highlight was going to see Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings in Tripod. I was right up the front and it was unbelievable. They had this amazing bass-player called Foxy H who totally lived up to her name! It was one classic funk tune after another with proper James Brown breakdowns and Stax-style brass.
Conor: The big thing for us this year was just getting the record out and playing shows that people bothered turning up to.
Stuart: Giving Chariots away really seemed to work in terms of connecting you to a far wider audience than the hardcore of 200 or 300 people who normally buy DIY Irish releases.
Conor: It’s been viewed as this marketing masterstroke, but the reason we gave it away is because we recorded it so quickly and cheaply that we’d have felt guilty charging for it! If we’d spent three months working around the clock in Grouse Lodge I’d have wanted money for it, but there was fairly minimal effort involved.
MayKay: We streamed our first album for a week before releasing it, the thinking being that if people heard it and liked it they’d buy it. We were going to do that this time, but then I thought, “Fuck them, it’s time to show that what you’ve spent so much time and tears and sweat on is worth a fiver!” That’s what we charged for the second album on iTunes UK, which is the price of a pint.
Maud: It’s kind of poxy this expectation that musicians should do things for free all the time. You wouldn’t expect a doctor or lawyer not to get paid for their work. We put as much effort into learning our craft as somebody who’s studying medicine or law. People might laugh at that, but that’s the way I feel about it. “Do this gig, there’s no money but it’ll be great exposure.” Yeah, but I still have to pay the band and the crew. It pisses me off that so little value is placed on what I do as an artist.
Conor: People think that because we gave the album away I’m an advocate of ‘free everything’ but like Maud, I want to get paid for my work.
Jeremy: My attitude is stick the single and video out for free, get people to write and blog about them and then you’ve got a chance of selling more albums or somebody going, “I like that, I’ll book them for my venue or festival.” A French band I know gave away three singles and from that they got a hundred grand off Peugeot for an ad. It’s really about putting it out there and seeing what comes back.
MayKay: They can have one of our songs for fifty grand if they chuck in a free car! The upside to all of this is that people are putting far more effort into the physical product than they were before downloading became such a big issue. The standard of artwork has definitely improved over the past couple of years.
Andrew: Have you seen the Tool album with the 3D magnifying glasses? Even if you hated the fucking band you’d want that in your collection. I can be super-proud though and say I’ve never downloaded anything illegally. I’ve never been into Napster or Limewire. I might watch the odd streamed movie, but that’s not downloading plus it fucks my eyes up after half-an-hour! I support the artist all the way.
MayKay: I don’t see a big difference between streaming and downloading – either way you’re not paying to see that movie. Unless you like it enough to buy the DVD or the box-set you’re taking money away from the people who made it.
Andrew: Maybe I’m contradicting myself, but there are only so many poor quality movies you’re going to watch whereas a downloaded song is usually perfect audio quality.
MayKay: This sounds like a cop out I know, but if I listen to five albums online and there are a couple I really like, I’ll go and buy them.
Andrew: Would you when you’ve got it there on your hard-drive?
MayKay: Honestly, yeah. Though because I’m a complete idiot when it comes to technology I don’t download, I stream.
Conor: The last one I did that with was the Arcade Fire record. I downloaded it illegally, loved it and bought the CD. The negative side to free music is you don’t invest as much time listening to it as you would with something you’ve bought. It’s too easy to go, “I don’t like this” and move onto something else. So I don’t really agree with what I’m doing!
Conor J: I’m kind of free about freebies! The only thing I really have a problem with is stuff that’s not properly finished being leaked on to the internet because that’s not how it’s meant to sound. If it’s mastered and mixed then, well, the person who downloads it might buy the rest of the album or come along to a show and spend €15 on a t-shirt. You mightn’t get paid one way, but you do the other. I think the industry has to change its way of thinking. Yes, piracy is stealing but the technology, which makes that possible can’t be un-invented. It’s basic human nature – people want stuff for free and you have to kind of accept that and move on.
Jinx: There’s a blog site called Mutant Sounds, which does a lot of early ‘80s electronic stuff that people released about 200 copies of. If I do at some point come across a physical copy, I’ll buy it because I want the cover and the booklet. I’m like Columbus sailing through the oceans searching for artifacts from the past that have been forgotten! If it’s a new album readily available in the shops though, I’ll 100% go and buy it.
Stuart: Right, time to turn our attention to the huge elephant that’s been sitting in the room since we arrived. I don’t know if anybody was watching Question Time last week on the BBC, but they had a plumb in the mouth Conservative minister saying, “Ireland has to jolly well knuckle down and start behaving like a proper country.” Handing over our sovereignty to Brussels is bad enough, but being lectured by a whinnying Tory was beyond humiliating.
MayKay: When Munster played Samoa last week in Limerick, there was a blow-by-blow account on some Samoan site, which ended with, “So all and all a disappointing day for us in a grim, 90,000 population city that’s in the grip of gangland violence and is now going through a crippling recession.” I was like, “Oh my God, this is what the rest of the world thinks of us!” Then we were in London for a gig and the support band were treating us like charity cases – which of course we are!
Jinx: I think what’s going on with the IMF is actually going to be a spiritual cleansing. The people in this country have had their eyes closed long enough. A lot of really bad things have happened these past few years. You’ve had the road going through Tara. You’ve had the re-staging of the referendums on the Lisbon and Nice treaties because they didn’t like the answers we gave them the first time – “keep going lads ‘til you get it right!” You’ve had the Rossport protest against Shell that’s been totally ignored. We’ve had our natural resources given away for free and there have been extraordinary rendition flights going into Shannon Airport, which means we’re condoning the illegal torture of prisoners in some covert base. We’re no better than a Nazi regime in that respect. It’s laughable that Ireland calls itself neutral. This hasn’t been a sovereign country for a long, long time. Ireland’s either been a part of Europe or doing exactly what the President of the USA tells it to do. Going on about “the spirit of 1916!” and roll-calling Larkin, Connolly, Pearse and De Valera should be gone at this stage. It’s nearly 2011 for fuck’s sake – people need new heroes for this time. The image I have of this country is a load of greenfly on a leaf of a rosebush in summertime waiting for a big German Shepard to raise its leg and piss all over it! A lot of people in Ireland who are eligible haven’t bothered voting, and the regime we have has taken advantage of that and said, “Why should we respect them when they don’t respect themselves?” I’m not particularly happy about the IMF coming in, but they can’t be any worse than self-serving TDs doing things that only benefit themselves and their locality. We need to regain our sovereignty and our self-respect.
Maud: Ireland didn’t have many options when it came to taking the bailout or not, but it was dealt with in such an irresponsible and juvenile way by the government.
Stuart: Anyone feel just the tiniest bit sorry for Brian Cowen?
MayKay: You’d be a bit of a robot not to feel sorry for him on a very basic human level. He can’t walk outside his front-door right now but, you know, he’s brought it on himself.
Jinx: He’s self-deluded. It’s a real sort of Greek tragedy the whole damn thing. The Green Party are every bit as much to blame as Fianna Fáil – any moral authority they might once have had has gone out the window.
Maud: Brian Cowen obviously isn’t a simpleton, so when you ask, “Do you feel sorry him”, the answer is “no.” He must have realised that his actions and the way he dealt with it were going to have people baying for his blood.
MayKay: He could have set a very brave example by going on TV and saying, “Sorry, I fucked up!” Well, perhaps “messed up!”
Stuart: Come next October who would you like to see taking up residence in Áras an Uachtaráin?
Jinx: I’d prefer Michael D. Higgins in front of Bertie Ahern. If Tony Blair was George Bush’s poodle during the Gulf War, Bertie was the microbes in his faeces. The thing I’m scared about is Sinn Féin getting in. I think they’re totally illiterate when it comes to policy, but it’s the likes of them who are rising in power because of the vacuum.
MayKay: Say what you will about him, but Gerry Adam’s looking well! He’s very handsome in a movie villain sort of way. Don’t write that because my Mum will kill me for saying anything nice about Gerry Adams!
Stuart: Would I…
MayKay: Yes, you bloody would! Mary-Lou McDonald’s very scary. She looks all angelic, but then she opens her mouth…
Maud: David Norris is a bit of a laugh, isn’t he?
Conor: Ian Dempsey would be good!
Conor J: I’m quite reticent to comment on political matters because it might be written down and held against me!
Stuart: Yes, you could end up like Paul Weller forever having to explain that you only said “Vote Tory” in the ‘70s to wind The Clash up!
Conor J: The only thing I have pure trust in are my songs. In interviews I can behave like a bit of an idiot and say shit that I later regret. I remember David Norris, though, accompanying Mary Robinson to a UN meeting when she was President and thought he handled himself in a very dignified manner. I’m not saying he should get the Presidency just because he’s gay, but what an awesome message it would send out. It’s like when Barack Obama got in. I was on tour with Cathy Davey when he won the election and remember thinking, “What must it be like for a 100-year-old African-American who’s lived through the Civil Rights struggle watching a black man become President?” It must have been absolutely mind-bending. David Norris in the Áras would be another major step towards a properly inclusive society.
Stuart: Okay, now that we’ve put the country to rights let’s have your Albums of the Year.
MayKay: Adebisi Shank.
Jeremy: Yeah, I’d agree, deffo.
Conor: Vampire Weekend. Does that count as this year?
Stuart: We’ll let you have it!
Jeremy: Passing By Behind Your Eyes by these guys from Colorado called Pretty Lights. It’s kind of a mixture of dubstep, hip hop and drum ‘n’ bass. I also love the new Wolf Parade record, Expo 86. We played with them and they’re really nice guys. The standard of the albums here has been really good as well – O Emperor and Villagers would be two of my favourites. Conor singing that song on his own on ...Jools Holland was unbelievable.
MayKay: Yeah, it was really special. The first time I saw him play was in Whelan’s when he was still with The Immediate and I thought, “That’s what a performance is!” It’s going to sound kind of ridiculous me saying it, but it’s not about tricks, you know? It’s just about balls and sweat.
Jinx: On the international front I thought Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti was great. Roc Marciano’s Marcberg and Geneva Jacuzzi’s Lamaze are also worth tracking down – the first is a New York rapper and the second this girl from LA who does really weird but good synth stuff. On the Irish front, I liked Captain Moonlight, Los Langeros, Fia Rua and Rí Rá’s album, Donkey’s Wages For Horse’s Work. There’s stuff on there where he’s a fucking blues singer! I like the fact that you can almost smell Tullamore when you’re listening to Rí Rá’s shit.
Jeremy: Yeah, I heard Donkey’s Wages… at a friend’s house and thought, “That’s brilliant!”
Maud: I’ve been listening to a lot of old music to be honest. I’m a big soul person – Aretha Franklin, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, that sort of stuff. The only new thing I’ve heard and really liked is the record Adele’s just made with Rick Rubin.
Conor J: Yeah, I’ve sort of retreated into my record collection as well, which isn’t a good thing. There was an album by Owen Pallett this year, Heartland, which was very beautiful. I’ve listened to it at least a hundred times and keep on discovering new things about it.
Andrew: I’ve been listening to a lot of older albums too. I managed to get a copy of a rare Ray Charles one called Love And Peace, which is absolutely amazing. As is Freddie King’s Texas Cannonball. Listen to that and you can really hear where Eric Clapton gets a lot of his influences from. As for newer stuff, I’m really into Mars Volta.
Stuart: Have you met any of the soul greats we’ve been talking about?
Andrew: I remember doing the Grammys in Radio City Music Hall – I was just about to go into ‘Mustang Sally’ and Aretha, Prince, James Brown and Bob Dylan were in the front-row. I thought, “Fucking hell, how am I going to get through this?” But they were cool, just nice people.
Stuart: You’re 17 and suddenly hanging out with Dylan and Prince – did it go to your head at all?
Andrew: Yeah, it did. I had a lot of fucking attitude when I was younger, but I couldn’t see it back then. I was watching a YouTube clip recently of me doing a Finnish interview, and I came across as being a complete prick! It was so Spinal Tap – I had these cold sores on my mouth but still thought I was The Man. But, hey, it’s a process we all go through and hopefully learn from.
Maud: I met Aretha Franklin, and I didn’t want to talk to her because she’s been an idol of mine for so long. It was in Detroit, my boyfriend was like “just go, just go” and I never did.
Stuart: Has anyone else done some quality celebrity schmoozing?
MayKay: I met Karen O when we supported the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in Belfast and she was lovely. When we did The Prodigy tour and I met Liam Howlett, that was pretty cool. He said, “I really like your band” and like a burbling fool I replied, “Oh yeah, I really like your band too!” I should have said earlier that our biggest highlight this year was having Andy Gill of the Gang Of Four produce our album. To hear his war stories about the punk days was kind of dreamy!
Stuart: And you got wine tasting lessons from him as well.
MayKay: Yeah, I learned all sorts of wankerish wine terms from Andy!
Stuart: The most wankerish being?
MayKay: “That’s a generous wine.”
Conor: Meaning?
MayKay: I have no idea!
Andrew: I played a tiny club show this year in San Francisco – there can’t have been more than a couple of hundred people there – and James Hetfield just happened to be one of them. We were talking afterwards about the industry and writing songs and he says to me, “Hey man, the truth never lies!” which I thought was totally spot on.
MayKay: I’d love it if James Hetfield said that to me!
Conor J: Well, I met up with Maud Reardon in first Texas and then New York where we got chased out of an Irish bar by an Irishman who told us we were letting our country down because of our antics. All we were doing was talking loudly, but he seemed to have a problem with that. I also got to hang out at the Latitude festival with all of the guys from The National except for Matt Berninger who’s apparently a bit of a wild man. I like the way the two guitarists take the piss out of him and his lyrics on stage. It all seems quite real and unforced. I wish I’d seen them at the Picnic, which was amazing this year.
Stuart: So what are people’s plans for Christmas and the New Year?
Conor J: Sleeping! I’ve loved every minute of it, but work-wise 2010 has been crazy. After we finish our Irish dates I’m going to take Christmas off and then do some writing in January before heading to Singapore and Australia. I’ve already got a bunch of songs on my little computer that I pieced together while we were touring. I want to fill them out slowly and make sure I’m not doing them for the wrong reasons. If it’s too forced and rushed I’ll make a shitty second album like a lot of people do. The only time frame I can put on it is a daily one, so I’m going to get up at seven-thirty every morning and write. The album itself will be ready when it’s ready.
Jeremy: I want to finish building my studio and experiment with mic placements and things like that for the new record. My ideal would be to work with someone like Steve Albini who sets up 12 or 13 mics all around the kit and the rest of the room. I like reading about it and taking their ideas. My next album’s going to be my fourth, and I want to get people dancing again whilst still being as adventurous as possible.
MayKay: Christmas day in the Geraghtys is very traditional. Dad falls asleep in a party hat on the side of the couch, Mum frets about getting lunch ready on time…
Conor: Same deal in mine – fight over which is better, Roses or Quality Street. I might get some Celebrations in as well and really stir things up! I was always a Roses man, but they’ve really gone downhill. They’ve done away with a lot of the soft centres and replaced them with horrible hard ones. It’s scandalous.
Stuart: On that contentious note, I’ll wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Bailout New Year!
Everyone: Merry Christmas!