At dinner with Mark Geary

Most rock magazines take their interviewees round the corner for a toasted sarnie and a pint of plain, but not Hotpress. Oh no! Bon viveurs, gourmands and sadists that we are, we’ve brought him to the Alilang Restaurant in Parnell Street for a slap-up Korean feed.

If The Frames’ mate is the ardent foodie his press people say he is, he won’t mind if we go native and order some genuine Seoul food.
“They’re fired,” Geary grimaces as the request goes in for Barbecue Chicken Gizzards and Dried Jellyfish with Cucumber.
“I’m sorry,” apologises our charming waitress Nina, “but we don’t have Chicken Gizzards tonight.”
Not to worry, we’ll go for the Sea Snail instead.
“Do we have to?” the former Newpark Comprehensive pupil rues, turning ever so slightly green.
Chef needing a bit of time to prepare such delicacies – you can’t rush a sea snail – I ask Mark about his other passions in life.
“Music obviously, my wife and two young kids and Manchester United.”
Now I wish I’d got him a side-order of hemlock. Dried Jellyfish I can swallow, but a Man U fan?
“One of things I loved about living in New York,” he enthuses, “was staying up all night drinking and then watching United play at eight or nine in the morning. You had locals coming in for a bit of breakfast and walking straight out again when they saw all these drunken Paddies and Brits screaming at the telly.”
Frustrated by the lack of musical opportunities that existed here at the time, Geary left his native Dublin in 1992 and set up surrogate home in the East Village’s legendary Sin-É Café.
“I wish I could say that some magical force drew me there, but actually it was because my brother Karl runs it and was prepared to give me a gig, which was a bit stupid of him because all I’d done up to then was a heinous busking thing,” Mark laughs. “I remember having – and losing – a fight in Grafton Street with a fiddle-player who accused me and my mate of nicking her pitch. I wasn’t brave enough to be a Glen Hansard or a Mic Christopher who’d politely tell anyone hassling them to go fuck themselves!
“Anyway, having overcome my stagefright, I ended up going on every Monday at Sin-É between Katell Keineg and Jeff Buckley who was quite simply the best storyteller I’ve ever seen.”
Geary has talked about his fellow Sin–É regular in hotpress before – “He wasn’t a broken person at all” was last year’s pull-quote – but what does he think Jeff would make of the ballyhoo surrounding the 10th anniversary re-release of Grace?
“Wow, that’s a toughie,” he concedes. “Being portrayed as this tragic figure who was destined to die young wouldn’t have sat well with him, especially given the circumstances of his dad Tim’s own death aged 28. Part of him was still haunted by daddy and the expectations that went with being his son. The main things I remember about Jeff, though, are his sense of humour and excitement at being given this wonderful opportunity by Columbia. In that respect, I know he’d be chuffed that Grace has reached a worldwide audience.”
Something which Geary has more than a sporting chance of doing with Ghosts, his third album which received a gushing 9 out of 10 appraisal in the last issue of Hot Pre…ah, here’s our food.
“The Jellyfish is like sushi, isn’t it?” he says looking relieved. “That’s really nice.”
As are the Sea Snails which taste like a cross between mussels and squid.
“It’s wonderful to come back after 12 years and find that Ireland’s caught up with rest of the world in terms of culture and food,” Mark enthuses. “We have to do more, though, when it comes to combating racism. Some of the stuff I’ve seen and heard recently is fucking awful.”
Talking of racism, as somebody who’s got a foot in both camps, is he worried that Ireland’s opposition to the war is turning into anti-Americanism?
“People say, ‘Fucking Americans’, when what they really mean is, ‘Fucking Bush and his administration’. I won’t slag America off as a country but if somebody’s putting on an anti-George Bush or pro-John Kerry show, I’m there.”
Even if it means receiving airplay bans and death threats a la Steve Earle, Linda Rondstadt and The Dixie Chicks?
“To be banned from the air you have to be on it,” he laughs, “but if I was high profile enough in the States to upset people with my opinions, so be it.”
Somebody who is high profile in the U.S. and may come to rue his anti-war stance is Damien Rice.
“I thought I was hearing things when some guy on the radio said, ‘Here’s the new single by Damien Rice and Christy Moore’, but yeah, fair play to them for doing ‘Lonely Soldier’ together. If Kerry wins, no problem. If Bush wins, there’s a serious fucking danger of them messing with his work visas which would be awful after all the hard work Damien’s put in there. If you want an example of how to achieve success without compromising yourself, he’s it.
“My take on 9/11,” he continues, “is that having been in New York when the planes struck, I’m entitled to have my say.”
Ghosts is a big record for Mark Geary, not just in terms of its likely top 10 berth but in demonstrating that he can operate independently of The Frames.
“I was frightened of being the biblical prodigal son returning, but Glenny said, ‘I’ve a Whelan’s gig I need support for, so get your ass on a plane’. It says a great deal about the guy that at the point he’s about to be crowned King by the crowd he’s prepared to go, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Geary!’ He knew that I was going to go out there and try and rob every single last one of them – an impossibility because they’re so psychotically up for Glen, but it doesn’t stop you trying!
“A similar thing happened when I went on the road with Josh (Ritter),” he smiles. “You’d be watching him going, ‘Fuck you man!’ because you’d have to go out there and match him. Getting back to The Frames for a second – having their endorsement opened a lot of doors, but having the confidence in my music that I do I didn’t feel I was riding on their coat-tails.”
More Jellyfish?
“I thought you’d never ask!”