Child of Lir

The World’s Not Round, according to the title of Colm Quearney’s debut solo album. “It’s just kind of a bold statement.” Colm tells me, adding, “Although it’s not really, ‘cause the earth is not round, it’s actually a geoid sphere.” Ah yes, geoid, or an “oblate ellipsoid of revolution,” as the Chambers Dictionary would have it.

The ex-Lir bassist has been plotting his own minor revolution for a while. “For the past two years I’ve been telling people I’m working on an album, but I don’t think they really believed me. It was recorded over twenty months, doing it on my own label, Strange Vibes, I had to take the cheapest route possible, so I’d get in whichever musician mates were free at the time, and record bits and pieces in peoples’ flats. But now it’s finished and people are hearing it, it’s amazing to be getting some feedback.”

Despite essentially going solo, Colm has put together a band for live shows. “Half the gigs I do myself acoustically, while the others are with the band, The Hallucinations – Cian O’ Callaghan’s on drums, Peter Cheevers on guitar and Justin Carroll plays Hammond organ. Andy McDonald is on bass. Andy has the best hairstyle in showbusiness, it’s really curly. That’s not why he’s in the band. But it helps.”

The World’s Not Round will be launched in the Shelter on 1st May. “We also have a gig in Whelans with the drummer out of the Stone Roses Reni’s new band. He’s the bass player and singer now and they’re called The Rub.”

Quearney himself played bass from a young age, following in his musical father, John Quearney’s footsteps. “I play in a blues band as well with me Da, Jimmy Faulkner and Noel Bridgeman, called The Houseshakers. When I was a kid I’d stand in for my Dad at gigs and have to wear his monkey suit, which was way to big on me. Now he’d like to collaborate with my band, so I might get him up on stage with us one of these days.”

When I ask about enduring memories of Lir I’m confronted with a rueful reply of “Car crashes and shotguns”.

“We were on tour, driving from New York through Pennsylvania, one night,” Colm

explains. “We were approaching a place

called Lake Eyrie when we crashed on the highway. It was very nasty – we slid on black ice, came off the road and hit the bridge. When we knocked at a door looking for help we were confronted by a guy with a big shotgun. Double whammy.”

“I played a gig with Lir at Christmas and that was really good,” he says. “The band are still going, but I think it’s on the shelf for a while. I’m just doing my own thing now.”

And what’s his “own thing” all about?

“All the songs on the album are very personal and selected because they had a sort of common theme. So it’s very heartfelt, but with a hard edge to it and a lot of heavy guitars. David Bowie wouldn’t exactly be a big influence, and I’m not comparing myself to him, but there are aspects of the album that put me in mind of ‘Low’, some of the guitar sounds, the fact that there’s a few instrumentals on there. A huge influence would definitely be John Lennon, the way he’d write about his trials and tribulations, the real and the spiritual. Dylan too, the style of the songwriting, and the chord structures and so on… that’s kind of where I’m coming from.”

“I’m very happy with it. I’d like to sell a milllion albums, but I’ll settle for a thousand for the time being. Maybe after working it here for a while, touring Ireland extensively, I’ll start pushing it in England and talk to a few companies about distribution and whatever. I’m also looking forward to starting on a new album. The next one is gonna be quite different, more surreal and stream-of-consciousness. What I’d really like to do is a soundtrack, so I’m looking for someone who’s making a film, who’s on a similar wavelength.”Colm has played with quite a few famous artists in his time. “I played with Rory Gallagher when I was about eighteen. I was in The Rock School, and I was picked to play with him at the launch of the Guinness Festival in the Hopstore. I’m a huge Rory Gallagher fan and big into the blues, so I was really nervous, but I knew all the songs anyway. I got up onstage with him and the two of us played and just had a blast. He was really humble and helpful.”

And Reba McIntyre? “I don’t wanna talk about that one. God, I’ve played with a good few people on The Late Late Show, working as a session musician for different people. Very different people like Finbarr Wright. And Holly Johnson, who is a seriously nice guy.”

You must have learned a fair bit about this business called show.

“I’ve been playing music for fourteen years now and I don’t have any huge silly expectations at this stage. You learn how to deal with it – you don’t listen to what all these people tell you, you just trust yourself. Once I can scrape some sort of income from music and survive, without having to dig roads or flip burgers, that’s good enough for me. ‘Cause I’ve no intention of ever having a day job.”

Colm Quearney launches his album, The World’s Not Round, in The Shelter on 1st May. He also plays Whelan’s on 3rd May (in support to The Rub); The Lobby, Cork on 5th May and the GPO, Galway on 14th May