Madra Salach's Paul Banks on Shane MacGowan: "He could write so delicately when he wanted to"

Madra Salach’s Paul Banks is chirpy. And why wouldn’t he be?

The singer is picking up the phone from the Workman’s Club in Dublin, before the second of three sold-out gigs in his hometown.

He and his five mates - Adam Cullen, Jack Martin, Maxime Arnold, Dara Duffy, and Jack Lawlor - form one of the most talked about bands in Irish music right now, drawing in critics and fans with the gravitational pull of their droning folk songs.

And while Banks is struggling to wrap his head around the 900 or so tickets they’ve sold this week, he’d want to get used to it; their Irish tour in winter sees the rooms get bigger and bigger.

But that’s enough smoke blowing for now. We’re actually here to chat about another artist - one who Banks credits with making him realise Irish traditional music could actually be “cool.”

“I was totally disinterested in Irish folk and trad,” Banks says. “I thought it was stuffy and boring. I liked punk music. I was 15 years old and I was on the 29A into town, and ‘Sally MacLennane’ came on. It was like the lights were turned on because I realised: ‘Hold on a second, this is a punk song.’

“In that binary way that a 15-year-old boy thinks about the world of cool and uncool, suddenly Irish folk was switched onto cool. That opened the floodgates, and now I'm completely obsessed with it and I'd listen to stuff that years ago I wouldn't have even tolerated being played in proximity to me.

“[The Pogues] were as punk as anyone and as traditional as anyone. It was upsetting people and pushing boundaries but also so rooted in tradition, Banks adds. “Shane [MacGowan’s] ability and The Pogues' ability to be so raucous but also so reverent in the right places is their magic. I don't think there's any other band who has done it like them before or since.

“I think when people talk of Shane MacGowan, what comes up immediately is his raucousness, his lifestyle, his anarchic way of living. People can sometimes brush over his grasp of tenderness and the places he wrote from. He wrote with nuance and he wrote with a soft touch. He could write so delicately when he wanted to.”

A tribute album titled 20th Century Paddy - The Songs of Shane MacGowan has been announced for November 13. The project, assembled by MacGowan's widow Victoria Mary Clarke and her manager John Kennedy, sees a number of renowned artists perform covers of the late artist's songs. Madra Salach were called up to put their ghoulish twist on ‘Turkish Song of the Damned,’ from the Pogues’ 1988 LP If I Should Fall from Grace with God.

“I think towards the later years, after The Pogues and then into Shane MacGowan and The Popes, Shane was leaning into these dreamlike writing themes,” Banks says, when asked what drew his band to the track. “There's a fantasy element, but it’s still so Shane, so they're packed with character, but in a way that only he can do.

“It's just another facet of just what a titanic writer he was. It’s very off-kilter and has lots of character. We wanted to have something that we could have a bit of fun with, that we could really sink our teeth into. We felt it just suited us, and it was the sort of thing that we were enjoying playing.

“When the lads learned the arrangement, [what stood out] was the way that it uses dynamics and the way that things move around so much.

“Hopefully we've succeeded in doing it justice. It’s about striking a healthy balance of reverence for the original song, but then also trying to put our character into it. The heavy lifting's already done; they wrote it in '88 and it’s a fantastic song.”

Madra Salach are in good company too. 20th Century Paddy boasts 36 artists performing across 24 tracks, including Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, David Gray, and the Pogues themselves, as well as duets from Imelda May and Johnny Depp, and Hozier and Jessie Buckley. It is, much like the performances at his funeral following his death in November 2023, a testament to MacGowan's influence.

“I was totally blown away by the lineup, but to be honest, the real highlight for me is being on the same lineup as Lisa O'Neill,” Banks says. “I idolise her, I think she’s a genius. I think she’s the greatest lyricist alive, maybe. So that's my highlight personally. But God, you could really pick names out of a bag and you'd have some heavy hitter.

“[MacGowan] was an artist through and through, and one that doesn't come along every generation. I think anyone worth their salt, any musician worth their salt, can very clearly recognise that. And I think that's why it's such a stacked lineup.”

20th Century Paddy - The Songs of Shane MacGowan is available for pre-order here, including a limited edition Deluxe Bookpack featuring 3LPs, 2CDs and a 56-page book of memorabilia and liner notes.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Shane MacGowan (@shanemacgowanofficial)