Mik Pyro: "I hate nostalgia. I think life gets better, usually, as you get older"

There’s always been a deep-set sensitivity behind the bravado and theatricality – as well as the staggering talent – of Republic Of Loose’s frontman, Mik Pyro. Naturally distrustful of nostalgia, and often far too quick to sell himself short, the Dublin artist, born Michael Tierney, is approaching the release of his long-awaited debut solo LP, Exit Pyro, with a palpable combination of relief and gratitude.

“To have the fucking album finished is a great feeling, because it’s been stressing me out so much,” he tells me. “You wake up from nightmares, thinking: ‘Am I ever going to put out an artefact again?’ Especially when you’re getting to 48. You’re like, ‘Jesus Christ, do I even have the energy to make an album?’”

One of the most era-defining Irish bands of their generation, Republic Of Loose released their fourth and final album, Bounce At The Devil, in 2010, capping off a remarkable run that first kicked off in the early ‘00s. Emerging as a defiant alternative to the dominant singer-songwriter scene of the time, the group tapped into a bold international perspective and outsider ethos that has gone on to define the contemporary homegrown scene.

While he’s continued to ply his trade at venues around the city in recent years with his Dublin Blues Cartel, Mik has been open about his personal struggles and substance use in the years during and since Republic Of Loose. As such, the hard-fought journey to Exit Pyro feels especially worth celebrating – and, suitably, features a strong family emphasis, thanks to the contribution of his sister Annie and his two aunts. It adds a particular poignancy to deeply personal tracks like ‘My Mother And Father’, a tribute to his late parents.

“When you’ve got all these people who you love, and who love you, working on it, it has a different atmosphere to what we were doing with Republic Of Loose,” he reflects. “With Loose, we were under pressure a lot of the time to record new albums – because we were just trying to keep the thing going for as long as possible. It was so fucking intense. This was more of a chilled out process. I wanted to get some more emotional sincerity in there.”

He looks back at his Republic Of Loose years with mixed emotions – remembering the band, in their early days, as “seven lads who all had the same kind of middle-class self-loathing”.

“I was trying to galvanise us into being a bit more over-the-top,” he elaborates. “But there was a stiffness there. To burst through that took an awful lot of guts – and stress. People hated us. A journalist wrote a whole article about what a prick I was – and 45 people left comments under it, saying I was a drug-addled asshole. You’d get abuse walking down the street: ‘Look at you with your skinny legs, and your fat belly – you look like a fucking turkey! Your band sucks!’

“So it wasn’t that great a time – except for the camaraderie and the fun,” he continues. “Making the music was great, and I’m glad those albums are there. They’re cool albums, and each one has a flavour of the era. But I hate nostalgia. I think life gets better, usually, as you get older.”

Mik Pyro. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Exit Pyro – which was made possible through a grant from the Music Industry Stimulus Package, as well as the help of numerous friends and collaborators – also finds him dipping into the soulful, life-affirming sounds of influences like Tom Waits, Dr John and Van Morrison, as well as the country and folk elements he soaked up in his childhood.

“Growing up, I used to go to Clare a lot,” he recalls. “My mother’s family there are all musicians. My mother was a piano player, and my granny still is a great accordion player. She’s 97, and she only took it back up when she was 93. So I wanted to capture a bit of that sound.”

In recent years, he’s been excited to witness the ongoing expansion of Irish folk music.

“That’s real trad,” he nods. “If you hear Lankum, or Junior Brother, it’s going back, but it’s also a new era in Irish music.

“We were post-colonial, in my era,” he continues. “Edward Said, the culture critic, used to say that post-colonial cultures usually start by mimicking their masters – or the people who were their overlords – aesthetically in their cultural life. I think, to some degree, there was a bit of mimicry in my shit. A post-colonial hangover.

“But these young folk don’t have that,” he adds. “They’re progressed past the post-colonial stain, emotionally and spiritually. They’ve much more confidence in themselves aesthetically.”

He also remains clued into the latest sounds from both Irish and international hip-hop.

“It’s an amazing time for music, but people don’t really appreciate it,” he remarks. “Modern rap just gives me a lot of joy, because it’s always evolving. There’s always some new innovation in production happening. It’s my favourite artform. That Playboi Carti album, Whole Lotta Red, is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard.”

The blues also remains a major influence, stretching back to his first time seeing Rory Gallagher in concert, aged 12.

“I was up at the front at the Olympia,” he tells me. “He’s shouting, and staring right at you. And you’re like, ‘Fucking hell…’

“I came out of the place like, ‘Aggghhhh!’” he laughs. “It was like Beetlejuice! I was on a different plane of existence. I wasn’t the same for months after it, because the high of it was so intense. After that I was just obsessed. I used to go see Pat Farrell, The Business, and Red Peters playing in Slattery’s, when I was 12 or 13.”

While he’s slow to romanticise the past, remembering the Ireland of his childhood years as a “very bleak place”, he does feel that a lot of the essence of Dublin has been lost, and common decency is declining on a global scale – something that he addresses on the album.

“Like when you see these fuckers talking like, ‘I’m not going to use this pronoun!’” he says. “Why not? Because you’re a prick? How’s it going to reflect your life in a negative way? ‘Because, the truth!’ Who gives a fuck about the truth? The truth is complex anyway – it’s as complex as it gets. I just don’t understand it, the things people are getting hung up over. Just have some fucking manners.”

Mik Pyro. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Exit Pyro also touches on ideas of shame and self-loathing.

“I was quite religious when I was younger – because I bought into the shit they were giving me in primary school,” he recalls. “I wanted to become a priest. I was just really into it. I was a really sensitive kid, and I was so stressed out all the time, like, ‘Jesus – I’m having bad thoughts!’

“It was immense – the guilt and the constant fucking self-loathing,” he continues. “A fear of being yourself. It’s just part of being Irish, for that generation. For people who grew up in the ‘80s, Ireland was a horrific place. Everyone had this self-disgust, or else they had to overdo it to break out of it.

“So when I see people being anti-immigrant, I’m like, ‘Jesus Christ – are you fucking thick? Do you not remember what it was like in the fucking ‘80s?’ And they don’t. Everything was grey. Everyone looked the same, and everyone looked pissed off.”

As Mik notes, “so much has been offered to the culture from immigration.”

“It’s a much more vibrant place,” he nods. “It’s a different place altogether. It’s just fantastic. We should be honoured to have these musicians who have come over to live here.”

Mik and his own band of top-tier musicians are set to celebrate the release of Exit Pyro with an upcoming album launch show at Whelan’s. But, as the album title implies, this project will likely be his last under his current moniker.

“Michael means ‘godlike’, and Tierney means ‘lord’ – so ‘Godlike Lord’ is my actual name, which I think is fitting enough!” he laughs. “No, but I do want to call myself Tierney. The next album will be a Tierney album.

“But that always leaves room for The Return Of Pyro…”

• Exit Pyro is out today, July 14. Mik Pyro & Band play Whelan’s, Dublin, on July 21.