Sound Man, Joe

Before he became involved at board level in Súlán, Joe O'Herlihy worked in the studio from time to time as both a producer and engineer and he is intimately familiar with the way in which the complex has grown over the years.

Reflecting on a variety of changes within the Irish recording industry, O'Herlihy expresses the need for stability. "When events happen like the recent changes at Windmill Lane, which has been the flagship for the industry, it has a knock-on effect. Banks get the jitters and so on. But the coming together of Windmill and Ringsend Road should be a shot in the arm for the business and stabilise everything."

Joe feels that Súlán's user-friendly location - 'in the arsehole of nowhere' as he puts it - allows musicians to work uninhibited. "In many city-based studios the effect is sometimes akin to a railway station," he elaborates, "and you have to have signs up keeping people out of this area or that area. Ultimately that level of distraction can have a bad effect on both the music you produce and on your overall bill!"

He cites The Quireboys stint in Súlán as an example of a band getting away from the distractions of the bright lights, rolling up their sleeves and getting down to the best creative period of pre-production they've ever had for any of their records. They not only got a lot of work done, but, as O'Herlihy recalls, "They also soaked up a little of the local culture. The whole lot of them went to sessions and set-dances which is in real contrast to their background and the kind of culture they come from - there's no doubt that the experience would have been highly invigorating for a band like that."

Donovan recorded extensively in Súlán because, as O'Herlihy explains, he wanted to stay out of the limelight and out of the city. "He had a lot of top international musicians coming in to play on it and he obviously wanted to protect them from unnecessary hassles. Nobody even knew they were in the country! And they got the job done!"

An Emotional Fish worked in Súlán for two months doing pre-production of their second album. According to Joe "not only were the Fish very happy about it but they said the live room in Súlán, the main studio, is the best live room they've ever worked in. For a band at their level to express that view is quite exceptional."

O'Herlihy no doubt sees his involvement with Súlán as

something solid he can move into when, at some inevitable point in the future, the lure of 'the road' loses its magnetic power. It's a totally appropriate move for a man who, despite his worldwide acclaim with U2, has kept his roots in Cork where he started his music career as a bass player, then worked in a musical instrument shop, before going on the road with Rory Gallagher's band.

He also admits that he wanted to put something back into the industry which has given him inspiration and sustenance throughout his life. Apart from world tours with U2 and Rory Gallagher he has also put a lot of time and energy into helping other Cork-based bands like Cypress Mine! Gaslight, Sleepy Hollow and Chapter Five.

Not surprisingly he gets a huge buzz out of helping U2 get the sound they want on their live gigs. "For me it's a very unique situation," he says. "I'm with U2 right through the recording stage, even through the writing stage. I've seen the way each song progresses through the various stages, so I know what the band are trying to portray in each song. When you're out there, say in Meadowlands, you get a great adrenalin boost. The feeling between the band and all those people, it's amazing!"

The first gig he did with U2 was in The Arcadia in Cork on 23rd September 1978, when the band was fifth on a bill that included DC Nien and other acts long forgotten, and he's been involved since then, sometimes in the early days through hiring gear to them through his own company, or in his own right as an engineer.

"Eventually in 1980," he recalls, "Paul McGuinness told me 'look, this thing's going to go big, do you want to go with it?' I thought about it for a while and then he made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

Of all the U2 gigs Joe O'Herlihy has done, he found the

April 1st gig in Madison Square Gardens in 1985 the most memorable of all. "It was the first realisation that we'd actually cracked it. I did that gig with tears in my eyes! It was so emotional! It just hit me like - wallop, we're now up there with The Who or The Stones. This is the gig!

"What happens at a U2 concert," he adds, "you will not experience anywhere else. There's such an intense emotional involvement between everybody. I've seen everybody that the industry has to offer and the feeling I get at a U2 gig is truly exceptional!"

Last year the U2 man was chuffed when David Bowie asked him to work on the unannounced Baggot gig for the Tin Machine. "We were recording down in Dalkey when Bowie came down and asked me to do it, and I went away on a high. I felt honoured and it all gave me a great buzz, but even that did not compare emotionally with the U2 experience," he admits.

Having worked with bands both in studio and live, O'Herlihy has seen how different one's approach needs to be, and he frankly admits that his own personal studio temperament is 'fragile'.

"I'm conditioned into thinking that there's a song up on that stage and you've got three minutes to get it right. In the studio you can stop the tape, roll it back, run it again two million times. After two or three weeks of that I get worn out. You have to go into a different gear for studio work, and you have to get it right. You have to be diplomatic. You have to understand the pressures and the process, and you have to solve the problems as they arise."

U2 obviously place enormous trust in O'Herlihy, and his contributions go far beyond the stage set up as he often takes an active role with them in the studio. If, for example, The Edge is trying to get a particular guitar sound O'Herlihy might recommend an appropriate type of microphone or he might suggest a specific approach to recording a song.

"A lot of the recording is done live as a band rather than the oft-practised approach of putting down one or two instruments at a time. Basically, we throw away the rule book. When producers like Daniel Lanois or Brian Eno or Steve Lillywhite or Flood come in to work with U2 they may have to adjust from working in a totally different studio situation. That conflict, that contrast often adds a hugely important ingredient."

Even when U2 record, O'Herlihy usually sets up monitoring exactly as for a stage gig. "Ultimately," he says, "if a band get the performance right you've got something solid to build on. With today's technology you can patch things up, but if the basic performance isn't right you're making life more difficult for yourself."

Historically, Súlán has been associated with the

traditional, acoustic scene, and O'Herlihy's connections through his work with U2, Bowie and others will undoubtedly alter that perception and bring significant acts to the studio, and much-needed revenue into the country.

He emphasises the opportunities for all Irish studios through the US market are substantial. "Through various things, like say, the Hot Press Seminar, the Americans are developing a phenomenal interest in Ireland. But we've a long way to go in selling ourselves."

O'Herlihy agrees with the general perception that new bands make fairly obvious mistakes during their initial studio work, but points to the Hot Press Seminar again as a way in which bands can pick up useful tips and learn from the mistakes of others rather than making those same mistakes themselves.

"It's important to work out as much as you can before you go into the studio. Planning is all-important, so long as you don't get so inflexible that you can't take in new ideas that arise in the studio or waste time arguing over something you could have sorted out for nothing! That's when tempers get frayed. It's not something we like to see because it can affect the final results and a studio can end up getting the blame from people who weren't aware of their own lack of preparation in the first place."

The days of bands blundering along and hoping for the best are long gone, he maintains. We are now in a phase where everything is more precisely thought out. What was once regarded as a slightly dubious sideline industry has now grown into a fully fledged, even respectable industry.

O'Herlihy can see this growth to maturity through working first-hand with U2, and in the way Súlán itself has been meticulously planned and developed over the years.

"Whether it's me or Tadgh Kelleher or U2, or anybody in a studio or with a touring band, everybody is learning all the time. You have to keep an open mind otherwise you cut yourself off and you can end up alone in your own little mental ghetto. The day you think you know it all is the day you need to pack it in," he declares emphatically.

This attitude, he admits, was evident even in the way U2 have approached their recent albums. "You can't just go into the studio and play it safe and make an ordinary record. you have to strive ultimately to make a masterpiece! It has to be something that's fairly unique, but it also has to have the U2 stamp on it.

"There's a decade of sound there that people identify as U2. Because everybody's involved from the get-go it's almost a community thing and you have to speak your mind if there's something you think is not working out," he says.

Whether U2 will ever record in a studio like Súlán remains to be seen.

"You go to a place like Berlin," explains O'Herlihy, "because for a time it became the hub of activity. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. That was an historical event. A year later the two Germanys united. We were there in the thick of all that! You're living among all that, and of course it rubs off on you. But if U2 ever did record in Súlán I think the immediate surrounds of the Gaeltacht area and the sense of cultural heritage in the area would have a comparable creative input to Berlin - but in a different way, obviously."

Either way, it looks like the nineties are going to be as demanding and as challenging for Joe O'Herlihy as they undoubtedly will be for U2.

Memories Are Made Of This

JOE O'HERLIHY began his involvement in rock'n'roll playing bass in a band called The Heat. When that venture imploded, like so many thousands of other rock bands the length and breadth of the world, he moved on to work with Chapter 5 and Sleepy Hollow, and from there to the Rory Gallagher Band, with whom he worked for between five and six years. With him through all the changes was his wife Marian.

"Joe doesn't make up his mind overnight about things," Marian says. "He ponders things over and thinks them through thoroughly before deciding which way to move. Every choice we've made, we've done it together."

The first major career change involved leaving the security of the job with Rory to set up a sound hire company operating out of Ireland. "Joe thought that there was a real need for a good sound company here," Marian recalls. "Standards hadn't been the highest and he'd got a lot of good experience working with Rory which he felt he could apply for everyone's benefit here. But that was what was important to him - that the system would be a good one."

In partnership with Denis Desmond, the business took off well. "It was a happening time," says Desmond. "There were a lot of good Irish bands coming through, and acts were beginning to come in from the UK. There was a very healthy live scene."

One of the company's clients was U2 and as the band grew in popularity, the company grew with them. There came a point, however, where they couldn't keep pace and Joe was faced with a choice.

"I had seen the band in the Arcadia," says Marian, "and they were a happening band and so when the opportunity to work with them fulltime came along I was right behind him. We discussed it and I told him that I felt it was the right thing to do. And of course it was!"

Does she ever try to encourage him to hang up his sound-desk, and to live a more normal lifestyle? "Ah sure I'm always trying to get him to do that," Marian laughs. "But music's been good to Joe. It's been good to all of us."

Matt Keleghan, now a major force in the Ballyfermot Rock School, but a musician and technician who has experienced life on the road with Moving Hearts and Planxty among others, remembers working with Joe O'Herlihy during his spell with Planxty.

"At that stage Planxty were moving into the bigger venues where a decent, rock-type PA was necessary. Joe was one of the first innovators I met in that area of the business," Keleghan recalls. "It was tough going, hauling gear up and down the country in transit vans, but that's how Joe paid his dues at a time when sound systems in Ireland were moving into the major league," Keleghan recalls.

Not that it was all hard slog. Keleghan recalls a favourite trick of O'Herlihy's was to pretend to be looking for a non-existent dog. "Tables would be upended and dressing rooms ransacked as Joe and the crew earnestly tried to find this imaginary dog. It was a great way of relieving a bit of tension and having a laugh at the same time, but I'm not sure if everybody fully appreciated Joe's mischievous wit," he concedes.

Keleghan also learned that it was "not a very good idea" to cross Joe while on the road. "He could take the practical joking as well as anybody," reckons Keleghan, "but if you went too far he'd get you back with knobs on, even if it took years."

Unknown to most of the Irish public, O'Herlihy was nominated for an Oscar last year. Not, you understand, anything as crude as the Academy Awards, but the U2 Tour Oscars in which the crew vote in a number of different categories.

Maurice Linnane of Dreamchaser, the Zooropa TV production company, nominated Joe for Quote of the Year. According to Linnane "We had just arrived in Herschey Park in Pennsylvania. As some of the crew surveyed the stadium, Joe was contemplating the sterling work of U2 lighting man Willy Williams and quipped 'You'd be afraid to get a hard-on in this place in case Willy'd put a light on it'!"

Some may even believe Joe's claim to have persuaded Roy Keane to join Manchester United. Linnane confirms that Joe is a 'rabid' United fan and a good friend of Keane's, and adds that "he'd try to persuade Maradona to join United if he got half the chance."

Technically, Linnane describes O'Herlihy as "an amazing guy. He's a legend in this business. In all the talk about the Zooropa tour, it's often forgotten that Joe helped put together with the Clair Brothers the biggest hanging P.A. ever, and it has to be acknowledged that the time from conception to completion was shorter than even the most optimistic person could have predicted. It was an extraordinary achievement."

JIM AIKEN has worked with U2 on a series of gigs taking in all of the major indoor and outdoor venues in Ireland, culminating in this year's Zooropa extravaganza outdoors at the RDS. "He has never changed," Jim says about Joe O'Herlihy. "He's still the same quiet fella who at the same time is very confident in his own ability. He didn't get the job with U2 because he was from Cork - he got it because he was the best. But despite the fact that he has that ability, there isn't even the slightest hint of arrogance about him.

"He knows which problems you can solve, and in his quiet, demanding way he gets what he wants. He also understands which problems he can solve and he takes responsibility. And if there's a problem that's insurmountable, then he has the ability and the professionalism to live with it. Which is what makes him so enjoyable to work with."

Denis Desmond's friendship with Joe O'Herlihy goes back to their teenage years. "I was managing Sleepy Hollow, who were a very good band, and Joe was their sound engineer, tour manager, van driver, backline roadie, accountant - the lot! That's how he got the gig with Rory Gallagher. Sleepy Hollow were given a series of breaks by Rory. He took them on tour with him in the UK and it went very well.

"Sleepy Hollow comprised some guys who were long-term - musicians like Pat Crowley who plays with Mary Black now, and Arty Lonergan who's with The Ben Prevo Trio - and others who were doing it for the fun, so it became obvious that it wasn't going to work as a serious proposition. So when Joe got an offer to work with Rory he took it, and moved on to bigger and better things."

Denis recalls Joe as a technical wizard. "Having very good ears is an important part of the job but it's also vital to be aware of the up-to-date technology, and how to use it and that's never been other than second nature to him. He's got the expertise. I suppose you could say that he's a bit of an electronic genius."