The Waterboys’ Mike Scott: “It’s easy to follow the music. The hard part is getting the world to go along with me”

The Waterboys formed in London in 1983 and released their self-titled debut album that same year. Comprised of Mike Scott and a cast of revolving musicians, the band enjoyed a major breakthrough with their third album, 1985’s This Is The Sea. Fuelled by the popularity of the title-track and the baroque-pop anthem ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, the record marked the first time Scott’s distinctive songwriting – a mix of folk and rock influences, characterised by a notable melodic flair – was exposed to a wide audience.

Always fascinated by Irish music and culture, Scott and co. relocated to Ireland for 1988’s Fisherman’s Blues. Recorded in Dublin’s Windmill Lane and Spiddal House in Galway, the album successfully incorporated Irish trad and folk influences, with the title-track proving a major international hit. Throughout the decade, The Waterboys’ brand of anthemic folk-rock also spawned its own genre, ‘The Big Music’, whose influence could also be felt in the work of contemporaries like Simple Minds, Hothouse Flowers and U2.

With further hit albums in the form of 1990’s Room To Roam and ‘93’s Dream Harder, The Waterboys also became an enduringly popular and revered live act. Scott has continued to release acclaimed albums, and his Irish love affair has never showed any signs of diminishing, with 2011 finding him releasing An Appointment With Mr Yeats, a collection of songs based on the works of the iconic poet.

To mark the release of The Waterboys’ latest album, Life, Death And Dennis Hopper – a celebration of the titular actor featuring a raft of star camoes, including Bruce Springsteen, Fiona Apple and Steve Earle – we decided to ask Scott to participate in the Hot Press Mixed Grill, which finds him fielding all manner of probing queries from Hot Press readers. And for good measure, you may also spot a few members of Team HP submitting a few incisive questions of their own!

So without further ado, let the fun begin...

How did the conversation go with Sun Records, when you suggested a concept album, and what was the reaction when you said it was about the cat Dennis Hopper? – Patrick Lenehan, Tara, Co Meath

Well, the album was already underway before we ever got into contact with Sun Records. Sun Records is owned by a company called Primary Wave, who did one of these copyright deals with me about four years ago.  You know where songwriters sell a portion of their copyrights to a company? They asked me what I was up to and I said, “Well, I’m recording this album about the life of Dennis Hopper.” “Oh”, they said, “can we hear that?” They got a copy from my manager and said they’d like to release it. So it came around in a nice, organic way.

You’ve described the new album as the best material you’ve recorded. Was it frustrating, waiting two years for it to be released? –Stephen Charlton, Durham, England

It actually took over five years. The first track was done in January 2020 just before Covid, so it’s been a long process. But I’m alright with it taking a long time. I’ve appreciated the space. Sometimes I would go six months without listening to any of it, and I’d come back very fresh, with a good sharp perspective. I was busy with lots of other projects. I had two box-sets, lots of tours, and I had another album in 2022.

Why Dennis Hopper? Why not Richard Burton or Marlon Brando or Richard Harris? – Brian Lucey, Christchurch, New Zealand

Well, of course they’re all fascinating too. Richard Harris, what a character! But Dennis just chimed with me. I just felt a great sympathy for Dennis. It was partly that he was present at all these very crucial moments in the development of popular culture. He played with James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, which was the beginning of youth culture – they called James Dean the first American teenager. It was the first time that the teenage, youthful part of the population found a voice, and it coincided with the beginnings of teenybopper appreciation of music and disposable culture for teenagers.

Dennis was there at the beginning of pop art, and he was there through all the big moves of the ‘60s, psychedelia, counterculture, the new Hollywood with Easy Rider, civil rights marches.  He burned out, and then he came back. He didn’t take himself too seriously as a twinkly-eyed Hollywood elder, and I just found his story very moving and fascinating. I never knew him in life. Although I wish I had known him. I probably wouldn’t have been able to write all these songs about him if I had. It wouldn’t have happened like that.

What’s your favourite Dennis Hopper film and why? – Paul Nolan, Kildare

It might be The American Friend, which is one of the films he made in the ‘70s. His star was very low at the time and he could only really get work abroad, or with maverick filmmakers. It was an early Wim Wenders film. I also like The Glory Stompers that he made in the ‘60s, just before he did Easy Rider. It’s this gonzo biker b-movie.

Dennis Hopper blazed a trail with his creative endeavours – are mavericks like him allowed to exist today? – David Keenan, Dundalk

Well, yes, they are. There are still mavericks, but the apparatus of stardom is less wild than it used to be, it’s harder for people to get through. The first 40, 50 years of movie-making was a kind of frontier business, so much was yet to be discovered. And then in music, when the huge cultural changes happened from the 1920s to the ‘50s, there was the confluence of black people and white people, European music and American music, coming together and creating these new forms. It was still a frontier affair with an unpredictability and a rapid evolution. But in both movies and music, I think that has all slowed down.

The process by which we make music and films now is much more self-conscious – the business is very much in control. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, it’s just the way it is. With all these things, they evolve. There’s a frontier period, and maybe then a heyday, and then there’s a sort of period where everybody’s very conscious of it. People are self-conscious as they’re doing things. There’s less natural inspiration and genius that comes through and interestingly, we see this with information technology. Now, it’s in the frontier stage and we’ve got these bonkers people like Elon Musk and the guys in charge of Meta and Spotify, and so on. They have this huge power, and yet they don’t necessarily have the consciousness or the discipline, or the social conscience, to wield that power in a properly beneficial way. This will change when it moves out of the frontier phase and more oversight comes into it. Please God it does, and we don’t just end up in a world ruled by these tech bro twits.

Life, Death And Dennis Hopper features stellar collaborations. How did the one with Bruce Springsteen come about? – Eoin Synnott, Dublin

I needed a dramatic, spoken voice and I remembered from my teenage years listening to Bruce Springsteen bootlegs.

During his songs the band would play a vamp behind him, and he would tell these wonderful stories, like the ones he did for ‘Backstreets’ and ‘Pretty Flamingo’. I never forgot that wonderful dramatic delivery, almost like a film narration voice.

I had a small connection with Bruce, because he’d come to The Waterboys’ concert at the Iveagh Gardens in 2012. I didn’t actually know he was at the gig, until he walked up to me backstage afterwards and told me how much he enjoyed it. It was a lovely moment, so I felt it was cool to approach him, and my manager got in touch with Bruce’s manager. He said he would do it, and he recorded three takes in his home studio. Then he sent them and let me choose between them.

I read that a catalyst for this record was viewing The Lost Album exhibition of Hopper photographs at the Royal Academy of Arts. What was it about his visual style that struck you so much? – Will Russell, Mullingar

It was a number of things. It was all black and white, and it was all shot in 1961 to 1967. He was documenting a period that I personally find fascinating. Many of his photographs were of people who were active in the counterculture and the arts at that time.

But more than that, it was Hopper’s eye. He had an ability in his photography to see into people’s inner spirits.  He also had the ability to take pictures of people while they’re acting completely natural. Nothing was staged in his pictures. Everything felt natural, even when someone was doing a deliberate pose. There’s a photograph of his friend, Robert Walker Jr. He’s posing. He’s like a statue, so it’s a deliberate construction of a photo. But there’s nothing contrived about it. It feels natural. And when he’s taking incidental photos, or in-the-moment photos, the people are completely unperturbed by him.

So there’s something about his approach that allows people to feel like it’s okay to be themselves and just be natural. I felt his photography looked very deep into people’s souls, and I found that very inspiring. The exhibition itself was wonderful. To walk around and to drink in this world of Hopper.

You have ploughed your own furrow. Did that come easy or was it – at times – hard to do? – Alison O’Flynn, Kilkenny

It’s easy to follow the music. That’s the easy part. The hard part is getting the world to go along with me and sometimes the record label or the media, or sometimes even the audience wouldn’t be seasoned to a particular new twist or turn or direction, and sometimes it was difficult. Sometimes things just don’t come together in the way that I hoped – that’s difficult, too. But these are all just little blips in the road of going on to making the greatest music I can. That’s always been the aim, and I’ll take the rough bits of the road as well as the easy bits.

Mike, if you had to name a favourite gig you ever played, what would it be? – Sean Coleman, Dublin

I noticed this very pleasant phenomenon, that every tour we do the shows seem to get better. But singling out specific gigs is very difficult. The Barrowlands in Glasgow is my favourite gig. We play there every couple of years and it’s always wonderful. Glastonbury 1986 was a good one as well – that’s an early gig I always remember as one of the greatest. The Olympic Ballroom in Dublin in April 1986, that was a very memorable show.

We know you worked with Sharon Shannon, but have you ever done a collaboration with another act? – Katherine Murphy, Illinois, USA

A full-scale collaboration? I don’t think so, no. I’ve guested on a couple of records. I’ve had people guest on our records, but I’ve never done a project collaboration. There are musicians I’d like to play with, people I’d like to have on a session, like the great drummer Jim Keltner, or if they were still alive, people like Nicky Hopkins.

Mike, when did your interest in Pan and Perennial Wisdom begin – and how has it helped your creativity? – @pl,Ireland

I got interested in all that when I was a child, reading books like The Wind In The Willows and The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, with Pan and Fauns playing a part in the stories. I discovered spiritual literature when I was in my early twenties, around the time I was making A Pagan Place, back in the early days of The Waterboys. That’s been a powerful influence on my life ever since. As to how it influences my work... well, I get topics for songs from those kinds of studies. But it doesn’t really affect me as a bandleader or performer, I don’t think.

An easy one for you: Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan? – @Deftleftfoot, Alicante, Spain

That’s not an easy one at all! Bob Dylan’s been my great songwriting teacher since I was a teenager. I learned the construction of songs, and also how to mess with the construction of songs from Bob. He had all those great songs that wouldn’t really have a regular chorus, like ‘Visions Of Johanna’. It has a long mazy verse that then resolves in, not really a chorus, just a chorus line. He constantly corrupted the pop format of songwriting in a wonderful way. I learned so much from Dylan – I guess he’s probably my all-time favourite artist.

But Leonard provides a bulletin from a place of understanding that’s incredibly deep and broad. If I could have Bob’s writing from 1963 to 1966, and Leonard’s consciousness, that would be the ideal for me. Bob leaves me kind of cold these days, not his older music, but the music he makes now. I find it very dry. The worldview is very desperate. I wouldn’t say it’s cynical, but it’s like being stuck in a hot, dry desert listening to Bob’s lyrics these days. But Leonard always had this beautiful understanding of humanity with all its flaws, and yet redeemed. I think he probably brought the greatest conscious awareness to songwriting of any songwriter I could think of.

Did you watch A Complete Unknown? – Roisin Shields, Cork

No. I deliberately didn’t watch it. I’m very glad it’s a success, and that people are getting turned on to Bob, and I understand the young actor did a wonderful job. But I just don’t like biopics, and I don’t want my sense of Bob’s life to be a little bit distorted and muddied by the persuasiveness of a movie.

What bands first attracted you to Ireland? – Des Murray, Limerick

Well, I came to live in Ireland because I had an Irish band member, Steve Wickham. I lived in a flat in London in the early ‘80s, and the landlord sold it, and I had to move out in the middle of a tour. So I was living out of a suitcase for a few months, and when the tour finished, Steve said, “Well, why don’t you come and stay with me? We’ve got a spare room.” He invited me to come and stay with him. I came for a fortnight and stayed for six years! That was in the ‘80s, but I always wanted to come back and live in Ireland.

I came back in 2008 and I’ve been here since. My kids were born in Ireland and I’m an Irish citizen these days. There wasn’t a specific Irish band that attracted me to Ireland, but I had an appreciation for some Irish musicians before I came here, and the first one was Rory Gallagher. One of my early bands used to play ‘Bullfrog Blues’, one of his famous numbers. Then in the punk era, I liked the Boomtown Rats and Stiff Little Fingers.

When you decide to acquire a new guitar, electric or acoustic, what process do you go through? – Randy Orosz, Crystal Beach ON, Canada

I’ve bought guitars online, meaning untried, many times. If I go through that process, it’ll be because it’s a specific make or model that I particularly want. But if I’m trying a guitar in a showroom, it’ll be down to how the neck feels and how my fingers feel as they play. I have a favourite acoustic guitar – it’s a Gibson Country and Western from the late ‘50s, which I bought in Dublin in Some Neck Guitars. That’s my number one.

What’s the background to your Mick Puck social media name? – The Other Patrick, Ireland

It’s a play on Pan, because Puck is a faun, like a small version of the god Pan. I like the idea of being Puckish, doing things with a sense of humour. A wry sense of humour.

Will you be playing the new music live? Soon? – Richard Brewer, Prestatyn, Wales

Yes, we go on tour on May 1. We’ll be playing a lot of familiar Waterboys music, and we’ll be playing enough of the new Dennis Hopper album to give the arc of the story.

You’ve set Yeats to music. Could you imagine setting John Cooper Clarke to music? – Paul Walsh, Dublin

Well, I don’t really need to. He’s done it himself! He’s often reciting his poems against musical backgrounds, and done it brilliantly, too, like ‘Beasley Street’, so he doesn’t need to be done.

We all get inspired by poetry, but what was the impetus to create a full album of Yeats’ poetry? – @donharper4472

I loved his poetry. So much of it rhymed and scanned like a song lyric should. I’ve only very occasionally encountered a Yeats musical adaptation that really rang right to me. ‘Crazy Jane On God’ by Van Morrison, on The Philosopher’s Stone album, was brilliant. There are a few other really good ones. I felt so many of Yeats’ poems lend themselves to music.

I played a tribute concert to Yeats in 1991 at the Abbey Theatre here in Dublin; it was a various artists’ show. Six or seven artists were playing it. Luka Bloom was on the bill, and I had thought the brief was that each of us were to set a couple of Yeats poems to music, and perform them on the night as a tribute. But when I got there, nobody else had done it.

Everybody just sang their own numbers, and I remember standing there at the side of the stage with a Yeats programme prepared for myself, three or four of his poems that I’d especially set to music thinking, no, this is all wrong. It should be a show completely of Yeats’ poems set to music and turned into contemporary songs. So that was when the dream came to me that there should be a show and an album.  At first I imagined that it would be a various artists’ album, but I didn’t have the time or the mental space to do all the organising of that myself. Years later, by which time I’d set a few more Yeats poems to music, it just came upon me to do it myself with my own band.

The last few years have been probably the most prolific of your entire career. Why do you think this is? – John Walshe, Dublin

I think as I get older, I’ve got less distractions, and it’s easier for me to switch on the creativity. It’s also because I’ve got a studio in my home. Now, the technology allows musicians to have studios in their computers. I’m actually in my studio now. You can see a keyboard behind, there’s a guitar there. There’s another 10 guitars next door. There’s studio speakers just either side of me, so I can work on music any time I want, and that speeds up the whole process.

The technology is so fantastic. I use GarageBand, which is not quite as complex as Pro Tools. I use a Pro Tools interface. The microphones go into a Pro Tools-type machine, but I find when I work with Pro Tools, most of my attention is concerned with running the system. Whereas with GarageBand, the system just runs itself, and I’m free to think about the music. I always have something cooking – I could release an album every six months if I wanted to. But thankfully, I don’t do that! Just keep it every few years.

You’ve been a regular critic of the outpouring of right-wing propaganda on social media, in particular America’s swerve to the right. Would you still tour there? – Tony Barry, Galway

Yes, for sure. I could imagine a scenario where things got so bad that artists might have to boycott a nation, because there are nations that we do boycott and won’t go and play. You never know what these clowns that are in charge of America are going to get up to next. But at the moment there is no reason not to tour there.

If you could sit down with Donald Trump, what would you say to him? – Lesley Darcy, Edinburgh

I would say to him, “Who did it to you, Donald? Who traumatised you at such an early age?”

Does songwriting feel different now to when you were in your twenties? – Julie Keane, Kilkee, Co Clare

The process of having an idea and then making it a song is not really any different, but the tools that I use are different. I used to write on pieces of paper. I don’t do that anymore – I write on my computer. I’ve got all these other little supports, like my iPhone with its little voice memo. I’ll sing a song into that, and then when I get home, I’ll play it back. I remember Elvis Costello saying that in pre-mobile phone days, he would go into a phone box and call his answering machine at home, and leave the song idea on it. I thought that was wonderful.

Did you ever think of remixing A Rock In The Weary Land? It’s an album of great songs – but I suspect the mix (in the midst of the grunge boom, of course) doesn’t do it justice. – Gabriel Raffaelli, San Jose, Costa Rica

That’s a very interesting question. Yes, I used an effect a lot on that record to put a little bit of distortion on the vocals; it was just something I was into at the time. It wasn’t so much grunge, it was more the lo-fi music that was being made and records by people like Beck. I just loved that dirty lo-fi sound and I went for it on that record. But I’ve never considered remixing it, because I like it. I like the way it was.

You did a beautiful cover of Van Morrison’s ‘Sweet Thing’ on Fisherman’s Blues. Who do you think is Ireland’s greatest musical artist and why? – Jess Murray, Limerick

I think Ireland’s greatest musician is Donal Lunny. He’s one of the most influential people in Irish music, if not the most influential. He blazed the trail in the ‘60s and ‘70s with Emmet Spiceland, Planxty, The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts. What a musician... and so unsung. Of course, a lot of people know how great he is, but in a media sense, he’s got an incredibly low profile for someone so great. He’s like the great druid of Irish music. So I would put up my hand for the great Donal Lunny.

Can you tell us the top five songs you’d love to cover with the band? – Captain Mission, Gosford, Australia

There aren’t many that I want to cover. I’ve sung many songs written by other people in my time, and my favourite would be ‘Lost Highway’, an old country song. It wasn’t written by Hank Williams, but he made it famous. Every time we go on tour, I think about the repertoire in advance. I always consider if there are any songs by other people I’d like to throw in. Almost nothing ever comes through. We play ‘Purple Rain’, but we’ve been playing that since 1986, when it was almost new.

What did you think of ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ featuring in Father Ted? – Emma O’Sullivan, Athlone

I absolutely loved it! When Graham Norton puts his finger in his ear, man, it’s all over. It’s the one where Dougal actually says “Ted, I’m going mad.” I have used that phrase a thousand times.

I saw you playing at the Leadmill in Sheffield after the release of This Is The Sea. Five encores later, I was sold. It’s still one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. So, leaving current members out of it – out of all the Waterboys, who would make up your dream team? – Sam Rogers, Ngarimu Bay, New Zealand

Well, we’d have to have Steve and Anto on fiddle, mandolin and sax, and probably Trevor on bass – that great line-up from the ‘80s. There was a guy called Jeremy Stacey who played with us for a while, an English drummer. He’s a very fiery, terrific improviser. I’d have him on drums, and then I’d have Karl Wallinger on keyboards, if he behaved himself!

When did you get the first lyric for ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ and can you tell us what the song is about? – @panandthewild

I was in a relationship with a woman who was 10 years older than me, and she ran me ragged by the end of the relationship. I felt as if I’d been caught on a wild horse with one foot in the stirrup being dragged around. We broke up at the end of an American tour, and I got on the plane back to London. I breathed a sigh of relief and felt the lyric coming on. I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket, and I wrote, “I wish I was a fisherman, tumbling on the seas” and that’s how the song began.

Prince famously used to do a cover of ‘The Whole of the Moon’. Do you have a favourite cover of one of your songs by another artist?– Sally McLoughlin, Kerry

I loved Fiona Apple’s version of ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ and I liked Prince’s as well.. He turned it into a drum and bass funk number, and he changed the lyric to “I saw the whole of the moon”, but I don’t mind, because it was at a Black Lives Matter benefit that he did it, and I think he retooled the lyrics specifically for that purpose.

There’s a wonderful gay disco version of ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ that might be my all-time favourite Waterboys cover. It’s by Boys Of A New Age. It has a killer synth riff and a very naughty first line. The first line in ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ is “I pictured a rainbow / You held it in your hands”. On the gay disco version, they don’t bother with “I pictured a rainbow”, they just sing “You held it in your hands” four or five times. It’s very, very funny..

From Spiddal to Findhorn and now Hollywood, you’ve found inspiration in a wide and wild variety of locations. How important is place to your creativity? – Sean Murphy, Calgary, Canada

It is a wonderful influence, place and location. Different worldviews, perspectives and ways of being. Spiddal, Findhorne, Hollywood and New York, where I lived for a while, Ireland itself – they’re all wonderful places to find myself in, and to write about.

I had a spell in the ‘90s when The Waterboys weren’t active and I was trying to make it under my own name, and it wasn’t working out for me. I was short on money and living in the suburbs of London, way out on the edge of London in an area that didn’t have any particular charms for me. I wasn’t living in one of those magical locations and yet I found my own inspiration inside me. So it’s not like I have to be somewhere magical to work, I can do it anywhere. But no harm in being somewhere great..

The Waterboys have become popular with young fans recently, packing out the tent at Electric Picnic. What do you think is behind that? – Rick Dwyer, Donegal

I don’t know. Maybe it passes through families. I just don’t know, but I like it.

Will you ever make another Celtic/folky album like Fisherman’s Blues? If so, will you round up the old guys to record it? – Jacob Doohan, Manchester

It’s a temptation, yes! Last year we played a show in Galway and the next morning we went out to visit Spiddal, which is where a lot of that Celtic Waterboys music was recorded. They have a beautiful studio in Spiddal now, called Cuan. We got a tour of it, it was so beautiful. My current band members fell in love with it, and we thought how wonderful it would be to come here for two or three weeks and make a record... If I did that, I would definitely get Steve and Anto from the old Waterboys line-up to come and play with us and see what happens. So the answer is, yes...

Do you think about your legacy? What do you hope to be remembered for? – Stephen Ryan, Tipperary

No. No, I don’t…

• Life, Death and Dennis Hopper is out now on Sun Records.