Wilt’s European Union

What is it with drummers? As the result of a Spinal Tap-like DIY accident, resident Wilt sticksman Darragh Butler is having to sit out their nine-date European tour at home. Taking his place on the bus is Binzer, the former Frames man who says he’d be having a whale of a time if it wasn’t for the noxious state of Cormac Battle’s feet. Which are currently encased in a pair of sensible black lace-ups. “They’re part of our Michael Douglas Falling Down look,” Battle explains. “Y’know, office workers about to go on a mad killing spree. Which isn’t too far wide of the mark.”

The singer does look a little whacked, but I’m willing to put that down to the 16-hour overnight drive from Cologne rather than simmering psychotic intent. While the rest of their Eurojaunt is being conducted in tandem with Californian ska merchants Reel Big Fish, today finds Wilt journeying alone to the 2+2 Day festival in Wiessen. Austria may have had its recent flirtations with the far right, but the atmosphere around the small farming village couldn’t be any more laidback or welcoming to its 10,000 temporary inhabitants. The concert site itself looks like something out of a tourist board ad - the grassy hill in front of the stage fringed by a pine forest which gets denser the further you penetrate. The latter’s benefits aren’t lost on couples who wander in to discover the, er, joys of nature. The goings on backstage are just as frolicsome with the support acts on a mission from God to get trolleyed before headliners Nickelback do their tired rawk thing. And what an international line-up of misfits we have!

“Did you see those punk blokes in their kilts?” asks Battle referring to the marvelous-for-not-all-the-right-reasons Real McKenzies. Equal parts Pogues, Clash and Royal Highland Fusiliers, the Canadians certainly cut a dash in their sporrans ‘n’ studs. None more so than bagpipe player, Matt Awful McNasty, who from the tip of his DMs to the top of his mohican must be at least 6ft 5”. His bandmates are also sufficiently large enough for me not to challenge the inclusion of ‘Donald Where’s Yer Troosers?’ in their ecstatically received set.

The spilt Guinness has only just been cleaned off the stage when along come Flogging Molly or, as their fans are want to call them, The Aggro-Celt Sound System. Fronted by Dave King – yup, the same expat Dubliner who partnered Motorhead’s Eddie Clarke in Fastway – the Californians regard anything less than 250 gigs a year as laziness on their part. The hard work has paid off with their Drunken Lullabies album making it into the Billboard 200 despite zero radio airplay. It’s a modus operandi favoured by Wilt’s Austrian record company man, Willi, who wants them back for a full tour.

“Bands normally play just one or two shows, but when Skunk Anansie took the time to go round the country properly, they went gold here,” he reflects.

Unlike Flogging Molly, Wilt are having no problems on the airplay front with national indie station, FM3, making My Medicine their ‘Album Of The Week’. The 1,000 copies sold as a result mightn’t be much in the global scale of things, but given that they’ve never set foot or had a single column inch in Austria before, it’s the cause for much optimism. As is the front-of-stage scrum which greets them going on at the surreally early time of one o’clock in the afternoon. Wilt have always been a tremendous live act, but since the arrival of second guitarist Derren Dempsey they’ve morphed into something really special. Now that he’s no longer the sole riffmeister, Battle is free to get jiggy with the mike stand and generally act the frontman. Most importantly he makes an immediate connection with the crowd who cheer uproariously every time he tries out his schoolboy German. Fears that they won’t be able to recreate My Medicine’s complexities live go out the window when they unleash ‘Take Me Home’. A strong contender for Irish Single of the Year, its mixture of mojo and muscle reminds this two-bit hack of REM at their stroppiest.

“A few people – who’ll remain nameless ‘cause they’re idiots – suggested that we go the facial-piercings and skateboard route but that’s not us,” Battle reflects over a post-gig beer. “The actual record company, though, were happy to let us spend six months writing songs, which is a luxury we’ve not had before. Our first record, Bastinado, was cobbled together at Sun Studios while the three of us were holding down day jobs. When you’re given the opportunity to take as much time as you want, you don’t blow it.”

Before we get into the ins and outs of recording with Manic Street Preachers man Dave Eringa, can we have the medical lowdown on their drummer?

“The story doing the rounds was that he injured himself planing a door, but it was nothing as manually dexterous as that,” Cormac resumes. “He got a splinter from handling a piece of wood which he thought he’d dug out, but was still half-buried in his hand. A few days later it was hurting like fuck, so he went to the hospital and they told him he was going to have wait for it to work its way to the surface.”

hotpress’ less charitable readers will point to Rick McMurray’s recent Reading heroics, and say that Butler should have been given a clip round the ear and told to get on with it.

“You don’t play the drums with your ribs,” pleads bassist Mick Murphy on his behalf. “It was right where the butt of the drumstick goes and touching a nerve, so he was in agony every time he put pressure on it.”

We’re not given to conspiracy theories, but there’s something a bit X-Files about a previous Butler hand injury being caused by none other than his current replacement Binzer!

“It is a bit of coincidence,” Battle admits. “Binzer was with BellX1 a couple of years ago when they were supporting us in Kilkenny, and to save having to change everything around used our kit. Not realising that Binzer sets everything up really high, Darragh launches into the first song and – boof! – his hand explodes on the floor-tom. By the end of the gig, the drum-skin looked like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There was blood and bits of flesh everywhere.”

If I was Butler, I’d definitely lock the door the next time I take a shower. While the main reason for My Medicine selling like hot schnitzels in Austria is the songs, you can’t help feeling that at least part of its lustre is down to Dave Eringa.

“He was invaluable to the record,” Cormac enthuses. “How do I say this without sounding poncey? A lot of the textures and subliminal little things were down to him. He also did a couple of Hammond organ solos and bullied James Dean Bradfield into lending us his guitars.”

“There were a couple of occasions when we had to say, ‘Dave, that’s enough mate!’” Mick Murphy laughs. “As soon as your back was turned, he’d get his gadgets out and bury everything under an avalanche of squeals and noises. He’d be sat there, knobs on ‘10’, completely losing the plot. Moderated a bit, though, it sounded amazing.”

“He actually sat us down before we started and said, ‘Lads, don’t let me go too far!” Battle joins in. “There were times when he was almost peeing himself with excitement.”

The same can be said of Wilt as they work their way round the United States of Europe. It’s a jaunt that wasn’t going to happen until the band persuaded their UK label, Mushroom, that they were willing to do it on a shoestring.

“Art me arse! Everything in the music industry boils down to the one thing…money. Our management couldn’t believe it when we said we were willing to forgo staying in hotels and having per diems to do these shows. Our attitude was, ‘We can either be pissed off and penniless at home or pissed off and penniless sitting on a tour bus.’ We’d have done it…no, I won’t say that ‘cause next time they’ll have us going round in a Cortina!”

Before you get on to the Red Cross to send ‘em food parcels, Wilt got a taste of the rock ‘n’ roll highlife last year when they opened for Sum-41 in the UK.

“That was the other end of the scale – complete luxury and full houses every night, even for us. You’d have thought that being that young and selling so many records would’ve turned them into wankers but, no, they’re cool.”

“Being on the road for so long, I don’t think they realised how big they’d become,” Mick Murphy suggests. “It’s amazing how separated you get from the real world when you’re on tour. I’m sure somebody would tell us if George Bush nuked Iraq, but the more day-to-day stuff just passes you by.

“The Sum-41 audience wouldn’t really be our crowd, but we normally got some response from the kids whose parents were waiting outside in their Volvo estates.”

Now, now boys, no sniping at the young middle-classes! While pleased with My Medicine’s top 15 showing in Ireland, Wilt are disappointed that rave cross-channel reviews have yet to translate into platinum discs.

“It didn’t help that we made such a shit video for the last single, ‘Distortion’,” Murphy rues. “Really, it was appalling! The one we’ve just done for ‘Understand’ is deadly, though.”

Tell us more.

“We got to drive through Times Square at 12 o’clock at night with a camera mounted on the front of an old Cadillac – people were taking pictures of us thinking we were fucking rock stars! There’s a brilliant bit when, totally unprompted, this mad guy does the ‘Macarana’.”

“It’s a thousand million times better than the ‘Distortion’ video,” proffers a freshly showered Derren Dempsey. “Some chancer said ‘We’ll get you on MTV!’ and fucking eejits that we are we went, ‘Okay’. It’s like a cross between an Atari 2600 game and the end of Bottom. We apologise profusely to any of our fans who saw it!”

“Just looking at it makes me want to puke,” says Cormac, ever the silver-tongued devil. “The other thing we got to do for the ‘Understand’ video was go down the Hudson on a barge. It was a bit weird going past where the Twin Towers used to be, but all the locals were really positive ‘cause it was another sign of things returning to normal. We saw some management people while we were there and they were incredibly positive. There’s a label – that we can’t name, sorry! – who want to release My Medicine in the States as soon as we’re free to go over and tour our arses off. It’s mad at the moment ‘cause in addition to Europe we’re getting loads of airplay in South Africa. We didn’t even realise that we’d been released there.”

They may seem haphazard but Wilt’s plans to conquer the world are being co-ordinated by Iron Maiden and the Pet Shop Boys’ management company, Sanctuary.

“We went to a party at Steve Harris’ (Maiden guitarist) and he had floodlit Eddies, their mascot, all the way up the drive,” Cormac divulges. “They’ve just added Guns ‘N’ Roses to their roster so they’ve got even more clout – especially in the States where Appetite For Destruction is still selling silly amounts every year. That reminds me – we were watching the MTV Awards in Germany and Mick went ballistic when Axl came on, calling him ‘the devil.’”

What, prey, has Mr. Rose ever done to him?

“Guns ‘N’ Roses represent everything I hate in music,” he spits. “That professional junkie thing is so boring. They’ve got a great term for washed up rockers in the States – ‘Heritage Bands’. It’s pure Spinal Tap.”

“I love America but they don’t half talk some bollocks there,” Battle agrees.

Cormac got a crash course in the vagaries of the American rawk industry when Kerbdog recorded their first album in Los Angeles.

“The cocaine, the groupies, the pony-tailed executives – every single cliché is true. It’s easy to be cynical, but getting to record there and shooting a video in New York are things I’ll remember all my life. Ask me next week and I’ll probably tell you it’s the shitiest job in the world, but being in a rock band that gets to tour and make records is a privilege. Anybody who says otherwise is a whinging knobhead.”

Are you reading this, Thom Yorke?

Where did you say you were famous?

As Wilt continue to conquer Europe we look at some other Irish acts whose success abroad may yet be mirrored on home turf

Rubyhorse
Piqued by a lack of progress at home, the Leesiders headed to the U.S. where they landed a huge deal with Interscope. It all seemed too good to be true, and indeed was when Universal took Interscope over and dispensed with their services. Unperturbed, they embarked on the never-ending tour that’s lead to a fresh pact with Island and their Rise album selling 20,000 copies a week in the States. They’ve also got to perform on Letterman, hang out with Sheryl Crowe and frequent pole-dancing clubs with members of a top Sheffield hard rock act.

Andrew Strong
The hits may have dried up at home, but the former Commitments star remains hot property throughout Scandinavia. As well as going top 20 in Sweden and Denmark, his Out Of Time album lead to a string of dates with soul legend Ray Charles who confessed to being a huge fan. 2002 is proving to be another hugely successful year for Strong whose third studio outing, Gypsy’s Kiss, has earned him two platinum discs.

Reamonn
When his previous band, The Reckless Pedestrians, imploded mid-German tour, Reamonn Garvey stayed on in Hamburg, found four new collaborators and recorded an album that went on to outsell U2 in his adopted homeland. The Kerryman continues to be stadium-sized in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and, well, pretty much everywhere that’s not Britain or Ireland. This might have something to do with most of his group’s songs sounding like INXS B-sides.

Perry Blake
It might mean diddly squat here but mention the name “Perry Blake” in France and Gallic pulses are sure to quicken. Having charted his 1998 debut there, Sligo’s answer to Scott Walker repeated the trick with this year’s California – an album that’s also doing brisk business in Spain, Germany, Portugal and Greece. A serial collaborator, his recent studio partners include über-icon Françoise Hardy.

Flogging Molly
Candidates for the Hardest Working Band In America, the Los Angeles six-piece rarely play to crowds of less than 5,000 people and broke into the Billboard Top 200 earlier this year with their second album, Drunken Lullabies. A motley crew if ever there was, their hard drinking ranks include Dubliner Dave King who previously saw active service with Motörhead spin-off Fastway and QED.

The secret diary of Cormac Battle

August 27, Cologne
Arrive in Cologne somewhat bewildered after a long drive. The gig is in the middle of nowhere. We do a TV thing wearing earpieces so he asks the questions in German and we reply in English, thus it looks like we can undertstand the language… bizarre. The gig is fab, lots of Teutonic bouncing followed by much debauchery on the 16 hour drive to Austria.

August 28, Austria,
Two Days A Week Festival
This place is like a scene from the Sound of Music or Hansel & Gretal. There are a lot of dodgy bands playing, who for now will remain nameless. We have a strange but good show. There are 10-year-olds smoking, drinking and listening to heavy metal... it can’t be good for you.

August 29, Berlin
After another monster drive we get to what was East Berlin. I spend about three hours trying to organise a phonecard and a phone in 38 degree heat. Gig is top, there are lots of American exchange students here. Saw the Brandenburgh Gate... what cultured souls we are.

August 31, Munich
The gig is in a place where there are 40 or 50 nightclubs on what looks like an industrial estate... I guess it contains all the drunks in one area. We remain here for three days. The show takes a while to engage the crowd, but we triumph in the end. We also spent some time in the city centre and get trapped by the usual tourist attractions.

September 2, Zurich
Our bus driver hasn’t talked to us in three days but that’s another story. Zurich is expensive but very clean, of course. This is the best gig of the tour – the Swiss go nuts and our status as rock gods is restored.

September 3, Stuttgart
Last date in mainland Europe. The gig is in a network of tunnels that was used by the German army in World War II. I have now been living on cheese rolls for 10 days. Tonight’s show is great followed by booze and more cheese rolls. Go to England for some gigs blah blah blah.

Cormac Battle