Living On A Prayer

What blessings life bestows! In a wonderful act of synchronicity, Hot Press have asked me to travel to one of my favourite places in the world—the beautiful Glen of the Downs in Co. Wicklow—to interview Praying For The Rain, a London-based band whose music and vibe I've loved for several years.

Stepping out into the beautiful wooded valley now dressing itself in the first tender blush of green I sense again the magic I experienced when my mother first brought me here as a seven-year-old. How could I have known back then, as I ran through the trees with a child's wonder, that I'd be back here 22 years later, living in a tree and joining the campaign to save one of Ireland's last native oak forests?

For two years, a vigil has been held at the Glen, the aim of which is to protect this national nature reserve from the ravages of motorway building, and to raise awareness about Ireland's almost extinct native forests. Living in a tree house in the Glen last year was one of the formative experiences of my life. Now I'm back again. The river is sparkling, the birds are singing, the campfire is burning, and there's Praying For The Rain unloading their instruments, admiring the natural beauty and power of this special place.

Environmentally conscious, the band are here today specifically to draw attention to the Glen campaign, just as the courts are about to decide on its fate. They join the thousands of people who've done what they can to save this important habitat: the locals who've fed and clothed the hardy folk living on the frontline; the musicians who've played benefit gigs; the solicitors and barristers who've fought it out in court; the hundreds of people who through non-violent direct action halted the chainsaws in January 1998.

Brothers Vincent and Dominic De Cicco, Italian-Canadians who form the basis of the fluid, ever-evolving act that is Praying For The Rain, seem very at home in the forest environment. Using drums, rainsticks and didgeridoos, they start their outdoor session with a chanting song called "Light Is Fire", taken from their latest album, Enchanted. Enchanted is what we feel listening to their rhythmic world music and soft vocal harmonies, right there in the heart of the Glen of the Downs camp. What do the band make of the Glen and the threat it faces from Euro Route 1?

"There's one thing that seems to come to mind," says a smiling Vincent De Cicco, "and it's not just here I see it—almost anywhere—and that's when people find a bit of inconvenience they just cut it out, or they want to throw it away, as opposed to recycling it or trying to find a way that preserves what we already have. And on some level, what'll happen eventually is it cuts the soul out, and we don't recognise this until it's a bit too late. So it's about trying to raise the awareness among the people who have the power. Because we have a voice, but they seem to divide the voice. It's always been about that."

Praying For The Rain's music is an amazingly eclectic mix of their own contemporary interpretations of traditional styles around the world. Drumming and chanting features prominently, as does a thoughtful, pagan reverence for the natural world. I ask the brothers whether nature inspires their music.

"Yeah, it does," replies Vince. "The elements are very important. I think we let a lot of dogmatic ideas get in the way of understanding that nature is the thing that nurtures us. And that's what I firmly believe, because it's the truth. And it's the one truth that we have right here in front of us; we always tend to not want to look at it. And that's what I like to write about—what we see as truth. It's important for us to be able to say that in our music. We've never actually compromised on that—that's the one thing that I feel very strongly about, to write about the things you feel and experience. It's the only thing that you can write about that has a long-lasting effect, and a healing effect on people. It's much different to sitting down and trying to contrive something.

"It's funny," observes Vince, getting back to our environmental conversation, "because we live in London, probably the least ecological place of all, and it's a bit worrying, because we've been there for quite a while and we can see that the traffic is never-ending, the air doesn't really exist. So it's about having respect for what we still have left. And I think a lot of people have shut off to that, it's almost like an on/off switch. And I think once you become aware of that you realise that it's worth fighting for, or at least trying to make others aware, and we're only playing music which may, if possible, switch a lightbulb on for people, and they might think, 'Oh yeah, the countryside, the air, it's leaving, maybe we can do something about it'."

"Vince and I come from Canada," says Dom, "and our particular city where we grew up is a playground for new marketing things—like it had the first shopping mall. So they're thirty years ahead of anything here, and what we've seen since we've grown up is this forest city turned into something which is almost unacceptable. And everyone knows it, but that's just the way it is. And so we drive around here and we think, we just want people to realise what they've got here, and to be able to have one voice and say, we don't really want the destruction. We realise that you're doing all this for us, and giving us some money and creating jobs, that's great, but what can we do in order to have this sustainable, as opposed to this sort of big mall, conglomerate mentality?

"Here you still have the chance to say, 'Yeah, we can have these things, but we can recycle. We just need somebody to tell us how to do it and get some money to do it, because it can be done.' But if people aren't awake and they're just happy to go along, the destruction will happen, and then you can't turn it backwards. Once it's gone it's gone."

Vince joins in. "We're not trying to make anyone do anything. But if we all just kind of look at where we're living as opposed to looking outside of ourselves, what we can do on a personal level to make people's lives around us better, and our own lives. Then that's as far as we can go.

"It's fantastic to see people who are motivated. We need to be able to look at ourselves and say it's time to love ourselves, ask what can I do in our own lives and those around us, and treat everyone else with respect. That would be a very good place to start."

"It's very simple," continues Vince, "for the people who want to widen that road to sit back and say, 'The campaign is an inconvenience and maybe it'll cost us a couple of million pounds while it happens, but ultimately we've got the money—the campaigners will burn themselves out'. The people that have the money know that those who are trying to make others aware don't have that. They have all the willpower in the world and all the energy, but when the energy runs dry, that's when the bulldozers come in. Those people that have the money, they can wait it out, because they're not actually outside in the trenches, or living in tree houses, they're living in nice houses."

"We try to help the people who are doing the real work," adds Dom, "which is hanging out of trees for a while and living quite roughly. We just go and lend our support, do what we do, and try to have journalists write about it, and say, 'Well if there's an angle and some music there, that's great. So long as you tell them what's going on.' That's the thing that really counts."

The numbers in Praying For The Rain fluctuate between five and 14. Something they all have in common is respect for music's healing powers. When he isn't travelling in the Himalayas, performing with PFTR or scaling buildings for Greenpeace, John Meade practises healing with the ancient singing bowls that he brings back from Tibet, which he uses to help heal a person's chakras, or the energy points in their bodies. Vanessa, another frequent member of the band, practises didge-healing, which the De Cicco brothers tell me has a similar effect as the American Indian practice of "smudging", or purifying one's aura with sage incense.

"The intent of all those people is healing," says Vince, describing the people who play in PFTR. "Our intent when we go to play is really about healing, it's not really about, 'Hey, we're in a band!'. So even the harmony that we use, everyone sings quite well, and there's this territory that we explore where we kind of know what's happening but it's also very spontaneous, and it works. Sometimes it's very dissonant, and it goes from dissonance to harmony and back to dissonance. And somehow that's the area we all work from."

It's obvious looking into the faces of the people currently living in the Glen that their spirits have been raised by Praying For The Rain, despite the fine drizzle that descends as the band finish up.

Superb musicians, wise, funny people, energy healers—Praying For The Rain have it all. In the future they hope to tour Ireland extensively, bringing their positive energy to our shores on a regular basis. This is music that makes you feel consoled and connected so do yourself a favour: Go see and hear them whenever you can!

*Praying For The Rain's album Enchanted is out now on Hummingbird Records.