DUBLIN CITY REVIEW. SEP. 10-23 1987

“HOME IN THE MEADOW”

The Waterboys are at present recording a new album in Windmill Lane. Jim Carroll went to talk with Steve Wickham about the new album, busking, jamming with Dylan and the state of the planet.

Dublin’s dockland may be in some decay at the moment but in Windmill Lane, deep within it, today’s musical success stories are being created. U2 brought their craft here and set their history in motion. Now, The Waterboys journey to and fro in search of the Big (and perfect) Music.

The Waterboys’ travels began with Mike Scott and A Girl Called Johnny, their debut single. Following the break-up of two previous bands, Another Pretty Face and The Red And The Black, he had hoped to release his songs as a solo artist. Instead, The Waterboys were born. That was 1982. Fast forward to 1986 and the Waterboys on their Irish tour. The vehicle for Scott’s melodies had become by now a proper band. Three albums had been released : The Waterboys, A Pagan Place and This Is The Sea, the latter bringing them the most commercial and critical success. They had also found a large audience for their songs on this island. Jump to August 1987 and they are recording in Dublin City.

Steve Wickham is the fiddle player with the band. He comes out of a room in the Windmill complex, shakes hands and suggests we go to the Dockers pub up the road. Out we go past the fans awaiting the absent U2, out past the scrawled-on Windmill Walls, and out... to the sea edge and a quick photo session. He strides about, gazing out on the sea and at times, uneasily, at the camera. “I hate photo sessions” he says in the tone of one who is becoming accustomed uncomfortably to them. We head to the Dockers and let the tape roll.

Born in Ballyfermot, “I got a fiddle from my granny when I was about three and after I broke that up, my da bought me a second one and I’ve been playing fiddle ever since. My da taught me for a few years and then I went to the College of Music in Chatham Row when I was seven.” Because he was so young, “it wasn’t really a choice, I just played.”

After school “I was in the Bank of Ireland for a couple of years - pretty good fun.” He didn’t view the bank as his home for the rest of his life: “When I was in school I knew I’d end up as a musician, I was a musician even then.” After three years in the international branch, he left. “I was playing in a couple of different bands - a folk band and a band with my cousin. After about a year, that band broke up and myself and my cousin went off to Europe for about a year busking.”

For Steve, busking holds many pleasant memories and brings forth some strong views. “We played in France, Denmark and Greece. It was a great time. All we did was play music, no other work to get money. We just played whatever we could, wherever we thought we could set up, open a guitar case and play. We’d play good songs - Irish tunes, Bob Dylan tunes, everything.” For him “walking down the street and hearing a musician or a singer playing is a great feeling. I think it is absolutely dreadful the way police move on buskers. In Europe police move on buskers too but they seem to be more organised there. In Paris, like, there’s very definite places that you can go to play at and people come to listen. Outside of that, you just open your case and play where you can. That’s the kind of busking we used to do - play all day and people would give us money and we would survive on that. And the Police would move us on too. As far as busking here is concerned, I’d like to see the cops get on their bikes and go off somewhere else.”

When he returned from his busking exploits abroad, he took up where he left off - playing with many different bands around the city. He even played with U2. “I met Edge at a bus stop” is his simple explanation of how he met them. He played violin on the War album. “I also played with them on tour shortly after I came back from Europe. It was the War tour and I was with them on the Irish dates, a few ones in England and one in Copenhagen. I used to come on and play along on ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday,’ and, on the odd night or two, on different numbers.” U2 he found to be “wonderful people and great performers.” He also recalls that tour for another reason: he met his wife Barbara Lee during it. “I met Babs at a U2 gig in Galway. She used to play sax with Blue In Heaven and they were supporting U2 and I met her then.”

His first serious group involvement came with In Tua Nua. He joined them in 1983 - “I met Ivan O’Shea, their guitarist, and I started playing with them.” In Tua Nua blended rock and trad elements into their own sound but according to Steve “there was no initial plan, we just played music together.” Along with Vinnie Kilduff, he left the group a while back. An interview with In Tua Nua in ‘Hot Press’ earlier this year showed that an amount of bitterness still existed towards the departed duo. “I don’t really want to talk about In Tua Nua. It’s gone and it’s all on file and can be examined.”

Steve also did some session work with the Long Ryders. “At the time that In Tua Nua were on Island Records, the Long Ryders were on Island and I met Sid Griffin their lead singer. They were looking for some country fiddle for some songs they were doing at the time and I went down and played with them.” He also played with REM: “Pete Buck is a friend of Babs and I went to play with them; nothing was recorded.”

And so to his present partners-in-sound, the Waterboys. He first met Mike Scott about two years ago when he was in London with In Tua Nua. “A friend of mine, Sinead O’Connor, was doing some songs and recording them in Karl Wallinger’s (former keyboard and synth player with the Waterboys) recording studio. So while I was in London I went down to play with her. Mike then heard of me when he heard my violin playing on Sinead’s tape. A while after I’d come back to Dublin, I got a call from him wanting to know if I would come over and play some fiddle with him. So I went over and played on ‘The Pan Within’ on the ‘This Is The Sea’ album. Shortly after that I left In Tua Nua and joined the Waterboys.”

Steve played with them during their ‘This Is The Sea’ tour in 1985. “After the tour was over, I invited Mike to come over and check out Ireland.” He checked out Ireland and came to the conclusion that he liked it. “Ireland is now the Waterboys’ base.” While here, they have become synonymous with turning up unexpectedly at a gig or venue with their instruments and playing away to their hearts’ content. They played in Liberty Hall last October, on the Greenpeace boat ‘Sirius’ in May and in the Olympia with the Fleadh Cowboys last month. They can also be spotted occasionally around Grafton Street busking away. On these spontaneous outbursts, Steve comments “We will play anytime in any place to anybody who will have us play. It depends on what we’re doing. I certainly believe that as I’m a musician I can play anytime to anyone who wants me to play.”

The present core line-up of the band is Mike Scott on guitar and lead vocals, Steve on fiddle, Anto Thistlethwaite on saxophone and mandolin and Trevor Hutchinson on bass. This is the line-up involved in the recording of the fourth Waterboys’ album.

“The album is coming along fine at this stage. We’ve got a lot of songs recorded and we’re still recording. We haven’t decided, though, what’s going to be on the album when it’s released. We hope to have it out in the New Year.” Both Steve and Anto have been contributing vocals on new songs - “it’s great, I enjoy singing from time to time.” They had worked with veteran producer Bob Johnson for a while in San Fransisco but this album, like the previous three, is being produced by Mike.

Many talented musicians have been travelling down the quays to Windmill in order to partake in the experience of this album. “Some good friends of ours have been playing with us - Vinnie Kilduff, Fran Breen, Noel Bridgeman, trumpet player Roddy Lorimer, Colin Blakey from We Free Kings, Liam from the Hot House Flowers, Donal Lunny.” The songs recorded to date range from the up-tempo ‘On My Way To Heaven’ to the slow, thoughtful ‘Strange Boat’ and the classic ‘Fisherman’s Blues’. Songs for all moods. As Steve talks about the album, his eyes light up; it’s obviously something he’s proud of. “Yeah, it is, I’m proud of these songs. It’s important to us because there’s a year’s work in it and it’s very important for us to finish it. Songs like ‘Strange Boat,’ ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ and ‘Meet Me At The Station’ I hope will be on the album.” Songs are still being written and worked on: “At the moment we are working on a song called ‘Home In The Meadow.’ There’s a lot of songs, ones like ‘Too Hot For Cleanhead’ and ‘Have You Seen Jimmy Hickey?’”

Of Windmill Lane, Steve points out that “it’s an up-to-date 24 track studio. It’s got all the facilities and is one of the most modern in the world.” He doesn’t feel that the increased technology takes away from the music: “It’s a recording studio and what a recording studio does is record musicians. Technology improves the techniques by which they record. The way in which the musicians choose to use the technology is their own choice.”

I asked Steve about his favourite singers and groups. He puts his elbows on the table, places his head in his hands and looks into the distance as he begins a long litany: “The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Good Rocking Dopsie, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Elvis Presley... I could go on all night.” He has twice jammed with Bob Dylan, first at Slane in 1984 and more recently while Dylan was recording the ‘Knocked Out Loaded’ album in London. “A friend of us got in touch and said Bob was playing in London. It was organised for us to go and play. We went along and played at a place called The Church, where he was recording with Dave Stewart. We just played along with the band, Bob didn’t sing.”

Besides playing the fiddle, Steve also writes songs. “Some of them may be on the new album. I’ve written a song that will be on an album for the Irish-African Friendship Group. The album will hopefully raise money for a water project in Tanzania. It’s an Irish compilation album, with many Irish musicians having given songs to it. I’ve contributed a song called ‘Going Down This Highway.’ His instrumentation does not stop at the fiddle. “I also play a bit of guitar. I taught myself that when I was younger. I play anything I can lay my hands on but I don’t play most of them that well. I’ve been playing the fiddle for so long now that I enjoy playing the other instruments. The fiddle, though, is my instrument.”

An important facet of the Waterboys is their veneration of and care for the Earth. It comes across lyrically in songs like ’Spirit’ and ‘Savage Earth Heart.’ It also occurs materially in their benefit gigs for such organisations as CND and Greenpeace. Steve: ‘I think we all need to be more aware of what’s going on around us. Greenpeace are actively involved in putting a stop to an awful lot of Man’s thoughtlessness. These people are most worthy of everyone’s support and help because they are saving our lives. I’d love to be a Greenpeace volunteer but I’m not, I’m a musician. I’m not only a musician but it is what I do. In the world outside that door, there’s a lot of pretty bad stuff going on. Like last week the papers were talking about how the rivers in Ireland were in a bad way. We’re very concerned about that; it’s a bad thing when Ireland’s rivers start getting polluted. People seem to be just dumping their waste into the rivers. They are killing life and causing a lot of damage and harm. It’s our responsibility as human beings and caretakers of this planet to put a stop to it now. We’ll see what we can do. Both as individuals and musicians.”

The conversation retunes itself to music. What does Steve think of MTV and the present day charts? “I watch MTV now and again. I don’t know what to think of videos. I think some of them are absolute and total rubbish, crap, shite. Now and again some good ones come along but they are few and far between. I see an awful lot of real bad, bad, bad stuff on it.” He and Anto were involved in the recording of the new single from Simon Carmody and Gavin Friday, a version of the Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. “I met Simon one day and he said he was recording a single and would I like to come down and play on it. I said yeah and brought Anto down with me and played on it. It was really good fun.” Another music-related topic is that of bootleg tapes. The Waterboys are one of the most popular artists when it comes to requesting bootleg tapes. “I think bootleg tapes are great. I love being able to go down the street and get a tape of someone playing live. I think it’s a shame that it has sort of disappeared from O’Connell Bridge and you can’t walk across and buy a tape anymore.” He still likes to play classical music now and then: “It’s heavy on the fiddle so it’s good. I like Mozart, he was cool.”

We talk about favourite bands again. “We Free Kings were over here a while back and they recorded an album in Windmill. It’s very good. They’re coming back in September. I’d really like to go and see them again, play with them again.” Will he? “I don’t know, who knows what’ll happen by then?” On the Irish scene he mentions the Hot House Flowers and Blue In Heaven as bands he likes. “I love seeing live music and going ‘Oh Wow’ at something. Live music is great.” Recent gigs he enjoyed included the Bhundhu Boys, Moving Hearts and De Dannan. He doesn’t usually frequent night clubs - “I prefer to sleep at night!!”

Steve loves to travel, especially around Ireland. “I love Galway, there’s something about that place”. Why? “Ah you know, the west, the wild west, the west!” Certain gigs stand out a lot in his memory. “Playing on the Sirius definitely. Playing Galway and Dublin is always great. Galway the last time was fantastic, fantastic.” Playing live is the special love of any Waterboy. “We’d love to play in Ireland again as soon as we possibly can, sooner rather than later I hope. We’d like to play as many places in Ireland as we can. Ireland is our home now.”

His ambitions are simple. “I’d like to see us as a band most of all to write good songs and to play to as many people as we possibly can. I’d like to see the rivers, seas and air clean in my lifetime. And I’d like to be able to play ‘The Orange Blossom Special’ (laughs). It’s a fiddle tune and I can’t play it at all. I can’t figure out what comes after the third chord (laughs again).”

The tape pops up. Steve finishes his pint and makes for the door. Outside, two American girls ask him to pose for a photo. Relaxed, he chats away as the snapshot is taken. They ask him about the album and he replies “Good, good”. They head back inside and Steve walks on towards Windmill. He looks out to the sea and takes a deep breath: “Ah, that’s good.” A Waterboy by the sea heading for ‘Home In The Meadow’, Saints and Angels are probably watching from above.