WAVES Summer 1998 Issue 6

Smiling Together

Anto tells me about his real life adventures with the Waterboys and his memories of one of the most exciting times of his career.

How did you meet Mike in the first place?

"Well, Mike phoned me - I think it was at the end of March 1982. He’d heard a record that I’d played on by a friend of his called Nikki Sudden who was also friend of mine. Mike liked the sax on the record. He got my phone number from Nikki and asked me to come down to play with him. He was playing with some guys - I think they’d come down from Scotland with him. It was a group called Funhouse and when I joined it changed to The Red and The Black. We played some small gigs around London. It was at that time we recorded “A Girl Called Johnny”, which ended up being the first single released under the name of the Waterboys."

Jumping forward to 1985, could you give me an overview of the year prior to the era of "The Live Adventures"?

"We started off in 1985 doing “This Is The Sea”. We did a lot of its recording at Parkgates Studio. Karl (Wallinger) was playing with us by then. Steve kinda showed up towards the end of 1985. In the summer I think, and ended up coming out on tour with us in the Autumn time."

So at the end of ‘85, what were your expectations for the new year?

"We’d been working upwards in a very gradual solid way since we first went out. I don’t think I had any expectation other than to keep working!"

Who was in the band at the beginning of ‘86?

"Well at the end of ‘85 Karl left to pursue his own career. We didn’t have a fixed drummer or bass player. So when we started off ‘86 we were pretty much down to the three of us: Mike, Steve and Myself. Right at the beginning of January, Mike and myself went over to Dublin to stay with Steve. We stayed in Steve’s house, sleeping on the floor of his front room by the canal, going out to pubs with him and his fiddle, me with my mandolin and Mike with his guitar and we’d sing songs and play with people. Generally the very beginning of ‘86 was a watershed - the end of the London era and the beginning of the Irish experience.

"We met Trevor Hutchinson and Peter MacKinney (bass player and drummer). We played with them for one afternoon in a rehearsal studio, then we went into the recording studio and recorded a whole batch of songs, which were ‘Fisherman’s Blues’, ‘Sweet Thing’, ‘Saints and Angels’ and some more countryish songs. All in one day - we recorded some fantastic material. It just seemed to be completely spontaneous. From then we’d be rehearsing and touring and playing but based in Dublin rather that London."

So had you moved?

"Well - I never actually completely moved. I only moved to Ireland last August (to Galway in 1997). In all the intervening time I’ve had a flat in London - a kind of pied-a-terre you could say. There was a flat for many years in Dublin where people who were recording and working with the Waterboys all stayed and I used to stay there.

"During 1986 we did play a lot of gigs which is what this album is about but also we started recording kind of seriously in Windmill Lane in the later part of the year and we were getting musicians to come over from London. So there was a kinda communal thing happening - people coming and going all of the time."

Which gigs from the Live Adventures stand out in your memory?

"I remember the Greenpeace gig."

Were any of you involved with the charity?

"We were all friendly with various different people who were involved in Greenpeace. We met up with some people over in San Fransisco. There was a lady called Krista King and another girl who is still a friend of mine called Pia Mancia. Krista was somehow involved with Greenpeace and Pia worked in their offices. So we ended up making friends with these people and going down to their boat and meeting the crew. That kinda carried on when we were in Dublin. We did a gig on the front deck of the “Sirius” (Greenpeace ship) which was moored in Dublin docks while they were preparing to go over to block the Sellafield (Windscale) wastepipe, which they successfully did that summer. So we did a gig on the ship to raise awareness for that and we did a gig in the Albert Hall in April 1986."

Was the line up the same throughout ‘86?

"Well Dave Ruffy was playing with us for most of the tour. Peter MacKinney was there at the beginning then Ruffy did most of it - with Trevor on bass. There was just the five of us. Listening to it ("Live Adventures") we made a great record as well."

How did the music change in ‘86?

"The beginning of the year was the watershed. Prior to that the music was very much based around the electric guitar, saxophone and keyboards. From the beginning of ‘86 we suddenly became based around acoustic guitar, electric mandolin and electric fiddle. We had a sound which is actually best demonstrated on the song “Fisherman’s Blues”. That was the new sound."

What do you remember of Pink Pop? (Dutch rock festival)

"I remember being on stage and it being absolute hell actually. The monitor system was running out of control and it was really loud. I remember being in actual physical pain while we were playing. But listening back to the tape it sounds really good. We must have been running on all six cylinders by then because we sounded good despite the terrible sound on stage."

Was ‘86 your first Glastonbury?

"We’d already been there in ‘84 right at the start of the bill in the afternoon. We’d moved up a bit nearer the top of the bill by ‘86."

Would you have chosen the same tracks as Mike has for the Live Adventures?

"Actually I’ve listened to the whole thing and I was very impressed. I think it’s excellent. If it had come from other eras it would have been quite different."

Did you have a favourite era?

"I think they all had their good points and I wouldn’t really like to chose. I think it was great how we kinda changed course as we went along. It was a great thing to do. It was maybe confusing for the Americans when we’d go over and sound one way and then go back the next year and sound completely different. They didn’t know what to expect. But for us I think it was good to evolve. I think also there were a lot of good messages in the music. I think that’s very important too. It just wasn’t a good noise we were makin’. There were a lot of very important and sound things said. If you chose to listen to them. That makes it all worthwhile in a much greater way."

What was your most outstanding memory of that year?

"The thing I most enjoyed was that first day of recording at Windmill Lane. What happened was as I’ve already mentioned Mike and I were staying at Steve’s. Mike went off in the morning and he phoned later on and asked Steve and myself to go down there. He told us he wanted to look at some monitor system that they had in the studio. So we got there at about one o’clock and Peter and Trevor were there with the drums and bass already set up and Mike had arranged for all our instruments to be brought there. My mandolin and sax were already there in the studio and the engineer was miking them up. So we’re at a recording session that Steve and I didn’t even know about. Which Mike had cunningly organised around us. It was very funny. It was a great surprise. We went on to make brilliant music. It was really a great day. It was something special. I think you can hear that if you listen to the song “Fisherman’s Blues” (album version) I think you can hear us all smiling together."

What has happened in your solo career since the end of the Waterboys?

"Well I’ve made three solo CD’s each of which are quite varied in character. The first one, “Aesop Wrote A Fable”, was a blues record, based on some old blues songs and some songs I wrote myself, in a traditional roots vein. "The second album “Cartwheels”, was all original songs and is not a blues album. It has rock and folk musicians on it. It’s quite a mixture with musicians from Fairport Convention, Sharon Shannon, Donal Lunny and Liam O’Maonlai. Then there’s the rock ‘n’ roll people : Youth from Killing Joke, Mick Taylor from The Rolling Stones, Wayne Hussey from The Mission, Zoe and Kirsty McColl. The third album which came out in November ‘97 is called “Crawfish and Caviar” because half of it was recorded in Lafayette, Lousiana and half of it was recorded in St Petersburg, Russia. All with local musicians, all original songs. It’s on Demon Records."

What are your plans for the future?

"Ideally I want to get some recording equipment. There’s the technology now to make a record in my house with local musicians from Galway. Probably a very simple and acoustic record. I play a lot in town. I’ve just been working with a singer who sings in Irish. We’ve just won a national competition which is for original songs written in Irish. That’s all for the immediate future."