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Extra.ie
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
Marcus Mumford praises Ireland's musical legacy: 'I don't think ever has a nation of this size produced so many impactful artists'
Marcus Mumford praised Ireland's musical legacy before Mumford & Sons' Malahide Castle performance earlier this month. He told Hot Press ahead of the show: 'I don't think ever has a nation of this size produced so many impactful artists.' The frontman named a list of Irish influences that have shaped both his taste and the band's, citing U2, The Dubliners, The Pogues and The Cranberries as his favourite Irish artists. In the clip, the musician named Hozier as his current favourite Irish artist and described CMAT's 'Ah Shoot' as his current 'jam,' calling himself an 'OG CMAT fan.' He also cited U2's The Joshua Tree as one of his all-time favourite albums. Mumford & Sons first played on Irish soil back in 2009 at The Academy in Dublin. The band's beginnings were rooted in pub sessions, and their sound, though not strictly folk, carries traces of traditional music. Marcus noted in a 2017 interview with Hot Press that their affinity with Ireland has even helped shape their reception across the Atlantic: 'It's because everyone out there thinks we're Irish,' he joked. 'You go out there and you discover that Americans fucking love the Irish – love them.' The band has long spoken of their love for performing in Ireland, and the influence its artists have had on them. 'We also love touring Scotland and Ireland, going back to our Celtic routes,' they once said. 'And wanted to take the chance to play some beautiful smaller towns that often get ignored on the more traditional touring routes. We figured that playing smaller shows would take us back to the beginning of our touring lives again.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hot Press (@hotpressmagazine)
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
It's a relief to know young CMAT was taking notes, saving up her rage at Bertie
The singer CMAT shared a short clip of her new single on social media last week, with a sample of the lyrics: 'All the big boys / All the Berties/ All the envelopes, yeah they hurt me /I was 12 when the das started killing themselves all around me ...' You don't need to be a scholar of 21st century Ireland to follow the references. This isn't the first time she has made known her feelings about Bertie Ahern , who as taoiseach merrily led Ireland headfirst into the banking crash. In a Hot Press interview she said that if he ran for President, she would make it her 'personal f**king mission' to make sure that he didn't win. CMAT – or Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – described the inspiration for the track in an interview with The Guardian : 'I was about 12 and it all happened around me, it didn't really happen to my family directly.' CMAT grew up in Dunboyne, Co Meath. 'My dad had a job in computers. We didn't really have any money, we weren't affluent, but we were fine. Everybody else on the estate we lived in worked in construction or in shops and they all lost their jobs. Everybody became unemployed. Then in the village I grew up in there was a year or 18 months where loads of the people I went to school with, their dads started killing themselves because they'd lost everything in the crash.' READ MORE She wondered whether she could possibly have remembered this correctly. 'But I dug deep, did research and the amount of male suicides that happened in Ireland at that time was astronomical.' As her research will have uncovered, data collated by the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF) for the period 2004 to 2014 showed that, after years of decline, there was a sudden upward surge in the number of suicides between 2008 and 2010. NSRF researchers have estimated that the rate of male suicide by the end of 2012 was 57 per cent higher than it would have been if the recession had not happened. In human terms, that's almost 500 additional deaths. Self harm also rose by 12 per cent during the period 2007 to 2012. A study of 190 deaths by suicide in Cork city between September 2008 and March 2011, the darkest of the post-crash years, found that 38 per cent of those who died were unemployed and 32 per cent worked in construction. And those were only the cases where a coroner's inquest was able to determine a verdict of suicide. This is the real pain of that period we still seem unable to account for. We talk about the economic and infrastructural fallout, and even about the breathtaking stupidity and greed that blithely allowed three quarters of the total lending of the Irish banks – €420 billion, economist Stephen Kinsella wrote in Recalling The Celtic Tiger – to be diverted to essentially a single asset: property and land. We mention the grotesquely overblown scale of the bailout that followed the inevitable collapse: but again, we only talk in terms of numbers. We refer to the construction workers who 'vanished' from the sector after it all went wrong as though they were a structural issue, not human beings whose way of life was obliterated by greed. The years after the crash were a time of collective bloodletting – not the blood of bankers, builders, bondholders or politicians, of course, but of ordinary people. Yet the real human cost of those years is rarely accounted for: the Das who couldn't take it any more and tragically took their own lives instead. The death notices on with their suggestions that a donation could be made to Pieta House in lieu of flowers, whose concise wording could not possibly contain the vast oceans of grief of families left behind. The human cost is also the Mams with their backs against the wall trying to hold the family together; the children who should not have had to grow up without a father, the ones who should never have had to go to school cold and hungry. And it includes those who kept going, but only just, sliding slowly, inexorably into alcoholism or depression. It's also the ones who got away, 420,000 of them between 2011 and 2015: the breakfast roll lads who decamped to the mines of Perth or the bar stools of Bondi, the grandparents who only see their now-teenage grandchildren on WhatsApp video chats. In the years after the crash, I remember having conversations with publishers and agents about whether there would ever be a definitive novel of the Celtic Tiger. There have been some writers since who have stepped up to the task – none, perhaps, more brilliantly than Donal Ryan or Paul Murray – but they are part of the generation that was most directly affected. Maybe what it needs is the perspective of CMAT's generation – the children of the crash – to finally be able to make sense of it. For years afterwards, I think we adults were walking around in a kind of a daze, unable to articulate what had happened to us and unwilling to relive it. Some of us are still in a daze. As CMAT succinctly put it in the Hot Press interview: 'We've been traumatised by the last 20 years.' The ripples of those years of austerity, uncertainty and the crippling shame go on and on. It is a relief, in a strange way, to know that there was a little girl in a housing estate in Dunboyne taking notes and storing up her rage about Bertie and the bankers to be unleashed at a later date. The Samaritans can be contacted on freephone: 116 123 or email: jo@ Pieta's freephone crisis helpline is 1800 247247 or text HELP to 51444
Extra.ie
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
The Swell Season's Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová: 'We're singing from a different place, because our relationship has deepened and broadened'
I may have a face for radio, but one of my highlights last year was getting to serve as roving reporter on the Hot Press and Virgin Media One TV show, Uprising. Over four seriously action-packed episodes, I think we did a pretty good job of reflecting the vibrancy and diversity of the current Irish music scene. From Denise Chaila, Hozier and The Academic to The Coronas, Nell Mescal and Pillow Queens, everybody played their hearts out and gave good quote. None more so than Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, AKA The Swell Season, who invited us to their Dublin reunion show in Vicar Street. What was supposed to be a quick chat for the cameras turned into an hour-long epic during which Glen and Markéta reflected on their remarkable Oscar-winning, Simpsons-cameoing career together. To celebrate the July 11 release of their third Forward album – our man John Walshe credits it with having 'a surfeit of beauty' – here's how it all went down… STUART: Glen, Vicar Street has some special memories for you, doesn't it? GLEN: With The Frames, we did like one night in Whelan's, then two nights, then three and then five. It was then that we stepped up to Vicar Street, which is this kind of grander, broader room. Ever since we came here – God, I can't remember what year that was – we started doing shows around Christmas, and it became a real thing. Actually, I couldn't remember if The Swell Season had done Vicar Street before… MARKÉTA: Yeah, I thought so, but I've had three children since, and my memory is not what it used to be! S: You also chose to rehearse for your tour here. G: Yeah, we love the room. It's a very comfortable place and in the middle of Dublin, so everyone can be kind of close by. There's a lovely thing that happens where people turn up early at like two o'clock in the afternoon, and we'll throw the doors open and let them come in to the soundcheck. It's fascinating to watch a band figure stuff out with the crew, like the lights and the sound and all of the discussion that goes on. It's almost like breaking the fourth wall. You're kind of semi-performing because you know that there are people there who are interested. S: I saw about six people come in who I assumed were your family. They were hugging each other and generally behaving like kids at Christmas. Is it muscle memory with the old songs or do you have to do a bit of rehearsing to remember the subtleties? M: Some songs are definitely just engraved in my memory. 'Falling Slowly' being the top one on the list. Other ones take a little bit of rehearsing, and then there are some that need way more rehearsing. It's nice not to rely on muscle memory because sometimes when you're performing, you go on autopilot, which is undesirable. You really want to stay present as much as possible. But also, one gig is worth five rehearsals, wouldn't you say? Advertisement G: For sure. You learn through your mistakes. At a gig, the audience may not notice you've made a mistake, but sometimes you'll misstep a lyric or… Markéta's songs tend to move around a lot chordally, and time-wise, they shift. During them, I'm super-alert because I don't want to get it wrong. But it's those moments where you do get it wrong that are like, 'You're never going to get that wrong again!' It's beaten straight into you. S: With the older songs, do you stick religiously to the original versions, or do you find them subtly or quite profoundly changing? And do they mean different things to you now? G: Yes to all of those! The songs do change. Also, they change with the personnel. Like we have a new drummer no,w and Joe from The Frames on bass. Whenever we play something as an ensemble, it takes on a different feeling. And, of course, we're singing from a different place, too, because our relationship has deepened and broadened. Sometimes there's a bit of sadness in a lyric, but I like to take that now and transform it into the positive of things. And there are certain songs we wrote back then that are actually just too sad. Yesterday, I suggested a son,g and Markéta just said 'No!' And I totally understand why, like, 'We're not going there!' S: So The Swell Season is a total democracy? G: It now is. Before, it was me kind of leading the way, because during Once, I was helping Mar with her songs, and then she was contributing to mine. Whereas now it's gone to another place where Mar's songs are really strong. She comes in with them, they're done. I'm like, 'Wow!' and do my best to try and keep up. S: I heard you rehearsing a beautiful new song, 'The Answer Is Yes'. How was that conjured up? M: I was sitting at the piano and just thinking, 'I'd love to write a song for me and Glen to sing together.' One that sort of summarises what has happened during all these years and where we are now, kind of celebrating that in a way which is personal but at the same time universal. It was one of those songs that came very quickly. I sent Glen a voice memo of it, sort of half-written, and was like, 'Can you work on this with me?' But he was busy at the time, and I just went and finished it. G: I was on tour in LA with Eddie Vedder when you sent that to me. I decided to write a song in response, which was 'Only Love Remains'. The lyrics were something like: 'Despite the fire damage and the broken nose / The heartache and the broken home / Only love remains, only love.' It was a bit of a fun kind of thing, like all of the (metaphorical) punch-ups. So we said, 'Why don't we try to finish these songs off and sing them on the tour?' I was to write the second verse on 'The Answer Is Yes', but the next time I got in touch with Mar, she'd finished it. So then I decided I'd go to Iceland and stay in Mar's place with her, Mio and the kids and finish the two songs. We sat down and said, 'Here's how my one goes.' By the end of the day we'd racked up 18 bits of songs. I was like, 'Ah, okay.' That creative thing only happens with Mar. I remember the first time I sat down with Mar and sang her a song. It would have been one for The Frames. She said, 'Did this happen to you?' I was like, 'Well, no.' And she said, 'Well, why are you singing it?' And I went, 'Bam!' Make your work about your life. S: To me, 'The Answer Is Yes' sounds like a companion piece to 'Falling Slowly'. The lives you've lived since… M: That's a really great compliment, thank you. S: It also reminds me in the best possible way of ABBA in their gentler moments. Are you an ABBA fan? Advertisement M: Yeah, of course. S: Amongst the pop bangers, they had some amazingly raw songs. G: Yeah, oh, that's very kind. M: They do what Glen was just mentioning now. They draw on their own personal close experiences – and in that sense, they become universal. There's a great strength to that. G: And when the lyric is true, it lands. S: The punters can tell, can't they? G: Listeners are very intelligent. Advertisement S: Another lovely thing you do is have up-and-coming acts support you. How did you discover Leah Moran, who's playing tonight, and Dylan Harcourt, who's on tomorrow? M: Leah is somebody I saw busking on Grafton Street in December when I came over. She was there with her gloves on, playing the guitar. She has this kind of Billie Eilish vibe, and I thought she was very talented. I was also impressed by how committed she was because it was freezing, you know? I was doing a bit of Christmas shopping and kept walking back and forth. I ended up taking a photograph of her and posting it so we connected through Instagram. The talent on the streets of Dublin is overwhelming. G: For the last ten years, we've been doing the Christmas Busk on Grafton Street, and then it moved to the Gaiety. Every time Dylan would come with a bunch of his mates. His songs are just getting better and better and better,r and I'd love to see him get discovered on a broader level. S: What I love about the busk is that, whether you're an unknown or a global superstar, everyone's treated equally. G: Yeah, you've got Bono, who's probably the most famous musician in the country, if not the world, hanging out with Dylan. Or he's hanging out with myself or Hozier. One year I was like, 'Who's the fella in the red hat? God, he's brilliant!' and somebody said, 'His name is Dermot Kennedy.' Fair play to Bono, he would often-times invite us all back to his to hang out with him. We'd all go back and sit and have a sing-song. S: It's unbelievably been nineteen years since the release of your The Swell Season debut. What are your overriding memories of making it, Mar? M: The friendships between myself and Glen and (Once film director) John Carney and our friend David Cleary, who took the stills. I remember those moments of grabbing a cup of tea or a slice of pizza around Grafton Street, and just having chats about movies and music. It was such a different environment from my day-to-day. I was in high school in a small town and to be in Dublin doing a creative project with these artists was mind-blowing. I kept pinching myself that this was happening to me. S: Writing 'Falling Slowly', did you know it was special? G: It's a good question because there are songs you write where there's almost a slight embarrassment. Where I go, 'Is this any good? Is it a bit cheesy?' I love 'Falling Slowly' and I'll stand by and fight for it, but you could imagine a boy band singing it almost. You've written a song that is a little bit out of my normal kind of safety space. It was in the Czech Republic that Markéta played piano on it. I remember going in to your parents and playing it to them after we recorded it. Mar sang this note on the chorus – 'Take this sinking boat and point it home / We still have time.' She went 'time' and I went 'time'. I went up for that falsetto and there was just something in the moment… John Carney heard us play it in Whelan's and was like, 'I've got a whole scene for that song' which was the Walton's piano shop one. You get a sense sometimes with a song or an idea where you go, 'This doesn't feel like it's coming from me.' I don't know what I'm trying to say, but it feels like it's kind of from a different place. M: It was like a gift, really, because it arrived so quickly. All of a sudden, it was just there, and we were really excited by it. It was like, 'Wow!' Especially for me, it was one of the first songs we'd written together. The really telling thing was to hear people's responses to it. We'd played it at the concerts in Czechia that summer and people always mentioned 'Falling Slowly'. It really touched them in some way. I've come to sort of know and spot the songs that really resonate. G: There's a touch of 'lightning in a bottle'. It's just another simple song you've come up with, but it has a little something that sparks, it lands. S: What were your initial reactions when John Carney came to you and said, 'I've got this idea for a film called Once'? G: John's a brilliant mind and has loads of ideas. So when he comes and says, 'I have an idea for a film', you're like, 'Yeah, of course you do. Because you always have an idea for a film.' Anyway, he says, 'I have this idea, it's called Busker.' That's what Once was originally called. 'It's about a busker who meets this Eastern European woman who's selling flowers on the street.' We were going through this thing where a huge influx of Eastern Europeans were coming into Ireland. There was a bit of poetic licence because Markéta's character was a bit more Romanian than Czech. Although Czechia could be considered Eastern Europe, it's Central Europe. M: It was okay because I wasn't playing a Czech, I was playing a girl. Her nationality wasn't really important. S: Does winning an Oscar and appearing on The Simpsons feel a bit surreal? M: Yeah, absolutely. G: 100% When someone says it to you, you're like, 'Oh, wow, that's mental!' I remember we were playing in Tucson, Arizona with Calexico and got a call from The Simpsons saying, 'Matt's written a little spoof. Do you guys want to jump on a train and come up and do it?' Do you remember that train ride? It was an overnight train to Los Angeles. When we got there, they were all just sitting around, and we did a read-through. It was fantastic. Then we went down to the recording studio, read through it again a couple of times and then got back on the train. S: I've spoken to a couple of Oscar winners who say their memory of the night is very hazy. Again, is there something in particular about it which sticks in your mind? M: Definitely the moment when our names were called out. From that point on, it was like a new mode got activated. We were already so joyful to be there and get to play that song. Standing on that stage, it was definitely the high point of our life. Advertisement G: Markéta had said to me earlier on in the day, 'Look, on the crazy off-chance that we do end up winning, you say a couple of things and I'll just go 'thank you.' When the moment came, I was like blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know what I said. And then we were pulled off stage; Markéta didn't get to speak. Jon Stewart came over and was like, 'Come on, come with me.' And he pulled Mar away from me. Suddenly, while I was hugging janitors, she was on the other side of the stage and gave this most incredibly eloquent 'thank you' speech. You were brilliant. Fair play to Jon Stewart, it was a sweet thing to do. S: A few years ago, when I was interviewing Billie Eilish at Electric Picnic, she was uber nervous because she was meeting this guy called Glen Hansard backstage. She was quoting chunks of Once, which she'd watched a zillion times on the tour bus, to me. Billie asked,'Is he nice' and I said, 'Yeah, he's a decent skin.' How did you two get on? G: We had an absolute ball. I'd gotten a call basically asking, 'Do you want to come down?' from her mother. I was like, 'Oh man, really? That's incredible. Can I bring my niece?' Because my niece was just freaking out. By the time we got down to the Picnic, there were about eight of us. We all went in, and Finneas and Billie were just so sweet. Big hug, photos. It was a bit like meeting me and Mar during that crazy Once period. They were kind of rabbits in the headlights, but they were also quite grounded,d and their parents were with them. Billie was like, 'We just met Barbara Broccoli. She asked us to do the Bond song!' Which is funny because Barbara produced Once on Broadway. Billie said she'd grown up listening to Mar's songs, 'The Hill', 'If You Want Me' and 'Say It To Me Now'. She was like, 'You guys are the first music I heard.' And Finneas was, 'Yep, I was a huge fan and playing your music constantly in the house.' S: Guys, you collaborated last year on a Ukrainian Action fundraising single called 'Take Heart'. What's the background to that? G: Again, I was on the West Coast of America with Eddie Vedder and the Earthlings. We got news that Russia had invaded Ukraine and were all in shock. It felt like the world was about to end in a way. We didn't really know how to respond. I just sat down with my guitar… Whenever I'm confused or lost, I usually go to my instruments. It's where I find solace. At the same time, I picked up my phone and there was a post from Patti Smith on Instagram from a few days previous. She was on stage in one of her amazing, shamanic, wild modes and said, 'People, take heart, it will get better.' I remember going, 'Oh, wow, that's a great line.' So, I began to muse on that on my guitar. And then when it became a song, I reached out to Patti and asked her, 'Would it be okay?' And she said, 'Did I say that? I was probably just in a moment. You're more than welcome to it. Take it with my blessing.' I was at home one night in Dublin and there was this great documentary about Aslan. Christy had reached out to people at the Red Cross and put together a band of Ukrainian singers to sing 'Crazy World'. I asked Christy – actually, it was the last conversation we had – about putting me in touch with the Red Cross people he'd spoken to and we managed to get three young women to come in and sing the 'Return to me, return to me, return to me unharmed' verse in Ukrainian. The song is kind of a prayer to those who are going to fight from their loved ones. The Ukrainian spirit's really something. They came and sang and afterwards I asked Markéta for some pointers – where the song worked and didn't work. I remember sending it to Bono who said, 'What about this for an end?' And he sent me this beautiful melodic line. He said, 'Don't put my name on it.' So he's on the track but not named. M: I just thought it was a lovely gesture. My family were hosting a family of Ukrainian refugees at their place these past couple of years. Czech people felt a huge need to reach out and try and help because it's easy for us to imagine being the ones in that position. If it can happen in Ukraine, it can happen anywhere.
Extra.ie
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
Happy 85th Birthday Ringo Starr: ‘You know what I love to this day? The Beatles are still out there, and the music still holds up'
As Ringo Starr celebrates his 85th birthday, we're rewinding it back to 2021 – when Hot Press was granted a virtual audience with the Beatles legend… Originally published in Hot Press in 2021: Sitting in the studio of his LA home, Ringo Starr looks unfeasibly good for his 81 years. He still retains his sharpLiverpudlian wit, albeit the Merseyside accent now has a slight American twang. Throughout our half-hour audience, the iconic drummer's commitment to The Beatles' humanist message of peace and love is also manifest. With the introductions done, he gets down to talking to the assembled press corps. Today's top videos STORY CONTINUES BELOW 'One question at a time,' he quips. Otherwise, we'll be here til December. The first query concerns what Ringo would like listeners to take from his new EP, Change The World a wonderful selection of pop-rock anthems, featuring an assortment of guest appearances, a song written by Linda Perry, and a cracking cover of Rock Around The Clock. 'Joy,' he responds, 'and the expression 'Change the world'. We're changing it for the kids. There's all those people meeting in New York right now, but half the world's on fire and half of it's underwater. But they're still saying, 'We can't do this, we can't do that.' I think we have to do a lot, so I'd like to change the world for the kids. I do wonder if politicians have kids. Do their kids have kids? Isnt that reason enough to let us breathe and find water? Anyway, apart from that, Ive got a CD out! Someone ventures that the peace and love message doesn't seem to be working. 'I think you're wrong there,' Ringo counters. 'Because when I started the Peace & Love Moment for my birthday in 2008 on the streets of Chicago, we had around a hundred people. And now we actually have Peace & Love Moments in 28 countries around the world, so slowly but surely, we're like the pebble in the ocean, it's rippling out. You can only do what you do, and that's what I do: peace and love.' Next up, Starr discusses the Rock Around The Clock cover and how recording it brought up some formative musical memories. 'Well, I'm sitting here and making an EP,' he reflects. 'And I love it, because it's four tracks and I do it in this room. The drums are in the bedroom; it's a small studio. I was just thinking about tracks for the EP, and I went through some memories. I had my seventh birthday in hospital, and also my 14th. I was still there when my 15th birthday was coming up, and I didn't want to spend it in hospital. 'So my mother talked to the doctors; I had TB and everything, and I'd been in there over a year. I was doing pretty good, and so they decided they'd let me out. First of all, I went down to London with my stepdad and my mum to see his folks. Then we came back to Liverpool, and my grandparents took me to the Isle of Man.' It was there that the young Starr saw first-hand the visceral power of rock and roll. 'It was incredible, he continues, because I went to see the movie Rock Around The Clock, and it was full of crazy British holiday-makers. They had Kiss Me Quick hats and they were a little out of their minds. I'd been in hospital, and I don't know too much about what's going on lately. And they ripped up the cinema! I mean, they ripped out the chairs and threw them, and I was going, 'Wow, this is great'! 'In my head, I remember that moment like it was yesterday. So this time out, I said, 'I'm going to do Rock Around The Clock. Because it's my EP, I can do whatever I like, so I thought, Rock Around The Clocks gonna be great.' I did do a kind of old school, brushes version of it, and then I thought , 'Nah, put the sticks on'. And then I rocked and then I called Joe Walsh, and he rocked!' It's a separate solo. You listen to covers of Rock Around The Clock, and everybody plays that same solo, but this is different. The subject turns to touring, which leads Ringo to reflect on a recent trip home. 'Barbara and I were just over in England, he says. We went over to see our kids and grandkids, and we had a couple of weeks there, which was great. But you're still a bit like, 'Ooh'. Walking up Kings Road, we were the only ones with masks on. That's how it is. This year, because of the vaccination, we can actually move a little more than we did last year. 'So yeah, the pandemic. It's not like we can go anywhere. I keep thinking, 'I'll just get a plane and go.' Where? It's everywhere. That's the way it is. So I'm here talking to you guys!' How does he go about choosing the musicians for his All Starr band line-ups? 'At first, I used to change the whole band,' explains Ringo. 'With the first band in 1989, I'd never done it before, and I just opened my phone book. It was, 'Oh, Joe Walsh, he'll be great. So will Levon Helm and Dr John.' I had all these numbers in my book. For all you youngsters, in those days, we used to have to keep them in a book! It went really well, so I decided to do it again with another band. 'The reason I picked those players is that you have to have hits. If you wanna be in the All Stars, you've got to have hits, cos we're a hit band. And you've got to play an instrument. So, you're listening, and you get an offer of three bass players, and you think, 'Oh yeah, he's got that good song, he'll be great'. Same with the piano player. 'I usually have about 12 or 13 to choose from, and I get it down to eight. That's how I do it. Now it's been going on for 30 years, people call us, they'd like their artists to be a part of it. I have to know if you can play because I want good players. So if you've got a song and you're a good player, there's a chance you'll get into the All-Stars.' As for arrangements, it can change due to context. 'It depends on the track,' notes Starr. 'One time, Sheila E did Come Together, and I was like, 'I'm not doing that fill!' She said, Okay, then got on her congas and did her version! That was so cool. Anyway, we love Sheila. I'm just hanging out, doing stuff and having fun. Being real when we play. 'You can't see it, but next door, there's a gym, and I work out nearly every other day. There is another room past that where I get my paints out. This star on the wall in the background here, I painted that. On top there, you might see the record that you're going to buy! We're promoting!' Starr then returns to how hed like people to react to Change The World. 'I'd like them to be kind, considerate, loving, he says. Peace is what I love. We live in America, and half the world is starving, half the world doesn't have water. Everybody knows I support Water Aid because I believe if you don't have anything, you should have water if you're on this planet. It's necessary, they're drinking crap water that's polluted. 'And a couple of years from now, it'll be hard to breathe because of the pollution in the air. Just be kind to your neighbour, to your friends, to the person next door. Let's try and understand what they're going through, not only us. I mean, I'm not political, but they sent all those Haitian people back from Texas. 'What are they going to do? They left their country because there's no food, and there's nothing for them. Thousands of them died. And then the storm. I can't do it, this is why governments have to take charge not only of their countries, but these other countries that are really suffering. Ooh, you've got me on me high horse now!' One of the most influential drummers in music history, Ringo then reflects on the late Charlie Watts, who was similarly inspirational to successive generations of musicians. 'Charlie was a great guy, he was a lot of fun,' says Starr. 'He had a harder band than I did to keep together! I'd meet Charlie, we'd hang out; he's been up here. It's not like we lived together. We lived close in London, we'd bump into each other on Kings Road or whatever. Or we'd find ourselves at dinner or a gig. 'But I had a party in the 70s, and I had a drum kit up in the attic, it was like a cinema and music space, or whatever you want to do up there. And Charlie came, and so did John Bonham. So we had three drummers just hanging out, and Bonham got on the kit. It's not like on-stage, where it's nailed down, so it's steady. 'So as he was playing, the bass drum was hopping away from him. You had Charlie Watts and Ringo holding the bass drum for him as he played! And you think, 'Oh man, that would have been a great little TikTok, or a photo that would have gone worldwide'. But in the 70s I had parties and you'll never find any photos, because I wouldn't let you take photos in my house. But I always think that would have been a great shot to have. So yeah, we will miss Charlie, he was a beautiful human being, he was the quiet man.' Starr is then asked if he thinks The Beatles changed rock history. 'I wouldn't say rock history, I think they changed music history. One of the biggest things The Beatles did was write the songs, and then we'd all record them. In those days, you had the writer, which was like a separate gig, and then the band recorded it. We had a moment with George Martin where he would bring great songs, and George and I said, 'No, no, we want to do John and Paul's.' 'That's how it happened. And you know what I love to this day? The Beatles are still out there, and the music still holds up. We worked real hard, and of course, we had some great songs. To conclude, Ringo talks about Peter Jacksons' hotly anticipated documentary on the making of Let It Be, which incorporates a huge volume of new archival footage to greatly expand on the original film about the sessions. 'The documentary was great,' says Ringo. 'It's a little longer now, because Apple, our company, found 56 hours of unused footage from the Michael Lindsay-Hogg documentary. We were blessed that Peter Jackson took it on, to put it together, to make it different. I was always moaning about the original;, there's no real joy in it. It's all based on this downer little incident. Anyway, Peter would come into LA and hed bring stuff to show me on his iPad. He'd say, 'We found this,' and there'd be footage of us laughing and fooling around. You have to think, from the beginning to the end of January, we'd made a record, and we'd done that rooftop gig, which went great. Wed played live again. 'There's a great piece on in the doc for me, where Paul says, Well, who wants to play live? And you can hear me in the background going, I do! And we did. With The Beatles, we were always going to Turkey or somewhere, or we were going up Everest. Or well be in a desert, or well go to Hawaii and a volcano so it was like, 'Sod it, lets just walk across the road'.' Which, of course, led to one of The Beatles' most iconic performances. 'With that one, it was, 'Let's just do in the roof,'' says Ringo. 'And that's what we did, and it was great. The police played a huge part; not that they did anything, but they were moaning at us. They look really silly in the film now. But we've got all this extra footage, so surprise, surprise, we're still hanging out. 'Peter's locked up in New Zealand because of the pandemic. So now the documentary is six hours long, and it's going to come out in America over three nights, through Thanksgiving. But it's got the start, the middle and the finish. The start is very slow, then we get into it, and then we're out. I mean, I love it, but I'm in it, of course, so six hours is never long enough!' Ringo feels the film will be warmly received. 'I think everyone will enjoy it,' he enthuses, 'because you'll see this band who worked really hard, and went through emotional ups and downs to get where we got, every time. But that's just how it was. Four guys in a room; you're gonna have a few ups and downs. 'Thats all I can say about that — Peter Jackson is our hero, hes done a great job. The actual roof gig, in pieces, is 43 minutes long, whereas it was about eight-and-a-half. The end result is I loved it.'
Irish Independent
06-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Declan Lynch: Make Captain America's great again — with a retrofit that is truly retro
If the Grafton Street diner wants to win back my custom and thrive after examinership, it should return to exactly what it used to be when I first visited as a young lad up from the country The company behind Captain America's on Grafton Street has gone into examinership. You could call it the end of an era, except you'd need to specify which era you're talking about. When a restaurant has been in business for 54 years, it has seen a few eras come and go. To give you some sense of the era I'm talking about, while still a raw youth, I'd started working for Hot Press magazine, where the production methods would go something like this — articles would be laid out and affixed to the page using Cow Gum. Headlines would be applied using Letraset.
