UK Today: THE PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE ACCORDING TO SPIDER

[MacRua]

THE PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE ACCORDING TO SPIDER STACY
Uk Today
By: By Chris Castellani
Full URL (part I)

We often hope and pray that the bands of our youth will reunite so that we can see them as adults to relive the glory years. Often, there will be rumours floating around that The Smiths, The Jam or The Stone Roses will get back together.

Most of the time, they are just rumours. In 2001, one rumour finally became fact - The Pogues with original lead singer Shane MacGowan would reunite to play a few gigs together. Fast forward to 2006, The Pogues are set to play America for the first time in their original form in decades.
For music enthusiasts, The Pogues represent the clashing of two styles - traditional Irish folk music and punk. If anything, the band showed other musicians that it's okay to mix styles. Elvis Costello embraced them and ended up producing Rum Sodomy & The Lash.
Singer, and multi-instrumentalist Spider Stacy, was one of the original members. He's joining MacGowan with a cast of original members to stage a sold out U.S. tour. He talks to us about the road that lead to this reunion.

Chris: How did you first meet Shane MacGowan?
Spider: The first time I met Shane was at a Ramones gig at the Round House, which is in North London. That would have been about April 1977. I didn't really meet him again until 1979. Some friends of mine had moved down to a squat in Bloomsbury London. It's an area where Virginia Wolfe use to live in the 1930s. Shane was living down there at the time and that's how I got to know him.

Chris: Did you guys share a love for traditional Irish music and punk rock?
Spider: Well, I'm not Irish so I didn't have that in my background. Shane is Irish, so he grew up with it. I grew up in North London, so you spend a lot of time hanging out in pubs because there's nothing else to do. You inevitability come up against a fair amount of Irish music because a lot of the pubs would be Irish. A lot of the visitors would obviously be Irish. So it really didn't form the soundtrack to my life. The punk thing both of us shared. Shane was one of the first original faces of punk music. So we both were into that scene at the time.

Chris: It must have been tricky to form that signature sound that you created, a mixture of punk music using traditional Irish instruments. Nobody else was creating that style of music at the time.
Spider: The funny thing about it was that no one else had thought of doing it before. I actually saw some journalist review one of shows here at Christmas time saying that our music sounds like Guinness and Whisky. That's a pretty good way of summing it up. It works well together.

Chris: Did you guys get a lot of negative feedback when you were starting out?
Spider: People were baffled when we walked on stage. We would carry these instruments that you wouldn't normally see at a rock club. People would look at us like we were a folk group. Any notions of that would rapidly disappear when we started playing.

Chris: In the mid-80s, there was a lot of unrest with the political system at the time and your music reflected that. Do you think that music was a product of the time?
Spider: I don't think you can say that in a direct way. We weren't really an overtly political band. There was more of a social message in our music. I don't think people would mistake us for a right wing band. Where we were coming from was fairly implicit in what music we were making. We did write a song about the Birmingham Six ("Streets of Sorrow") that was about people who were locked up for something they didn't do. That's not in itself a political statement, but it can be construed as such. It's just a song about justice and why people shouldn't be sent away for something they haven't done. They were just scapegoats and maybe to get the cops off the
hook. Also to satisfy the public's need for justice.

Chris: Your first three albums were Red Roses for Me, Rum Sodomy & TheLash and If I Should Fall Be The Grace of God. Do any of these albums or the songs on these albums stand out to you today?
Spider: There's not one of those albums I wished we never recorded. They are three very fine records. We just had them remixed and remastered. Particularly with Red Rose for Me, it was produced by a guy who wasn't a professional producer. Although, I think he did a pretty good job, his natural job was not being a producer. After it's been remixed and remastered, it sounds really raw and powerful. I'm really pleased with it.

Chris: It is well known that the band had major success in the late 80s, but at the same time Shane MacGowan had a hard time keeping it together and staying sober.
Spider: Well, I wouldn't point the finger just at him.

Chris: Okay, you all were.
Spider: [Laughs] I think a few of us were definitely having a problem. That's a natural consequence when you're drinking. You'll find it difficult to stay sober.

Chris: So when you look back at
that time do you say, "Wow, we had a really good time" or "I can't believe we made it out alive."?
Spider: We were by no means the worst. You know, we had a really good time. It was a real laugh until the work load became too much. It sucked all the fun out of it. We all got along really well as people, but there was never any sort of ego clashes. It was easy to make the band work well. It was actually fun to do, but it was doing the same thing night after night after night after night just going around the world - it just became an endless treadmill. It can get a little weary.

Chris: You do have to admit that what makes the music so appealing is that
it has a drunken quality to it. It's the kind of music you can sing along to at a pub.
Spider: Yeah, we've always been a good time.

Chris: So what was the turning point when you asked Shane to leave the band?
Spider: We had been going on for a long time. It was increasingly apparent that Shane was getting more and more disenchanted. I think he couldn't say, "Look, I just can't F***ing hack it anymore. I'm not enjoying it." So he would distance himself one way or another. We were on tour in Japan and it got to the point where we just had to let him go and it was obvious that he wanted to go. In the end, he agreed with us.
With the benefit of hindsight, we should have taken a year off and just let everybody recharge, but when you're caught up in the middle of the situation, you are never going to see things clearly. You'll pretty much never do the right thing. With the benefit of hindsight which is a wonderful thing, it was a bad decision, but at the time it was the only thing we could do given the situation we were in.
Catch more of this interview with Spider Stacy in our March issue. The Pogues will be performing at Nokia Times Square in New York, NY 16-19 March. A new album is also due in March.

Full URL (part II)
As fans await the return of The Pogues US tour this month, music reporter Chris Castellani continues the interview with band member Spider Stacy from our February issue.

Chris: Was it hard going forward without your lead singer?
Spider: We were very lucky in that respect in that Joe Strummer of The Clash stepped in for about six months. It would have been difficult without Joe in there. It gave us the motivation to continue. At the same time, we didn't want to stop. We still felt that the band had a lot to offer, so we were determined to make a go of it and we did for five years. By 1996, the band had run its course. There wasn't anyplace left to go but out.

Chris: What did you do with your time apart?
Spider: I didn't do much myself. I did quit drinking and got myself back on track. I had a few solo projects that were ongoing. The one thing that the break has given me is that I don't have to rush into doing anything. So with the gigs we've been playing the past few years, it's given me an excuse not to do anything. I just wait around for tour dates to come up [Laughs] which is much easier and fun to do, but I will do something.

Chris: Did you and Shane keep in touch when the Pogues disbanded?
Spider: Oh, yes. I kept in touch with him as did Jem Finer. We both played on Shane's solo project called The Snake. I did play live with him a few times. We didn't keep in touch regularly, but we knew what the other was doing.
When we did get around to doing the first reunion tour in 2001, some members of the band hadn't seen each other for a few good years. That's just the way things happen. Even close friends drift apart if you don't have something to do together like play in a band.

Chris: When I first saw that the Pogues were reuniting, it came out of nowhere. How did it all come about?
Spider: I'm still a little bit baffled myself. One day, I got a phone call from Jem Finer saying that an offer had been made and if I was interested. Of course, I was. It was the last thing I expected. I think what happened, Anthony Addis, who is our accountant and business manager, was speaking to a Simon Mine, who's the biggest concert promoter in England. I suspect it was Anthony who brought up the idea to Simon of a Pogues reunion and he went for it. So, here we are.

Chris: What was it like getting back on that stage together in 2001?
Spider: When we started rehearsing for it, I kinda of felt that we only had a three or four month break. We were rehearsing just down the road from where we use to rehearse. It was weird in that there was nothing weird about it. It just seemed really normal.

Chris: So how has Shane been these days? He's good with touring?
Spider: He's been f***ing great. We wouldn't be doing this tour if anyone wasn't okay with it, so it's been great.

Chris: You're coming back to the U.S. as The Pogues for the first time in God knows how long. What the hell took so long?
Spider: If you think about it, we did the December 2001 reunion and then a few shows that following summer. Then we didn't do anything until Christmas of 2004. Last year, we went to Japan, a date in Spain, a few festivals in England and then the Christmas 2005 shows at the Brixton Academy in London and in Ireland. Now we're coming to the U.S. in March. So we haven't done that many dates over the past five years.

Chris: What can we expect in terms of a setlist for the show? Are you going to mix up the early stuff with some of the later albums you did without Shane?
Spider: It's pretty much going to be from the first three albums with a few later things as well, but this could all change. The plan is to pretty much do the material from the Christmas shows.
Chris: What's the band's lineup besides you and Shane?
Spider: It's Jem Finer on banjo, James Fearnly on accordion, Darryl Hunt on bass, Andrew Rankin on drums, Terry Woods on mandolin and various other instruments and Philip Chevron on guitar.

Chris: A lot has happen in the British music scene since you disbanded. You have the rise of BritPop and Electronic music and today you have lot of great post-punk, new wave coming out of the UK. What do you think of them all?
Spider: I really enjoyed The Libertines. It's a shame that they couldn't keep it together, but that's what drugs will do to you. I think the Arctic Monkeys are great, they sound like The Libertines. There's a lot of stuff out there that's kind of "been there, done that." I tell you one thing, I can not stand f***ing Coldplay.One band I enjoy who are still making great music is The Fall.

Chris: When you hear a lot of the music today, many comparisons are made to bands like Gang of Four, Joy Division, The Clash and The Smiths. I feel you guys have been slighted in terms of the history of British music in the 80s. Do you feel with this tour you're kind of reminding people about the original music you did?
Spider: I use to feel that we had been forgotten, but I understand why we've been disregarded. There isn't any band out there right now that sound like us. On the other hand, I see the tremendous response that we get from audiences and see the different age groups. It's becoming more and more apparent in Japan which is gratifying. The average age of the audience is getting younger, which means more young people are buying our records and listening to our music. There is no Pogues equivalent to us out of England right now like how Franz Ferdinand sound like a particular band from before. I just don't thinks it matters. There are bands in the U.S. that sound like us - one of them being the Dropkick Murphys, who opened up for us on the Christmas tour. The good thing is that we mean a lot to a lot of people, which is very flattering.

Chris: Hey, you guys are back together, how about an album of new material?
Spider: I do have a stock reply for this, which is if youd asked me six years ago if we all would be back on stage together again, I would say that it would be very unlikely. Bearing that in mind, I would be foolish in saying that we won't be recording again. There's a possibility of that happening. We just have to see how things work out and how we feel about everything. There's no reason not to. Well, it might not be very good. That's one reason. [Laughs]

The Pogues will be performing at Nokia Times Square in New York, NY 16-19 March. A new album is also due in March.

[Heather]

Thanks for that MacRua, good interview.

[Alex]

The Pogues will be performing at Nokia Times Square in New York, NY 16-19 March. A new album is also due in March.

haha

[Heather]

A new album is also due in March.

Would be nice but we'll wait and see.

[Irish Rover]

A new album is also due in March.

Would be nice but we'll wait and see.

That would be great.

Thanks for the interview MacRua.

[Michaelo]

Chris: Hey, you guys are back together, how about an album of new material?
Spider: I do have a stock reply for this, which is if youd asked me six years ago if we all would be back on stage together again, I would say that it would be very unlikely. Bearing that in mind, I would be foolish in saying that we won't be recording again. There's a possibility of that happening. We just have to see how things work out and how we feel about everything. There's no reason not to. Well, it might not be very good. That's one reason. [Laughs]

This looks reasonably promising, certainly more so than some of the previous comments I've seen on the chances of a new album

[CraigBatty]

I shall start holding my breath...........now

[Eric V]

The Pogues will be performing at Nokia Times Square in New York, NY 16-19 March. A new album is also due in March.

haha

Someone please explain!!!!

[CraigBatty]

STILL.... waiting....... to ....exhale

[Eric V]

:? STILL.... waiting....... to ....exhale

Good god! man, didn't I tell you -- it was not to publicly admit to inhale!??? Exhaling is for Buddhists, not for proper drunks like ourselves. Let it out and wait for Philip or Spider.

[CraigBatty]

Ah, my young padwan apprentice, but if I did NOT exhale, surely the multiversal reality would be denied its inception.