EOIN BUTLERtalks to Cork troubadour Jophn Spillane about his new album.
After decades in the music business, you're an overnight success.It's been a long slog. I was playing in bands all my life. But I didn't sign my first proper recording contract until my 40th birthday. A lot of fellas try for a music career when they're younger, but then settle for a day job. I've done it the other way around. I'm in for the marathon here. It's like the tortoise and the hare – it's the tortoise who wins the race in the end.
There's a song on your new album about Passage West. That's where you live isn't it?Yes, my wife and I bought a house in Passage 12 years ago and settled down. Two years ago a member of the local community walked up to me and pressed a book, The History of Passage West, into my hand and said, "John, would you ever write a song for Passage? It's always been neglected."
How has the song gone down?Fantastic. The man's name is Walty Murphy and I've been mentioning him a bit in interviews since. He says if he had a euro for every phone call he's gotten about it he'd be a rich man!
Is it a conscious thing to write about first-hand experiences and sing in your own accent?Absolutely. When I started playing in rock bands, I'd find myself singing in a sort of phoney American accent. Now I'm keeping it real, you could say. There's a saying I love to quote: if you write a song about the world, nobody will relate to it. If you write a song about your own village, the whole world will relate to it.
I understand you're also a big player on the "Celtic" scene.(laughs) Not quite. A few years ago, my songs started to appear on compilation albums with names like Celtic Voices, Celtic Voices II, Holding Up Half the Sky: Songs By Celtic Women. . . And you know, this whole idea of "Celtic" music is a bit airy fairy – it's all scented candles, dream catchers, Enya albums . . . stuff like that. Then again, Celtic Womansold a million albums in America. So there are obviously some people who fall for it.
Other musicians would just keep quiet and cash the cheques, wouldn't they?Yeah, I'm only having a bit of craic about it really . . . Besides, the cheques I was getting weren't that big!
What was the reaction when you told EMI that you wanted to call your Best Of compilation 'So Far So Good, Like'?They got it. They understood. I wanted to call the album So Far, So Good – because when I'm playing live, I'll often say that at the end of each song. But lots of artists had already used that title, so I said, in that case let's call it So Far So Good, Like. The first album I'd done for them was called Will We Be Brilliant or What? So they said, away you go.
I know Christy Moore is a big hero of yours. It must have been a thrill to have him cover one of your songs?Well, Christy came to see me perform a few times in Dublin, which was just incredible. Then last year I released an album called My Dark Rosaleen and the Island of Dreams. There was a song on it called Gortatagort, about the 40-acre farm in west Cork where my mother grew up. Shortly afterwards, I got a text message saying "Lovely album, John. What a beautiful song about the farm. Touches me deeply, Christy Moore."
Wow . . .So Christy came down to the farm and visited my Auntie Mary. We walked the land, showed him all of the fields mentioned in the song and then we had the big tea in the house, with Auntie Mary's brown bread. I sang Gortatagortand Christy sang The Cliffs of Dooneenand Auntie Mary played the fiddle and my other auntie cried. He's since recorded the song – and of course he's really singing about his own mother's place, the farm she grew up on in Kildare, which since went out of the family. So he's using my song to get to that emotion. But what a gentleman. He still sends Auntie Mary postcards.
'Gortatagort' – the Field of the Priest – was there a mass rock there?They say there was, yeah, long ago.
Finally, you're obviously not an urban sophisticate. Have you ever run up against any snobbery within the industry?Not so much any more. When my first album came out, I did an interview with the RTÉ Guide and the guy was just kind of laughing at me. He was very condescending, very Dublin about it. But sure I don't mind. I came back next time and that guy was gone. It's like I said – I'm the tortoise and he's the hare. I'm in for the long haul.