Falling (slowly) out with people in the Irish music industry

The Irish music industry is a small pond and you can create big ripples unintentionally. I have fallen out with a few, but not many, in my time, most notably Glen Hansard many years ago. I surprise myself because I’m normally laid back, but I do, like most of us, demand respect, and get up in arms when I feel that its missing. With Glen, the tension was mainly to do with an ambiguous ‘socialism’ within The Frames, and the fact that, for me, it was not evident. Glen wanted to be the leader of the band, while imagining that it was also a democracy. I was on my high horse a little too much about it. It all came to a head one night in Czech Republic in 2004 when I walked off the stage during a gig as I felt like Glen was disrespecting me onstage in public with his body language, and not for the first time I felt. I find he has changed a lot in that regard nowadays. That night we all gathered anyway and went drinking in a club after the gig and it was a very emotionally charged evening. I even made a ‘citizen’s arrest’, dragging some bloke up 3 flights of stairs, full of rage, and threw him into a corner after he smashed a glass into his ex-girlfriends face. Everybody wanted to go home really at that point, so the rest of the tour was cancelled. I said at the following meeting back in Dublin that I’d give it 6 months to see if anything changed for the better. But really it felt like the band gave me 6 months to see if I could become part of the team again. I couldn’t. And that was it. Glen and myself have made up since and have played many tours and recordings together up to the present day, but it took a good few years.

Which brings me to a current situation. I’ve always admired the tough grit and inventive abilities that Jerry Fish has shown over the years. And the great songs of course. So it’s been a privilege to play music with him the last 10 years. One of the highlights has been playing with 90’s heroes An Emotional Fish, in the Olympia and in the 3 Arena and at ‘Classical Feile’ in Semple Stadium with a full orchestra. This year he decided to use a different ‘first call’ drummer without telling me why, and as I am particularly sensitive at the moment to losing work due to judgements on my private life, I so had it out with him on the phone. The timing was bad as somebody close to him was having a severely difficult time, and I didn't know this, and so there was a blow out, charged with emotion running from a different current altogether, and born out of the lack of proper initial communication. The bridge is damaged, and I’m as proud as the next man, but my respect for him remains intact, and, as is my philosophy, anything I have to say about him, will be to him.