Sinéad: The Bald Facts
At the tender age of seventeen, Dubliner Sinéad O'Connor packed up Ton Ton Macoute, packed her bags and headed for London. Two years on she's had a few close shaves, recorded with the Edge and is on the verge of seriously launching her career with an album in January. Interview: Molly McAnailly Burke.
Molly McAnally Burke, 20 Nov 1986
It's a rainy day in London. Sinéad O'Connor's recording studio is hidden somewhere in a forest of council flats in the southwest city. I've woken her up ta the ungodly hour of half ten, and arrive to find this little bald creature slaving over a bowl of cornflakes and a cup of instant coffee. She's wearing a skimpy summer garment like a child's nightdress though the wind and hail is lashing outside. The complains about being cold. I was certain a nice, woolly Aran jumper would have been out of the question.
"My father has a really great tenor voice and I think always wished he'd been a singer," reminisces the wise old crone of 19. "He's from Crumlin and had a lot of old-fashioned Irish songs which he used to teach us, then we'd sing into a little dictaphone machine. He still has the tapes!"
It appears Mr O'Connor was courting disaster. Sinéad began making musical contributions to In Tua Nua at age 14, and after many unsuccessful attempts to keep her at school, including a stint incarcerated in Waterford boarding school, she placed an ad in this here paper looking for a band to join. She met Columb Farrelly of Ton Ton Macoute and began gigging regularly, never finishing school. It was a hell of a risk.
Sinéad wishes to stress that her relationship with the Ton Tons, while still presumably amicable, is finished in the musical sense. They are Columb's band, the vehicle for Columb's songs. "It got too heavy after a while and wasn't fun for me anymore," she explains. "We started arguing and soon I just wanted to go off and do my own thing - I just wasn't enjoying myself. Their reasons for being musicians and mine were just different - Columb wants to put forward his views of the world in a way which I respect in some ways and disrespect in others. He's into witchcraft and that completely freaked me out. I'm a singer who likes to have a laugh, to say what I want to say in a nice way, to have fun, to use my talents to please people."
If I can read between the lines of what was probably a rather uncomfortable story, it appears Nigel Grange of Ensign records encouraged Sinéad to part company with Columb's band. She got her own deal with Ensign a short time later and there were accusations that she had used the Ton Tons to launch her own career. Sinéad, however, claims this wasn't true, that she had given her notice to Columb several months before the deal. Hopefully it's all beer under the bridge by now. Sinéad bunked out of Dublin nearly two years ago and shows no signs of regretting her decision. Her album comes out on the first of the year.
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