CELTUS HEARTBEAT

PAT AND John McManus are probably most familiar to readers as members of Mama s Boys Enniskillen s answer to Def Leppard than as Celtus. But the lads have left hard rock behind them and are now more usually seen with a bodhran or a low whistle than an electric guitar or bass.
This shouldn t come as too much of a surprise, though, as traditional music always played a huge part in the McManus brothers lives. Trained by their father on fiddle and tin whistle from an early age, the brothers have a grounding in traditional music that stretches back further than their rock influences.
We never stopped playing trad, smiles Pat. Even with Mama s Boys. Backstage in the changing room, we would be belting out reels and jigs, so we always held it very dearly to our hearts.
Mama s Boys came to an end in 1994, when the youngest McManus brother, Tommy, tragically passed away. Tommy had been receiving treatment for leukaemia throughout his career with the hard rockin Fermanagh act, and when he died, his older siblings had no desire to continue the band.
We were really close and it was very difficult, being three brothers, to do this any more, says Pat. We didn t want to play again.
We had an awful lot of fun as Mama s Boys and part of that fun was always created by Tommy, says John. He was a real character. We could never imagine ever wanting to continue without him. It was devastating for everybody. It was just a horrible and very dark period for everyone.
Both Pat and John speak of Tommy with sadness, but also with gratitude for the enjoyable times they had together.
As Pat puts it, He had 28 glorious years. He was a man who really enjoyed himself. He was ill from when he was very young and he carried that through his whole music career. We used to tell him to slow down a bit and not to tempt fate. He d say, Ah sure I mightn t be here that long . He would be standing in the middle of his suitcase at four o clock in the morning, saying I m going to a club even if we were in the back of beyond. His philosophy was always to enjoy himself while he was here. He had a tough time but he also had a great time.
We remember more of the good times and the years we had with him rather than what it was like towards the end, says John. It s better not to dwell too much on that.
As the months passed after Tommy s death, the two McManus siblings gradually began to miss the business in which they had spent most of their lives. You can try to leave the music business, but it never leaves you, smiles John.
The two brothers eventually decided to return to their own studio in Fermanagh and play but this time they opted for their first love, trad.
The whole music scene had changed. We said, Why should we do this? We just went back to playing reels and jigs like we used to, laughs Pat. It was just for fun. There was nothing serious in it at all.
Describing the music on Celtus debut LP, Moonchild, as reels and jigs is like describing Maradona as a bit of a footballer. Moonchild certainly incorporates traditional music in its mix, but it is much more than that, fusing modern instruments and beats with more traditional instruments in a compelling, haunting, and indeed hypnotising mix.
We grew up playing Irish music but we wanted to incorporate drums and add add a new feel to it, says Pat. We wanted to steer away from the more traditional feel and we felt that it might be interesting to blend that feel with slow dance grooves and see what would happen, because I don t think anyone had ever done that. Harmonies, too, were something that we always loved and we felt that this was a chance to do what we wanted to do for ourselves.
Irish music fits in with a lot of different styles of music, he adds. It s like the way the blues has changed from its earliest form into what music is today it has all come from the blues. I think, any ethnic music can make that changeover it s something that is in the make-up of the music.
The Celtus sound is built around innovation but the recording of Moonchild wasn t Pat s first foray into the realms of experimentation, having worked with the inimitable Tricky.
A sound engineer we used to work with rang me up and told me that Tricky was in Spain recording an album and wanted a fiddle player. They had a classical player out there but it didn t work out because it wasn t the vibe the man was looking for, he smiles. I duly plugged in me electric fiddle and said Right, ya boy ya, where s me wah-wah pedal? .
Pat ended up on no fewer than four tracks on Tricky s Post Millennium Tension LP, an experience which he found extremely rewarding.
It was a marvellous experience because I had never been around another songwriter like that, he says. I came back to John full of stories about the way he works and the way he puts the tracks together. From my point of view, it was amazing watching him do it. Within five minutes he had this groove playing and a really good song started to come. He is a poet really the lyrics that came out were fantastic and they came straight off the top of his head. Plus he was a really nice guy, very clued-in and very worldly. I learned a lot from him about attitude and about not being afraid to try things.
Celtus ended up with a record deal almost by accident, signed to Sony s S2 label by none other than the legendary Muff Winwood, described by John as the high priest of A&R . Unlike many bands, though, signing a deal seemed to come together very easily for Celtus with different elements falling seamlessly into place.
Before, with Mama s Boys, we were constantly grafting and trying to get stuff out there and this time round we didn t give a shit, to be honest, says John. There was no pressure on either of us to do anything, because we didn t want to go down that road again. It just happened. It is unbelievable.
He smiles.
I know that Tommy would have been really disappointed if he thought that we had given up on music completely, and I firmly believe that he is steering the ship from above. n

Moonchild is out now on S2. Celtus play the Millstreet Music Fair on Sunday 3rd August.