Fountains of Wayne

For a man who put more illegal substances into his body than The Famous Five had ginger ale, Wayne Hussey sounds remarkably chipper and, dare I say it, sensible. But then, those days were long ago, when The Mission were on a black-clad odyssey of grandiose arrangements, melodramatic lyrics and chart success, and Hussey and his cohorts were young, free and singularly bent on sensory overload. Today, a somewhat older and much wiser frontman is chilling out with his Brazilian wife’s family in Sao Paolo, prior to embarking on another world tour.

The Mission packed their leathers and make-up away in 1996, a few years after hit albums like Children and God’s Own Medicine had made them one of the most popular rock bands in the world. And so it seemed that Wayne Hussey had disappeared from the music world forever, but he reappeared in 1999 for a reunion tour (“I’d nothing better to do”), and before you could say ‘Didn’t you used to be a Sister of Mercy?’, he was back in studio recording what was to become AurA. And a bloody good album it is too.

When they reformed for the reunion tour, Hussey admits: “It was obvious that the currency was pure nostalgia: just go and have fun, playing a bunch of old songs with a bunch of old mates”. But before long, they found that the old magic had returned: “There were a lot of ideas flying around and we thought maybe we should make a record and get it all out of our systems.”

Are there differences this time around?

“We’ve less hair and more round the middle,” Hussey laughs. “I think we’re all a little mellower. Basically, when we put the band back together it was a case of just enjoying it and not getting stressed out by the business and all the peripherals.”

In the past, when The Mission were at the peak of their fame, they had a reputation for all sorts of on-the-road madness and excess. I wondered if that side of the band has slipped into the background now that they are all that bit older.

“I wouldn’t say that it has taken a back-seat,” he muses. “I think there is a time and a place for everything. I think we are just a little more moderate these days. We still have our moments when we’re on tour: it’s just not every night.”

I enquired if the frontman has any favourite incidents from his narcotic-fuelled past.

“Obviously, the best ones are the ones you don’t remember,” he chuckles. “There were a lot of drugs around in those days and we did consume a lot of alcohol and there was a lot of craziness. But we were relatively young, out in the world, enjoying our success and we thought it would never end, so obviously you go a bit crazy. It [success] is something you work towards, so when it comes it’s like ‘Oh ‘eck, let’s abuse it, and ourselves too’.”

He admits to having been nervous when when he stepped back on stage as The Mission’s singer. “I think it has taken a little while for me to get my confidence back again, because it had taken a bit of a beating,” he confesses. “Gradually, through the course of the first tour that we did, I began to feel that this was my spiritual home, in a lot of respects. This is where I feel okay and comfortable, which was weird because I never felt like I missed being on stage or being in a band.”

No doubt his Dublin audience will delve through their wardrobes for their old eadaí dubh on May 25th when the current World Tour swings by Vicar Street, a reunion Hussey is looking forward to.

“Dublin is a great town and it is the only place in the world that serves a decent pint of Guinness,” he laughs. “Lately, though, we’ve been to Brazil more often than Ireland, which is weird. It is 12 years since we’ve been to Dublin, which is too damn long.”