Hail hail wash and roll

Hey man, I’m really sorry I’m late,” says Pugwash frontman Thomas Walsh, ambling into the Central Hotel’s Library Bar. “You can blame Jerry Dammers. I was out with him ‘til all hours in Galway last night.”

It turns out that the affable Dublin singer was invited at short notice to do a DJ set with the former Specials keyboardist in the Róisín Dubh for the final night of Galway Race Week. Galway, of course, is where I live.
“Oh shite!” Walsh laughs, putting his head in his hands. “I totally forgot that you live in Galway. We could’ve done it there. I was only asked down at the last minute so I didn’t even think to call you.”
It’s lucky that Walsh is one of the great Irish rock ‘n’ roll talents – otherwise I’d be very miffed!
In truth it would be impossible to get the hump with Walsh, who is a nice guy and a genuine wit – as well as being the closest thing Ireland has to a bona fide pop genius. It’s three years since the release of his highly praised Eleven Modern Antiquities, and – just a week before his 42nd birthday – the Drimnagh-born musician is back on the Pugwash promotional trail to promote the band’s fifth studio album, The Olympus Sound.

While Eleven Modern Antiquities fell short of setting the world alight commercially, the intervening period has been an extraordinary one for Walsh. In 2009, his cricket-themed collaboration with Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, The Duckworth Lewis Method, was released to widespread acclaim.
Although the death of Michael Jackson kept the album out of the UK Top 30 (they’d mid-weeked at No. 28), the unlikely Irish duo got lots of radio play, sold records by the crease-load and were subsequently nominated for an Ivor Novello. As a result, the new album is being released on EMI. Walsh is visibly chuffed at the implied shift in fortunes.
“It’s a step-up in so many ways,” he says of the band’s move to a major. “I did Duckworth Lewis when I wanted to give up everything, you know. I just did it for a laugh, and a bit of experience. In another way, the last Pugwash album was a last hurrah because I couldn’t go on making those big records that didn’t sell. It takes too much out of you. And it takes too much out of the people who trust you and invest in you.”

Although Pugwash have been critical darlings since their 1999 debut, Almond Tea, a commercial breakthrough had eluded Thomas.
“I’ve always thought that if Pugwash got a shit review, we’d start selling,” he laughs. “Because all we’ve ever got is great reviews and the albums didn’t sell. You start thinking that it’s an albatross around your neck.”

For better or worse, reviews of The Olympus Sound to date have been par for the course; our own esteemed Ed Power awarded it four stars last issue. Co-produced by Walsh and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Tosh Flood, its gloriously poppy, occasionally psychedelic and utterly harmonious songs nod respectfully in the direction of The Beatles, XTC, The Beach Boys and other obvious influences, but are still somehow uniquely Pugwashian.
While it sounds like it was made in a Malibu beach house, the album was actually recorded in Exchequer Studios, over three wet weeks in Dublin. It was an intense experience for a man more used to making his albums over months, if not years, in fits and starts, in a makeshift studio in his parents’ garden shed.
“What a great buzz it was to do it in one go,” he enthuses. “I went at this record like me first, you know. This has been my most enjoyable record, probably because it was done in one lump of time. But also because it’s a band. I’ve had great session musicians play on my records before, but this time it’s a band.”
The current Pugwash line-up comprises Walsh, Flood, bassist Shaun McGee, and percussionist Joe Fitzgerald.

“One of the difficulties with Pugwash over the years has been that all me mates are such in-demand musicians, and brilliant musicians. They’d always do a lot for the cause of Pugwash, but they could never commit. And I didn’t expect them to. They’re jobbing musicians and they have to make a living.
“In Pugwash the band, we all hit this massive mid-life crisis. The whole lot of us were going through all kinds of traumatic personal stuff at the same time. So we all just looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s give it one last go! Let’s make the best record we’ve ever made! Let’s take on everything and just do it!’ It’s been amazing. And it’s very exciting. We can’t wait to go out and play it live.”
Various musicians and lyricists contributed to the album, including Ben Folds, Andy Partridge, Dave Gregory and, of course, Neil Hannon (who plays on six tracks). Walsh still isn’t ruling out the possibility of a second Duckworth Lewis Method record.
“We’ve talked about making another one, and we hopefully will, but it’d have to be for the right reasons. I’m proud that we made something unique, an album that had never been made before. And if we write another one, and it’s shit, we won’t do it. And it will be down to that. We won’t make it for money.”
As it happened, the cash he made from their first album, or rather the lifestyle it engendered, quickly led Walsh to a hospital bed.
“I had a bit of a health scare a while back,” he admits. “I made a few bob out of Duckworth Lewis, but I pissed it up against the wall. I was just drinking and everything else. Bad living and obviously I’m seriously overweight. But I stopped drinking and I’ve lost five stone in a year.”

Although thinner than he used to be, Walsh is still a large man.
“I was 14 or 15 pounds when I was born,” he explains. “I just have a crap metabolism and also I was brought up in the ‘70s as a working-class Dubliner when you got burgers made by weird people with weird ingredients. Your ma would send you down the market to get a load of stuff that was slightly out of date because it was cheaper. Nothing against me parents, they’re amazing people, still are. But it wasn’t good for me with my metabolism.”
Was it difficult to kick the booze?
“Not a bother,” he shrugs. “Crisps – that’s a bother. I’ll stand up in a room with anybody and say, ‘My name is Thomas Walsh and I am addicted to King crisps’. But giving up drink wasn’t a bother. I didn’t start until I was 26.”
Sobriety certainly suits Walsh’s voice. His honeyed vocal performances on much of The Olympus Sound are his most assured yet. Then again, this Olympian effort may have been more down to the confidence boost he received when an unexpected letter from ELO’s Jeff Lynne arrived midway through the recording. Pugwash have their fair share of celebrity fans, but this one really meant a lot.
“It blew me away,” he grins. “I came home during the recording. I’d gone out after the session so it was about 2.30 in the morning. There was a bit of post there. I was in the kitchen and I never do this normally, but I took a knife out and opened it with that – like some kind of 18th century boffin or something. I would’ve normally just ripped it open.

“And it opened with, ‘Hi Thomas, I just want to say that I’ve been a big fan of yours for quite some time now...’ And I thought it was a fan letter because sometimes you get them. And I looked down the bottom and saw it was signed by Jeff Lynne. I just reread the letter and it was full of references to the albums and the way I record. You just knew that he had listened, you know.”
Music is an art to Walsh – and he certainly knows his stuff. I recognise only about half the names of the obscure bands, singles, albums and producers that pepper his conversation. So what does a man so passionate about pop music think of shows like The X Factor?
“Those kind of shows have been around for years,” he says, putting the phenomenon in perspective. “Opportunity Knocks and all those star-search programmes – but what they were offering wasn’t an instant celebrity lifestyle. It wasn’t an OK magazine lifestyle or an MTV lifestyle. There were talented original people in amongst the crap, and there was a lot of crap, but what they were offering wasn’t this instant take you in, chew you up and spit you out lifestyle. That’s the problem I have with it. What they’re offering is fake.
“Ultimately, I suspect that someone like Mary Byrne will look back in ten years and remember that she was happier in the supermarket,” he continues. “That’s my opinion. She will ultimately have been happier going to Tesco every morning, doing her job, and having the buzz in Ballyfermot. She’ll probably look back and go, ‘Yeah, I sang with Neil Diamond, was on the telly every week in front of ten million people’, but ultimately getting up and hanging out with her mates at the checkout will have been more fun.”

Mary Byrne would disagree, vehemently I’m sure. But who knows what the future holds?
Finally, there is the matter of the band’s name. We discuss some of the more shall we say esoteric connotations – ignoring the reference to Captain Pugwash that most people take as its origin – and I suggest that it might not exactly have been an asset along the way.
Walsh laughs heartily and throws his hands in the air.
“Look, it’s a shit name,” he says with alarming candour. “But what can I do? There’s been great names for bands that are shit. And a lot of shit bands have great names. Radiohead? Coldplay? Now, I’ll admit that Pugwash is down there with the worst of them, but it was gonna be Belch early on. Which, let’s face it, is even worse.”
He’s right you know...