Shane MacGowan features on three of the tracks, which grace the new Popes album, Outlaw Heaven.
The Celtic barnstormers in question are the title-track, ‘Loneliness Of A Long Distance Drinker’ and ‘Bastard’ – nobody said anything about it being subtle! Also on the guest-list is Shane’s fellow Pogue Spider Stacey.
The album was inspired by the time lead singer Paul ‘Mad Dog’ McGuinness spent recently on remand for perverting the course of justice.
‘I hated being stuck in a cockroach, mice infested 8x6 cell for 23 hours a day, but once I got over the bad food and cramped conditions I began to realise it was the best thing to happen to me in a long time,” McGuinness reflects. “I imagined I was in a luxury hotel getting the rest, detox and seclusion I needed to sort my life out. I also met some of the kindest, straightest, upfront people ever, and that was only the murderers! Prison is however the mother of creativity and before you could say ‘Outlaw Heaven’ I was off writing and singing songs to my cellmate. I didn’t have a guitar so I wrote the lyrics down on the three pieces of paper I was allowed every fortnight, the music I composed in my head. If I was able to get to church on Sunday I was able to borrow the priest’s guitar. Thank god for the folkmass – I never thought I’d say that!”
The collection is out here on May 8th.