The Lost Band In Europe

Amid the lorryload of pre-Millennium lists which clogged the newspapers and magazines this time last year, one name continually featured in the Champions League qualifying positions whenever this country's contribution to Rock'n'Roll's rich tapestry was assessed : The Blades.

A generation for whom vinyl was about as relevant as steam radio must have wondered whether so many commentators were indulging in a collective bout of 'rare oul times' nostalgia as we came over all misty-eyed at the merest mention of the band but, at last, the evidence is now available over the counter courtesy of the two-CD pack Those Were The Days, a collection which proves once and for all that The Blades really were one of the most vital and talented units we've ever had the privilege to call our own.
In Paul Cleary, The Blades possessed a songwriter who combined classic pop structures with the fiery spirit of punk and also imbued his three-minute gems with a wit and a working class anger which never resorted to hectoring or sloganeering. On The Last Man In Europe (their only full-length studio album) and Raytown Revisited (a superior odds'n'sods collection of singles, B-sides and out-takes), Cleary moves from the love across the class/economic divide of 'Ghost Of A Chance' (which appeared on the Irish Rock A-Z collection a few years ago) to the joyous summer pop of 'Hot For You', via the classic urban lament of 'Downmarket', stopping at bitter schoolday memories ('Those Were The Days') and unerring social analysis ('The Bride Wore White') along the way, while still managing to knock out gorgeous love songs ('Some People Smile', 'Boy One' and 'Animation') as he went.
Many people have been hoping that the belated reappearance of these national treasures will spark a return to action by The Blades, but, if you're thus inclined, then I'm afraid Paul Cleary has some bad news for you.
"This is my way of putting The Blades to rest, once and for all," he states emphatically. "The band have been gone for fifteen years now and to haul ourselves up on a stage again just wouldn't be right, for me anyway. Over the years there have been plenty of offers alright. Some of them have been quite tempting financially and didn't appear to involve that much physical effort - y'know, a couple of Olympias and a short burst around the country - but I've always had a stubborn streak in me and I simply didn't want to be seen to be relying on past glories to make a few bob. I know that if I had done it it would have probably gone well and people would have enjoyed their night out, but The Blades were a huge part of my life, they were a vehicle for my songs and I'm very precious about the sanctity of the name, if that doesn't sound too pretentious! Nah, I just think it'd be stupid."
Be that as it may, Paul must be aware that by releasing Those Were The Days, he's effectively inviting a whole new batch of phonecalls, as The Blades' original audience are all now thirty and fortysomethings who aren't exactly averse to a trip down memory lane, as the recent demand to see The Undertones has proved.
"Good luck to The Undertones, " he says. "I'm sure they're having a good time and they've admitted that they're just doing it on an occasional basis to make some money, which I've no problem with, but as I said, that's just not right for The Blades. In fact, it took me a long time to come around to re-releasing the material at all. On several occasions I've been approached about doing a 'best of' but I'd always resisted the idea.
"I'd effectively retired from the music business after The Partisans (Paul's post-Blades outfit) finished. Okay, I was playing guitar and doing a bit of singing with The Cajun Kings but that was just pub rock, knockabout stuff, but as regards writing songs and trying to get them out to an audience it was over. And I knew that if The Blades were brought back into the public arena then I'd be putting my head above the parapet again and I didn't want that at all. I'd given over ten years of my life to music and I was back in the real world, I'd moved on and didn't want to be dragged back into the business again. Eventually there was sufficient distance between then and now for me to handle it the way I wanted to, I'll do the press and radio interviews but I've no intention of performing and I'm strong enough now not to be swayed."
A quick glance at the credits for Raytown Revisited reveals that there were two very distinct versions of The Blades. From late 1982 until their demise in 1986 the core line-up consisted of Paul on vocals and guitar, Brian Foley on bass and Jake Reilly on drums, augmented by brass and keyboards - this being the unit that recorded The Last Man In Europe and a clutch of singles - yet for many people the original three-piece with Paul on bass, his brother Lar on guitar and Pat Larkin on drums remains fixed in the mind as the definitive Blades, who formed in Ringsend in 1977 and were neck-and-neck with U2 in the 'most likely to' stakes until the latter went stratospheric around 1980.
"For me the band with Brian and Jake is the real Blades," asserts Paul. "I don't mean to disparage the earlier line-up at all but by 1982 I felt that my songs were much, much better, my singing was better and we were a really good band. I hope this doesn't come across as boastful but we were a very good band, we worked hard, we were very disciplined and we knew that we could go anywhere in the country and win over any crowd.
"With the original line-up we were fairly ragged to begin with, which is only natural as it was 1977 and making a bit of a racket was all-important. We definitely improved immensely because we always believed that songs were the key to everything and we worked really hard on those. As you know yourself there was an awful lot of shape-throwing going on in Dublin back then and very few songs knocking around. U2 were more into an overall sound than anything else, The Virgin Prunes I didn't even reckon were a band at all, more like some weird art project, DC Nien The Atrix .
"I'd always been a big fan of The Beatles and Motown, so when we started writing songs I was looking to people like Lennon & McCartney and Smokey Robinson and trying to see how they structured their stuff. And let's face it, if you're going to pinch ideas then they're the boys to hit!"
Via a residency in Pearse Street's The Magnet ("Our home venue in the early years!") The Blades quickly graduated to larger city centre venues, one of their most memorable adventures being the now legendary six-week residency in The Baggot Inn with U2 in the late 70s. Much was made of the supposed rivalry between the bands but Paul insists that this was blown out of all proportion.
"That was definitely a media thing," he states categorically. "There might have been a certain degree of animosity between our fans and their fans but that's always the way - it's like Celtic and Rangers fans battering each other while the players shake hands and have a drink after the match. We always got on reasonably well with U2. They had their thing, we had ours and the two bands sounded absolutely nothing like each other so there wasn't anything in that at all. They were about to release their debut album, we hadn't even recorded 'Hot For You', they were off to America, we hadn't even played London at that point the rivalry was hyped up, definitely."
One of the questions most frequently asked about The Blades is how come, with a writer as talented as Cleary on board, they never managed to make it beyond being big in Ireland. It is, I suspect, a poser which Paul has heard many a time in pub toilets down the years.
"Which version would you like?" he asks with a laugh. "I don't think there's any one thing which you could pinpoint. Every band really is riding its luck once they get going. You could say that we were the right band at the right time but happened to be in the wrong place, because A&R men weren't exactly flocking to Dublin at that point when there was so much happening in England. You could put it down to bad luck with record companies, because the first two singles were on a small English company called Energy and they folded. The Last Man In Europe was due to come out on Elektra and they were taken over just before the release, which meant everyone who'd been involved in signing us was gone and that delayed us yet again before we put it out on Reekus.
"There are any number of things which you could point to in hindsight and say 'Yeah, there's where it went pear-shaped' but I stopped worrying about that a long time ago. As far as I'm concerned The Blades had their run, I'm immensely proud of what we achieved, that we were one of the most popular bands in the country, of the songs I wrote and here they are if anyone wants to check them out. It's very flattering that people still care about the band and what we meant to them. It means that I didn't entirely waste my time!"