Matt Molloy is one of the Great Ones of traditional Irish music. A longtime member of The Chieftains and a veteran of Planxty and The Bothy Band, he s just released his fourth solo recording, Shadows On Stone. Taking its inspiration from tunes, songs and legends associated with the sea, the album features such fellow luminaries as Frankie Gavin, Mairiad Nm Mhaonaigh, Arty McGlynn, Mairtin O Connor, Steve Cooney and Christy Moore, and has already drawn richly-deserved rave reviews in the local press.
Now here he is, sitting back in an easy chair in his room at the spanking-new Herbert Park Hotel across from the RDS, where tonight the Chieftains are playing at some undisclosed function I think it s a sort of agricultural thing, he murmurs vaguely. Twenty years ago, as an Aer Lingus mechanic enjoying what he thought was a temporary break from the job to go touring with the Bothy Band, could he have foreseen all this?
Not likely! No way, I still had my toolbox. I remember the first time I went away with The Bothy Band, we took a camper van down onto the ferry, and I thought Jesus, I can t believe it, this is a holiday, but this is work, and I couldn t believe my good fortune. Mind you, we didn t make any money at it, but the music was great. No, I never thought it would expand to the way it is today.
There were definitely elements of the rock n roll lifestyle, no question about that. Suffice to say that we had a lot of fun and we played a lot of music and we probably drank too much, and it put me in a TB ward at one stage. Too much drink, not enough sleep, bad eating habits. I was in the hospital for about seven or eight weeks and then I was on drugs for two years, 24 tablets a day. I had a grand head of black hair at one time, but that put paid to that.
But in some ways it probably was the best thing that ever happened to me. If you re in the fast lane and you have to lie on your back for seven weeks out of the blue, you ve plenty of time to think, and I just began to realise that I had nothing in order, nothing secure, no insurance I had a young family at the time, so it was a very selfish way to go on, and I decided to do something about it.
After a brief sojourn with the re-formed Planxty, he joined The Chieftains in 1979. He s at pains to point out that while the promise of steady work was certainly an important consideration, it wasn t his primary reason for joining the band a claim borne out by the fact that he s still with them despite earning a plentiful income from his successful pub in Westport.
He is, however, rather impatient with the group s propensity for embarking on one madcap musical cross-pollination experiment after another. The direction of the next album has already been determined word has it that singers from Norway and Japan will figure but for the one after that, I would sincerely hope that it s back to the roots, back to the basics but we ll see. You get caught up in all this business thing, pressures from record companies and divil knows what. Some of the collaborations, you can take them or leave them but that s the fun of the thing. As I said somewhere else, who wouldn t want to be in the same studio as The Rolling Stones for a day? I think any musician who said he wouldn t would be a liar.
Matt s also less than enthusiastic about the forays of other bands into hybrid territory: Some of that stuff, I don t think it really works. I love bluegrass and I love traditional music, but I don t think they mix and that s just one example. Having said that, I have no problem with people trying things out. Let them do it if they want. I think the actual tradition is strong enough.
Sometimes the danger is that a lot of younger players don t dig into the history of their music as much as they should. It s not just a matter of learning a bunch of jigs, a bunch of reels, a bunch of hornpipes and off you go. They should study it, and the more they study, the more they ll realise they don t know. I found that. I feel like by the time I m good enough, I ll be too old. n