Off-Ramp's John Rabe goes in-depth with James Fearnley, founding member of the Celtic/Punk band The Pogues, which turns 30 this year.
Pogues accordionist previews his memoir, "Here Comes Everybody"
UPDATE: James Fearnley writes with new news! See below.
I knew the moment James Fearnley of the Pogues sat down at the microphone at the Mohn Broadcast Center last week that not only would it be very difficult to edit the interview down to six-minutes - which is long for us - but that the stuff we left on the cutting room floor would be great stuff for a special podcast. Or Poguecast, in this case. So here to have more than half-an-hour with a man who was there at the beginning, 30 years ago this October. And at the end of the podcast you'll hear his new single, "Hey Ho," a deeply beautiful song.
From James Fearnley: As some of you may already know, my memoir Here Comes Everybody: The Story of The Pogues was published in the UK and Ireland last week. I am excited to announce that I will be having an exclusive stateside event to celebrate the first publication:
Where:
Lost & Found
6320 Yucca street
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323 856 5872
When:
Saturday May 26, 2012
2-6pm
The Pogues' James Fearnley on Celtic punk, firing Shane MacGowan, and St. Pat's
The way James Fearnley tells it, he and the rest of the Pogues were pretty uneasy about how Shane MacGowan would take being fired from the band that he'd helped make famous. But he'd become too unreliable, so in 1991, in Yokohama, they asked him to come down to the hotel room they were meeting in. MacGowan's reaction, as Fearnley tells it in our interview and his forthcoming memoir, "Here Comes Everybody," backs up Fearnley's contention that it wasn't just MacGowan's drinking that was causing his erratic behavior; it was the pressure.
The Pogues, who formed almost 30 years ago in London, a mix of Irish and English musicians who played Celtic music with a punk sensibility, were in trouble from the start. Their original name was Pogue Mahone, which means "kiss my ass" in Irish. The BBC didn't like that, so the DJ who championed them shortened it to The Pogues, which was done with MacGowan's other band, the Nips ... nee The Nipple Erectors.
Here's a spirited rendition of "If I Should Fall from Grace with God," from a 1988 performance in Japan.
Fearnley says the Celtic/punk mix "was odd, and I think galvanizing for people to listen to," and many Irish listeners were put off at first. "For some of them, it was difficult, but we quickly won them over because we were doing it honestly." In other words, it's clear from listening to the Pogues that they love this music.
Fearnley was not only a member of this seminal fusion band, but nearly joined Culture Club (!). He founded The Sweet and Low Orchestra, has played on Talking Heads and Melissa Etheridge albums, and currently plays with the Pogues and Cranky George, which plays locally on occasion. He just released his first single - Hey Ho - which we play at the end of the interview, and his Pogues memoir, "Here Comes Everybody," comes out in a few months.
You might see James Fearnley in the crowd at The Satellite in Silverlake as the East LA band performs its 10th annual Pogues tribute on Saturday, March 17th. Tickets are just $10.
(The audio: the first is the Reader's Digest broadcast version; the second is the 30+ min special podcast with much more about the formation of the band, meeting the BBC's John Peel, why Fearnley moved to California, etc.)