INTERVIEW:On a trip home to Donaghmede, Damien Dempsey discusses swimming in the sea, escaping abroad and how he's working to shake off his hard-man image, writes TONY CLAYTON-LEA
ARMS OUTSTRETCHED in a god-like pose, standing atop a rocky spur at what might not be an official swimming spot in Howth, north Co Dublin, Damien Dempsey cuts an imposing figure in his army-grey T-shirt and black swimming trunks. But then, we’d imagine even in a chunky Aran sweater and formless trousers, Dempsey would still come across as a formidable kind of guy. When he takes a dive into the choppy waters, you think for a second that one of Ireland’s most respected singer-songwriters might be heading for martyrdom, but then his head bobs up, with a big grin on his soaking face.
Dempsey swims whenever he can, whatever the weather, and when he’s home in his neck of the woods (Donaghmede, although he has recently moved to a Dublin city centre flat) he calls up some of his mates for a communal splash in the Irish Sea.
It has been pointed out, incorrectly, by some sections of the Irish media that Dempsey is something of a hard nut. He looks it, alright, but his resolutely working-class background is becoming less and less of a talking point. “People have accepted me a lot more now,” he says with a palpable sense of relief in his voice, nursing a glass of water in a Howth pub.
“Some sections of the media wanted to use my background to make the story more interesting. At some point along the way, in the early days, they got hold of the fact that I did a bit of amateur boxing, and the next thing I knew I was a boxer. But it was just a little hobby I had when I was a teenager, no more than a few fights, but some papers ran with it because it made a better story.”
Dempsey doesn’t need the disservice of such hooks or angles any more; what has made him stand out from the plethora of Irish singer-songwriters that emerged in the mid to late 1990s was his unyielding adherence to his working-class values sung in a Dublin accent so thick that it quickly divided opinion.
“I was trying to document through my songs what it was like to live in urban Ireland in the 1980s, 1990s and noughties. It’s folk music, essentially, a natural thing for me, songs that reference what annoys me about life and what brings me joy.”
He recalls his early ambitions as virtually unattainable ones: “I wanted to play to lots of people, meet my heroes – the likes of Christy Moore, Sinéad O’Connor, Shane MacGowan – and sing with them some day. I wanted to make money and sort my family out, because they would have been struggling at the time. My mother and father split up in around 1990, and she was left with nothing. My older brother and father were panel beaters, and I’d see them come home and sit down, oil all over them, knackered. And so I just wanted to make a few bob to help them out.”
He can appreciate now how some people might have viewed his early songs, performed in a guttural, gut-instinct manner, as gimmicky. “People were telling me it was brutal, that I shouldn’t be singing songs that way, but that made me put the accent on thicker. That has balanced out these days, as I really think I’ve found my own voice. Maybe I was laying it on a bit with the lyrics, as well, perhaps I was a bit too in-your-face, hard, not much subtlety. Me against the world kinda stuff . . . Back then I was tunnel-visioned into the music; as I say, the boxing was a hobby, I loved swimming, but I knew I was never going to box or swim for Ireland.”
Now back in Ireland following stints abroad (London, New York, Sydney), Dempsey is preparing material for his next album, which he hopes will be ready for release early next year. “I needed a break,” he says of his wanderlust, “and whenever the songs aren’t flowing I get out of Dublin. I need to get perspective now and again, and going to different places allows my head to clear so that fresher things drift back into it.”
A theme of community is emerging, brought about, no question, by the effects of the recession. “A few years ago, people were in competition with each other for bigger cars, bigger televisions; the community spirit was disappearing fast. But now there are more people looking out for each other – just like it was in the 1980s. There was too much money floating around a few years ago, and we were like the Native Americans when they were introduced to whiskey: we didn’t know how to handle it.”
Ten years have passed since Dempsey released his uncompromising debut album, They Don’t Teach This Sh*t In School. From such improbable beginnings (he admits to cringing at some of his very early songs), he has developed into a provocative, urban singer-songwriter of substance. He says he has tried writing pumping/jumping festival songs, but feels, inherently, that he should stick to what he’s good at.
Which is what, precisely? “Writing songs that make people feel not so alone, I think; that there’s someone out there feeling the same as them. Songs that cut through all the bullsh*t, emotive songs with chinks of light and hope.”
Damien Dempsey is special guest to Dervish, at Dublin’s NCH, Friday, September 3rd, as part of ESB Live. See nch.ie. Dempsey plays The Workman’s Club, 10 Wellington Quay, Dublin on September 15th. €28, ticketmaster.ie
OTHER VOICES THE MEN WHO INSPIRE DEMPSEY'S MUSIC
WOODY GUTHRIE
Guthrie is an American folk singer whose legacy includes numerous political and social-realism songs, many of which were influenced by his experiences during the Great Depression. Songwriters such as Phil Ochs, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton have readily acknowledged their debt to the singer.
"This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me"
– This Land Is Your Land
CHRISTY MOORE
Unquestionably Ireland's greatest folk singer and songwriter, Moore is best known for his songs of social and political commentary. He is also a staunch champion of other Irish songwriters such as Johnny Mulhern, Johnny Duhan and Jimmy McCarthy.
"I'm an ordinary man, nothing special nothing grand
I've had to work for everything I own
I never asked for a lot, I was happy with
what I got
Enough to keep my family and my
home" – An Ordinary Man
SHANE MacGOWAN
For a period in the 1980s MacGowan's songs of Irish heritage, nationalism and – more acutely – the experiences of the Irish in London and the US, were primary examples of someone who, for several years at least, was a creative force to be reckoned with.
"When I first came to London, I was only 16
With a fiver in my pocket and my 'ol dancin' bag
I went down to the dilly to check out the scene
But I soon ended up on the old main drag" – The Old Main Drag
BOB MARLEY
Quite possibly one of the most commercially successful "rebel" songwriters, through songs such as Babylon System, Blackman Redemption and Black Survivor, Marley highlighted the struggles of blacks and Africans against varying levels of oppression and bigotry.
"Never make a politician grant you a favour
They will always want to control you forever" – Revolution
