Irish Rovers

Rip It Up, Issue 202, 1 June 1994, Page 20

Irish Rovers

“We had a weird experience in the middle of a recording session last week. We were asked by Sony to record a track for a Black Sabbath tribute album. Then we get this phone call in the studio from Ozzy Osbourne, he wanted to lay vocals on the track. So we flew over to Los Angeles and recorded ‘lronman.’ We got to meet him and it was brilliant.”

Andy. Cairns, lead singer and guitarist with Therapy? is just-plain excited, in fact he sounds like a fan. During an arduous tour of North America the Irish trio had the honour of being headhunted by the bat man himself. "We went in and did the track the day before, a real punky version, sped up Black Flag-like. We didn't know what he would make of it but he thought it was great. The funny thing was we made quite a few attempts at it but Ozzy came in and did the vocals in two takes, note perfect." . The middle man between Ozzy and Therapy? was their second major label album Troublegum. Ozzy really dug it. Boasting equal helpings of industrial punk and grating pop, combined with Therapy?’s trademark angst-ridden lyrics, it’s the next logical step for a constantly evolvi ba n d “With the Nurse album we would just go in and 'V 4 jam ' things

out in the studio then record, a lot of the songs had no structure. Whenever we came round to making Troublegum I wanted to make an album of hardhitting three minute songs, but we also wanted to have a few hooks. Troublegum has a 90s punk edge rather than the 70s edge that lots of guitar bands are using."

Therapy?’s topics of discussion are also of a 90s flavour. Their lyrics often cruise the fine line between reason and chaotic insanity, but more often just soar right over the top. Cairns continually brings to the surface the darkest, most unpleasant side of the human psyche. "We tend to look at some of the absurd things in life and poke fun at them. Some of it’s biographical, some of it’s tongue-in-cheek and some of it's just inspecting bits of life. For some reason my expression manifests itself through the ugly things in life, it’s like an exorcism, like getting something off your chest. I’m lucky that I can get all my darkness and anger out through the songs." An added inspiration for Cairns' lyrical waxing is being an Irishman in America. Therapy? have been there four times now, and are currently holed up in Cincinnatti. Questioning Cairns, a Protestant, on the reception he receives from fellow countrymen living in the US appears to strike a chord. He’s on a roll, flitting from topic to topic and who am I to interrupt. “In America there's an awful lot of people with an Irish heritage but they’ve never been there and it’s very very romantic for them to go on about their great grandmother from Galway. You get people buying you fri drinks all night because you're Irish, then :

they’ll decide they can tell you what’s wrong with your country. Eventually you discover they’ve never been there. "There’s an awful lot of misconceptions about Ireland over here because it’s such a cultural melting pot, people are desperate to cling on to their original cultural identity. “It’s similar to whenever I go to England, see I feel Irish because I don’t feel anything in common with the English people. But when I go down into Southern Ireland, the whole culture is different, and I feel I don’t belong. So at the end of the day it’s like a real mongrel culture if you’re Northern Irish. I think that has spilled over into today’s generation, there is a feeling of resilience against having no identity and being brought up surrounded by violence. Does that mean — "The thing is if you’re brought up in a hardcore republican or hardcore loyalist area, yer fucked really. Because at some stage you’ll be approached to join one of the political factions, usually at a very young age. It's just so easy to get in trouble, especially if yer mother and father don’t get on and beat the fuck out of each other. And you’re an only child, a fifteen year old who watches J lots of Rambo and Goodfella movies. If Jfl someone gives you a gun you don’t see it JH as a crime you see it as a glamorous thing. JH

"Another thing to remember is that any loyalist culture or any republican culture is slowly fading away, 'cause a lot of people are dealing drugs or running protection and prostitution rackets. These people want to keep the conflict going because they make a lot of money out of it. People into conspiracy theories believe that they meet now and again and agree to keep the thing going.” There’s an awkward silence as we each wait for the other to speak before Cairns adds the obvious. "I think the solution in Northern Ireland lies in total re-education.” With that Cairns announces his morning of interviews is near completion, the last interrogator in the queue is waiting in the wings. He grants one last question and it’s my turn to be predictable. Therapy? will tour Australia in October, though Cairns will do his damnedest to jump, band and all, over the ditch. Fingers crossed.

JOHN RUSSELL