Mike Scott from The Waterboys (Image: Getty)
“John Dunford, my co-producer, engaged a local guy named Noel to cook for us,” singer and guitarist Mike told me. “He was a likable guy; he would come into the control room with trays of alcohol. But, apparently, we didn’t pay enough attention to him. We weren’t rude—we worked quietly. And in the end, he got tired of us.”
We’re of course used to moody chefs, but don’t expect to see what happened next on reality TV, let alone Ireland’s Wild West.
“On payday he went out very drunk and then came back with a gun looking for John. He chased a road and shot himself in the head. The road ran toward other people, and John got off, grabbed the gun and broke it in his knee.
“I was in the studio hilariously recording my voice, when I heard the commotion. When I walked out, they were all outside with the cunning looking chef and his eyes rolling.”
Dunford told him to go, using language more associated with Chef Ramsay, but he didn’t get it. Mike laughs, “He just said, ‘Do you want me to go and make dinner now?'” “
It’s not the kind of story you’d expect from a guy like Scott, who is known for embracing the spiritual side of life. But the Edinburgh-born star is full of surprises.
Steve Wickham and Mike Scott of The Waterboys perform at The Roundhouse (Image: Getty)
When I ask him what he’s proud of, he initially cites rolling around and getting involved with Bob Dylan; He later edited his answer via Twitter to the Waterboys cover of Leonard Cohen’s Passing Through on a new album, All Souls Hill.
How was Bob like? “He was a jovial, funny guy. He loved jokes and long stories,” Mike, 63, told me his Scottish bump hadn’t diminished because of his many years in Ireland. “He seemed very shy. We were in a house he rented in Holland Park, West London. It was a real ‘pinch yourself’ moment – Bob Dylan smoking a refrigerator I was rolling…
They were linked through Dylan’s love of Mike’s mysterious Prince-inspired anthem The Whole Of The Moon – Waterboys’ most famous song. Although it came out at the age of 26 in 1985, the single — which was written and produced by Scott — went platinum in 1991 after going underground in the rave scene of the Balearic Islands.
Cover versions flourished. Mike’s favorite is the gay loud disco by Boys Of A New Age, which was programmed by John Springate, bassist from Glitter Band. “He begins by repeating the second line, ‘You held it in your hands,’ which changes the meaning and really makes me smile.”
Graham’s father Norton Noel made a hilariously distorted version on TV Father Ted, and Prince is best known for playing as a piano singer on his 2014 intimate London show Ronnie Scott.
Use U2 number as open music; Brandon Flowers of The Killers called it “one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.”
Mike Greens. “The Killers played it at a big outdoor show in Dublin; our supporting singer Jess, who had just woken up, heard it and thought she missed a party.”
Other fans include Sir Tom Jones who covered Scott’s This Is The Sea last year. Ellie Goulding recorded How Long I’ll Love You, and Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke sang a version of Fisherman’s Blues in Jude Law’s 2013 film Dom Hemingway.
That song was the main track on their 1988 album, which was arguably Scott’s biggest gamble. He has ditched The Waterboys’ pompous “Big Music” style for simpler folk and country.
“It was rock ‘n’ roll with acoustic instruments, with violins and mandolins,” he says.
Some critics mocked, but this was the first album to go gold. “I remember Mick Jones from the Clash team telling me at the time that I should get a synthesizer. I replied, No, it would be a mandolin and a bozoque.”
Mike reminds me that we first met in Edinburgh in the late ’70s, transcended the crazy drive of his late boss Johnny Waller and bonded over our mutual love of London villains. He still rates Clash as “cool”, and wrote the London Mick song about Jones – as he has done with other music heroes, Hank Williams and Jimi Hendrix.
His first band, Another Pretty Face, was heavily influenced by Clash, and Scott has maintained that punk stance, standing up to record labels and management alike.
When The Whole Of The Moon was first charted, he walked away from Top Of The Pops because he refused mime. The story circulated that the VIP was going to his hotel room to change his mind and found him tangling with Dylan.
“A glorious legend,” he says. “The saxophonist and I played with Bob and Dave Stewart at Dave’s studio, but not that day.”
When their 1985 album This Is The Sea went silver, Ensign expected more of the same but got Fisherman’s Blues instead. “They couldn’t understand what we were doing. They wanted another This Is The Sea song, but it was my ring to that kind of music.”
They also differed because of his appearance. “They wanted me to be edgy, moody, and cool, and I wanted them to use Jill Furmanovsky’s beautiful photos that have a real personality.”
A war of attrition over style and direction led to Scott’s split from Geffen in the early 1990s. He has also turned down lucrative advertising deals – including a £150,000 bid for his Glastonbury song.
“It was a German ad about cheese featuring race driver Michael Schumacher. I couldn’t accept being associated with cheese forever.”
The band just released a new single, Glastonbury Fayre, and topped the vocal stage last night.
A complicated man, Scott grew up in a house full of books. “I loved C.S. Lewis. Narnia books have different knowledge, different understanding of what human beings are. They opened my eyes.”
He remembers finding the Philosophy Room in Foyles, on Charing Cross Road in London, filled with books about all the world’s religions, major and esoteric alike. “On my first visit I came out with about a dozen books,” he said beaming.
His mother, Anne, taught English literature. His father left Alan when Mike was ten years old. Scott, who started learning guitar at the age of 12, later began his studies in English in Edinburgh. But he says, “It was 1977, and I was only interested in one thing – punk rock.”
However, he has put Yeats’ poetry and Kenneth Graham’s prose into music ever since.
Scott formed the band Waterboys in 1983, taking the name from the song Lou Reed The Kids. The band was teamed with U2 and Simple Minds, but Mike came to see “big music” as a limitation. “I had to go where the music took me.”
I have always confused expectations. In the mid-1990s he discovered the spiritual community of Findhorn in Scotland, and moved there permanently for eight years in 2002. Goodbye Geffen, hello God.
After releasing two separate albums, he revived the Waterboys name in 2000 and recorded Universal Hall, an album filled with explicitly religious songs.
The Waterboys – The Hill of All Souls (Photo: HANDOUT)
Mike has a 9-year-old daughter with singer Camille O’Sullivan – they never married – and a 5-year-old son with his wife, Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi.
His thirst for new sounds and experiences still rages. Mike used hip-hop drum loops and sampled the 2020 movie Good Luck, Seeker, and says his daughter turned him into Olivia Rodrigo.
The Waterboys have American dates in the fall. “We did short rides in ’84 and ’85, and then came back eight years later but missed the boat. U2 did a serious ride there. We were working too, but elsewhere. We still got good fans.”
Each Souls Hill was logged in closed position.
“I had the next record planned, but we are breaking out the records very quickly. I can release a record every six months, but it is not 1977, these days every two years is enough, otherwise people will be out.”
- The Waterboys’ new album All Souls Hill and non-album single Glastonbury Fayre are now released.
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