Brendan sang lead vocals on Higher Deeper.
Where do I begin?
Brendan, as one half of the massive cult band ‘Dead Can Dance’ is something of an enigma to fans of their music. When the band split up in 1996, Brendan laid low for a while, putting together a beautiful spacious record he released in 1999, ‘Eye Of The Hunter’. I listened to my first copy of it when living in Dublin, late in the summer of ’99, about a week before I met him for the first time.
After touring the States with Eleanor McEvoy, Liam Bradley recommended me as guitarist for Brendan’s forthcoming world tour. Knowing nothing about him at the time, I got the CD in the post and put it on Mick O’Gormans lovely old stereo that had been playing the Beatles almost exclusively for weeks. His voice leapt out immediately as an exquisite thing, a sound and texture that took you on a wild drift through memory and thought, through light and dark, joy and melancholia – it was amazing. I was transfixed to the sound and looked forward to my ‘audition’…
… which was a week later. I was so hungover. When I finally found Quivvy Church, buried in the middle of nowhere in County Cavan. At that time it was cloaked with vivid red ivy, birds making a racket in the trees, and from within, the sounds of a guitar being played really bloody loud. He looked to me like a wizard of sorts, straight from ‘Lord Of The Rings’. After the guarded introductions, Brendan suggested we jammed on some blues progressions… not what I’d expected. Turns out he was hungover too. After about ten minutes of this, Liam turned round and said “For fuck’s sake Brendan, will you get a mic out and show him what this is all about!”
Never a man to miss the point, is Liam.
But Brendan acquiesced, pulling out an old valve mic. He sang a beautiful song, ‘The Captive Heart’… the opening line ‘The old clock is ticking now, marks the space between us…’ – it was so perfect in that moment, and it made me want the gig so much. Luck was on my side as I played along to the track… he offered me the place in the band.
Rehearsals were a time getting to know Liam better, on the long drives to and from Donegal to Liam’s beautiful house.
The tour was superb fun, the music inspirational. Some of the gigs were almost like being in a cathedral, the whole audience supplicating to Brendan, their god. He was a huge presence on stage, and almost as big offstage. And a sore loser on the PlayStation.
The tour took in Paris, Hamburg, took us all over Europe, then America, both coasts, Canada, down into Mexico finishing in Guadalajara after a visit to the pyramids of Teotihuacan outside Mexico city. I really enjoyed myself on that tour, and from that time on, Brendan and I became good friends, starting when he asked me over to Quivvy again to do a session for him, recording Tim Buckley’s ‘Song Of The Siren’.
I went on to design and build his website, visiting him a number of times in Cavan, getting to know him much better over pints of Guinness in ‘The Diamond Bar’. I also met his beautiful little daughter Emma who would eventually be the angel on the cover.
To cut a long story short, when recording Angels In Drag I had a song called Higher Deeper that I thought would suit Brendan’s voice perfectly. He agreed to do it, though he was careful not to promise a result, saying it wasn’t the sort of thing he normally did. I pitched up with a backing track in spring 2002, we climbed to the control room up in the eaves of the church, he set up an SM57 in front of his huge studio monitors, turned it up as loud as a Led Zeppelin concert, and said, “I’m doing this the old-school way!”
Mr. Perry proceeded to tear the track to shreds… it was AWESOME. And anyone who has heard it has been blown away by his performance. Combined with Thomas Lang’s power-drumming its a great track to stir the blood. Not too heavy, just with an edge that lifts you… I love listening to it. The only thing is that people think its me, and compliment me on the vocals. I have to wait for the enthusiastic praise to die down before saying, “Well, thanks, but, eh, its not actually me…” How embarrassing. Oh well, thats what you get when you ask the likes of Brendan Perry to perform on your record and they say yes.