Its been a strange kind of day. Blue skies and sunshine from the moment I woke up, but I had so much work to get through in getting this laptop working right… Went for a great run round to Tamarama beach and back at about 4 just to break the cooped-up feeling in half.
My hair is a right shaggy mop now. I was growing it a bit, ever since the Asian tour with RK, when it was blonde, cut exactly the way I wanted it by Robyn Fenton at Mahogany, London. She’s a genius. Then, by the time the next RK tour came along, in April, I looked like a bit of a surfer dude. Now I just look like one of those dogs that can’t see out past its fringe. I may enter myself in Crufts this year, at which, if I play my cards right, I could win Best Of Breed in some obscure ‘hairy dog’ category.
Enough about hair. There aren’t enough hours in the day. This site needs a facelift. I want to put up biographies of the wonderful musicians who played on Angels In Drag. Let me just tell you about them in th meantime. Lets do it like school (groan) and go alphabetically, starting with…
Liam Bradley
Drums on Coldwalking and tambourine on Angels In Drag
Liam is like Yoda. The oldest and wisest being in the universe. We met in 1999 in a rehearsal studio in Dublin, getting ready to go on tour with Eleanor McEvoy, an Irish singer-songwriter. Liam had a great reputation, and I was the new kid in town. I walked in – his kit was set up, looking fantastic. From the first handshake I knew we would be friends, and I wasn’t wrong. Not only was I blown away by his musicianship, but I found I had discovered one of the world’s finest people. Ass-kicking drummer, beautiful singer and all-round top bloke.
After Eleanor’s tour, he recommended me as guitarist for a tour with Brendan Perry, which was absolutely great. (Brendan comes into the equation at this point – he sang vocals on one of my tracks and his daughter Emma is the girl on the cover.) During the rehearsals for BP’s tour, I stayed at Liam’s place up in Donegal, an old disused army hospital on the banks of Lough Foyle, converted into a magnificent house. Its beyond description really… but it was five hours of driving a day to get to Quivvy Church for the rehearsal and back. Liam will drive 8 hours a day if it means he can sleep in his own bed. Five hours is a lot of chat – thankfully Liam is also one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever met – anyone from Ronan Keating’s band, or anyone who has met him, will surely concur. I heard all sorts of tales about his time touring with Van Morrison, before that when he used to tour Ireland with the old showband ‘The Memories’ (known for their excellent rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, about the time he gave it all up and worked in a furniture shop… and so many more great tales, the names of many legendary Irish musicians thrown into the melting pot and then the pot itself melted.
When it came time for me to record the album, I had a ballad in mind, probably the strongest song on the record, called ‘Coldwalking’. I love the track and it has been many peoples’ favourite so far. I needed a drummer who could lie right back and play the drums with the vocal. Liam was the man, make no mistake. He pitched up at Mudd Wallace’s studio, Homestead, in a rainy little town in Northern Ireland called Randalstown, with that same old Sonor kit I’d seen the day I met him. And he played the track beautifully before getting back in the car and driving late, all the way back up to Donegal, to the house, fire probably lit, sending a thin trail of smoke up into the sky where, on summer evenings, people look across from the other side of the lough and say how beautiful it is, how truly beautiful…