With his new album, Dubliner Marc Carroll confuses his fans by replacing ringing, zinging guitar with a morose, reflective quality, writes Tony Clayton-Lea
Don't talk to Marc Carroll about buskers, or the inordinate amount of Irish singer-songwriters with their acoustic guitars, three chords and dreams. He just doesn't want to know about them. Anarchist punk rock groups such as Conflict, the fondly remembered Surgical Penis Klinic and Ireland's very own Paranoid Visions? Now you're saying something. In other words, don't dare place Marc Carroll in a box with "preconceived notions" scrawled on it.
Carroll has been on the receiving end of preconceived notions for some time. The first instance was when, as a teenager, he and his Dublin band Puppy Love Bomb caused something of a furore with their slogan "Dublin is Dead" (a reference to the dearth of good music in the capital, among other things): then, most of the city's elder lemons accused him of being an arrogant young runt.
Many years later, Carroll released Ten of Swords, a ringing guitar record of such strength and beauty that it propelled him, for a while, on to the top of the power pop pile. A compilation album, All Wrongs Reversed, followed, making him even more popular with the fanatical, virtually underground power pop movement in the US. Arrogance had little to do with it - Carroll was a star in the making, on a roll, on top of his game.
Yet Carroll - who has been based in London for the past 10 years - wasn't one for standing still. Power pop lovers who skipped over Row the Boat Ashore on Ten of Swords and worried about the inclusion of On Raglan Road on All Wrongs Reversed were missing the music and the point: there was far more to Carroll than a love of "B" bands (Beach Boys, Beatles, Byrds) and a floppy fringe. Here was someone who could mix 'n' match folk tradition with pop-rock nous. Standing still? Only statues do that.
As if to confuse his growing fan base even further, his new album, World on a Wire, replaces ringing, zinging guitar chords and "B" band methodology with a morose, reflective quality that wouldn't seem out of place on a great Neil Young or Leonard Cohen record.
Carroll is partaking of afternoon tea in Dublin's Shelbourne hotel on a bright, crisp March morning. The straight long hair and eye-line fringe are intact, along with leather jacket and jeans; it's a look straight out of the Ramones's stylebook - punk rock with a hint of the 33 years Carroll carries quite well. For someone who doesn't appear to sell a lot of records, and who seems to live a relatively untroubled life ("I never complain about what I do," he says. "I write every day, I go to gigs, I read - there really is little more to my life than that. I walk around Regent's Park and say hello to Paul McCartney."), Carroll is perky enough. Sporadic radio play, publishing and song royalties keep body and soul together, thanks for asking (a track from his previous band, the Hormones, featured on an episode of Friends, and repeat shows generate royalty cheques).
"I haven't had to work since I was 18, and I'm very grateful for that. I do what I do because I love it and it's a bug. I live and breathe music - I even meditate on songs sometimes. Of course, I don't know anything else. "
A mixture of the romantic idealist ("music completely changed my life and flipped me out. It still does. When I hear a piece of music I want it to blow me away; when I see a movie I want it to blow me away - constantly") and the shrewdly, almost cruelly, pragmatic ("I've gone through so many record companies, I treat them with contempt, most of the time. I just take the money . . . That isn't a flippant thing to say; I have done that in the past, and not to my regret").
Carroll is also something of a square peg. "I feel completely at odds with most things, socially and musically, politically, even. I'm quite a melancholic person and I've no problem admitting that. I'm obsessed with human emotion, whether sad or happy." Is he an outgoing person? There follows a long pause. "The length of time it's taking me to answer probably tells you something! Outgoing? Not really. The friends I have I cherish, but most of the time I find humans let you down."
The answer to the question of whether he's arrogant is given quickly: "I've been accused in the past of being that, but I don't think I am. I've never been openly arrogant or rude to anyone. I just think I do things in a way that should be done. I've taken advice on board in the past, but only from people I respect. I find it really difficult to listen to someone who knows nothing." Such a lack of knowledge, says Carroll, is endemic within the music industry. "It never changes. The final straw was when I was with Universal. The guy who signed me is a great person, and I've no ill feeling towards him. But the rest were just unbelievable.
"Sometimes, record companies sign you up so no-one else can get you, and that happened to me - I was left dangling at Universal for two years. Two years of my life! I had no hesitation in saying goodbye." And taking the money? "I don't regret anything in relation to my dealings with record companies. And I've never been bitter; disappointed, yes, but I don't have bitterness in me."
Carroll has long since ploughed his own creative furrow, absorbing as much as he can along the way, and he doesn't care any more what might happen. "I'm always looking forward," he enthuses. "Everything I do creatively is on instinct - one take, no or very few vocals. I don't fix things. If drums are out of time, then fine. I'm more impulsive than compulsive, and that's difficult for some people. I'd rather go to extreme anarchist punk shows than" - and this is where we came in - "this three chords and a dream stuff. And with respect to the profession, I really don't want to hear a busker."
A Way Back Out of Here, the first single from World on a Wire, will be released at the end of this month
