After 55 tours, former Minuteman Mike Watt is finally getting to play Ireland in his own right - and it means a lot to him. He tells Chris Heaney why
He's been responsible for some of the most brilliant and influential independent American music releases. The Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their breakthrough BloodSugarSexMagik album to him and described him as "one of the greatest bass players ever". He's drawn praise from members of bands as diverse as Blue Oyster Cult and Beastie Boys. And when not fronting his own group - the current incarnation is The Secondmen - he can be found handling bass duties for no less a band than Iggy Pop and the Stooges.
He's Mike Watt, from San Pedro, California - and he works the bass (or "thud staff", in Pedro-speak).
Next week marks his first visit with his own band to these shores, and it's a cause for celebration - and not just because it's a chance to see him do his own, unique thing. Five years ago he was close to death when a misdiagnosed abscess burst and only a rush to the emergency room saved his life. This ordeal proved the inspiration for his latest work, The Secondman's Middle Stand, a "sickness piece" detailing his illness and subsequent recovery, taking inspiration from Dante's Divine Comedy. You could call it a "punk opera".
"I'm playing this castle here, and there's this part in Inferno where the two lovers, Paolo and Francesca, are being punished," he says. "Well, this is the castle they lived in! Is that weird? I've never played a castle before and to do the piece here is pretty bizarre."
Watt is speaking by phone from Gradara in Italy, where he's in the middle of a European tour promoting the new album. Unfortunately, our phone connection gets cut at least half a dozen times in the course of the interview. At one point he's drawing power for the mobile phone from a car's cigarette lighter, but that doesn't dampen the spirit; he's a friendly and enthusiastic interviewee.
"The tour is pretty intense, it's my 55th," he says. "I'm 47 years old and it's just as scary as when I started, but just as exciting. You don't know what to expect. You 'work the room', like they say in vaudeville, so every room is different and it's quite a challenge."
The three-piece band comprises bass, drums and organ and continues a long line of trios. Before he went solo, Watt spent eight years in the power-trio fIREHOSE, recording five albums. And before that there were the mighty Minutemen.
THE MINUTEMEN ARE probably the band that Watt will be most fondly remembered for, and with good reason. With origins in the early 1980s Californian punk scene, they remain a massively important and influential group, though they were never huge sellers during their career. They were simply one of a kind, a band in a million who wrote their own rules and always played their own song, literally and metaphorically.
They mixed the deeply personal with the overtly political and could effortlessly meld the complexity of jazz with the directness of folk, the groove of funk and the white-hot intensity of hardcore punk - often all in one 90-second song.
Their 1984 album, Double Nickels on the Dime, was their finest hour; every home should have one.
Tragically, the band's career ended abruptly in 1985 when D Boon, the charismatic lead singer and Watt's best friend since childhood, was killed in a road accident. A recently released film, We Jam Econo! (one of the band's mottoes), tells the band's story and features the cream of the US independent music scene paying tribute. Watt, who is characteristically wary of nostalgia, was initially suspicious but eventually was won over.
"They [the producers] were young guys; they had never even seen The Minutemen, but they seemed so earnest," he says. "And the big thing is that I don't want people to forget D Boon. So if it's not a predatory, vampire thing and they acknowledge his contributions and his playing, then I'm all for it. In fact, I got to play with George Hurley a couple of times, just doing Minutemen songs as a duet, and it's inspired me to start writing my next record, which is going to be small songs again.
"D Boon's father has given me a couple of his guitars and I've been writing songs on those. Not to be sentimental or nostalgic, but there's just something about Minutemen songs not having any filler. You know, in this piece, the songs are long because sickness is like that - it stretches time out. But I really feel a hankering not to make an opera next time and just little songs."
Severely weakened by his abscess "sickness", Watt got back into playing bass by practising old Stooges songs, only to end up joining the band.
"Me and D Boon were listening to them when we were 16," he says. "That's so weird that I ended up playing in the band, that shows you that everything wasn't bad about the sickness . . . It's just a mind-blow and I try to hold on to give them the best bass I can.
"They're very interesting gentlemen. You know how much stuff you get first, second, third and fourth hand? And then you go to the source - it's quite a trip."
And plans are in the pipeline for a new record.
"Iggy said he wants to make a good Stooges album before he's 60, and he's turning 58 this month!" says Watt.
LIVE PERFORMANCE IS still the main event for Watt and he views records as a promotional device for live shows - a view that goes back to his earliest days of thrifty touring with The Minutemen. As a veteran of 55 tours, he's got to see the world by being a working musician, but in some ways it's surprising he has never played here in his own right, given his huge interest in James Joyce. Watt's last album, Contemplating the Engine Room, had Ulysses as a strong influence and he seems genuinely enthused about getting to play in Ireland.
"I'm a sailor's son, so I don't really vacation," he says. "In fact, the only time I've been to a town without playing was last year on Bloomsday, for the centenary. I went to Dublin for three days and it was amazing for me. It was intense to have the reality of the book; I had the gorgonzola in Davy Byrnes and the whole thing: kidneys for breakfast, went to Sandymount, and all that. That was big for me - a lot of songs on Double Nickels on the Dime are from that. There's a song called June 16th on there. Dublin means a lot to me - I can't wait to play there."
Mike Watt and the Secondmen play Whelan's, Dublin on Thursday and Pine Lodge, Myrtleville, Co Cork on Friday. The Secondman's Middle Stand is out now on Easy Action www.hootpage.com