"If you keep your eyes so fixed on heaven that you never look at the earth, you will stumble into hell."
Austin O\'Malley (1858 - 1932) US "physician, humorist"

Celt In A Twist: To Hell or Barbados? Anyone of sound mind would most likely choose the latter, but Irish songwriter/singer Damien Dempsey does raise a lot of questions on his fabulous new UFO release. The album is charged with electricity but equally so with the Irish traditions of story telling and political observation. We’ve reached Damien by phone to learn more. How you goin' there, Damien?

Damien Dempsey: Not too bad at all Cal. How you doin'?

CIAT: I'm very well. Where did we reach you at?

DD: I'm on my way to Ann Arbor in Michigan. I'm coming from Chicago.

CIAT: Are you running into any campaign buses on the road?

DD: I haven't seen any yet, no! But, I tell ya, I wish I could vote in the next election here in America. It's very exciting times. A woman and a black man in the race for the presidency ... there's a real change in the air.

CIAT: Change is definitely the word. So Damien, which of the options in your album title would you be inclined to toward? Hell or Barbados?

DD: I got that out of the title of a book my father bought me. He knows I have a big interest in history. I read about these Irish people who were sent down to Barbados as slaves, some 50 thousand of them in seven years because of Oliver Cromwell. I felt very deeply for them and I felt they were never really represented in any of the history books, so I thought they deserved a song.

CIAT: Well, that's a chapter of history I'm not familiar with and after we finish this interview I'm going to look it up. For those in North America not familiar with Ireland’s Celtic Tiger economic conditions of late, can you tell us how your music reflects that state of the nation?

DD: Well, we've had 15 years now of economic boom in Ireland and I just feel that a lot of the money that has been generated has gone into the pockets of the upper classes. It hasn't trickled down. If you go into a hospital for instance, there are third world countries that have better services. Our hospitals are in chaos. If we really have this boom, you'd think a lot of money would have gone back into education and health, but it hasn't. So that's why I have a bit of a gripe with the Celtic Tiger.

CIAT: Your music really spans the breadth of rock and Cltic influence. Who would you say are your musical influences?

DD: I would have been influenced by Sinead O'Connor and Shane McGowan from The Rogues and very strong singers like Nina Simone and people like that you know? I've always loved singers that were confrontational; people who are direct and passionate and really move you with their singing. I would have to say Bob Marley I would have been influenced by. There were so many great Irish acts before me doing their stuff, like Christy Moore and The Dubliners and I didn't want to go down the road they had gone because you couldn't better what they had done. So, I wanted to give Irish music a bit of a different slant and make it new a bit ... put a bit of urban influence into it like rap and reggae and just mix it up a bit.

CIAT: You’ve got your Celt in a Twist and we’re talking with Damien Dempsey about hell or Barbados, his latest release. A new album is forthcoming. Keep on top of his progress at www.damiendempsey.com. Congratulations by the way, Damien on winning the prestigious Meteor Award once again for best Folk/ Traditional. Do you feel you fit that category and does the trophy look like a piece of space rock in flight? I've never seen one before!

DD: (laughs) I tried to pawn the trophy but they won't give me any money for it! I wish they would just give you a cheque! I have six of these things now. I don't know where to put them. My mantle piece is only four foot across so ... probably urban/folk, modern day/folk would be a better category. It's not about winning awards really but it's nice to know that people are taking notice of the things I'm doing because for 10 years I was out in the darkness, the wilderness and nobody wanted to know. It's not like I'm a household name now but the word does seem to be spreading.

CIAT: Damien, what in the world is Maasai about? Is it really about the Kenyan tribe? It’s so powerful.

DD: I read up on a lot of ancient tribes like the Celts and the Maasai and their affinity with nature and music ... I kind of felt we could learn a lot from the way they lived life, you know? They thought life and death was one big circle. And, they didn't think death was the end but that we go on and it's a big circle. We have a watered-down version of that philosophy in this day and age. I wanted a song that I could take flight in. When I'm singing the song it's like I'm flying. It's like I'm soaring over a cliff edge or something.

CIAT: That's the impression one gets from listening to it. Where’s the next album going to take us?

DD: The next album comes out in June in Ireland and it's a ballad album. It's like traditional songs from Ireland. It's none of my songs. It's all really old songs. There are songs like hundreds of years old on this album. It's song you would have heard being sung at house parties when I was a kid and the adults would come back from the pub and they would sit around and they would sing. Everybody had a song. A lot of the kids these days, they're not hearing these songs the way I would have heard them. They're listening to gangsta rap and Britany Spears and stuff. I wanted to get the kids into some of these amazing songs that have already survived the test of time because they are so good. The melody, the rhythm and the lyrics of the songs are so good, you know?

CIAT: They've survived so long; you don't want them to die now.

DD: That's it.

CIAT: We’re going out on The City. Can you set this one up for us, Damien?

DD: Sure, I wanted to just break away from the acoustic guitar I wanted to have some house music on the album, because when I was about 16, house music which came from Detroit, exploded in Europe. I wanted to do a song with a house beat behind it. I wanted to make it very atmospheric and talk about Dublin and the dark side of the city and the way it's changing. It's getting very multi-cultural. I wanted to put some African influence in there so I played a kind of African style guitar on there and I got some African singers from Morocco to set up the minor melody at the start. I put it into major at the end to give it a big uplifting ending, you know? I just wanted to try something different ... give a sense of Dublin without all these great readers and poets who used to walk around like Joyce and Cavanaugh ... just give a sense of modern day Dublin.

Damien Dempsey was interviewed by Cal Koat on April 22nd/08 for broadcast on Celt in a Twist, AM 1470, CJVB