Love in the time of Paul Cleary
Forty years since the formation of The Blades, Paul Cleary tells Barry Egan the story behind releasing a documentary and a new EP
NEXT year we can look forward to the long-awaited release of Brian O’Flaherty’s documentary about The Blades, The Sound Of Raytown. Ringsend’s finest, they were part of the history of Dublin with their spiky tunes about inner city life and beyond. The triumvirate with Paul Cleary on bass and vocals, his brother Lar on guitar and their pal Pat Larkin on drums, helped provide a post-punk soundtrack to our youth in the early 1980s — courtesy of tracks like Ghost Of A Chance in 1980 and Downmarket in 1982.
The world has changed completely — and not for the better at all — since they played their first sweaty, if soulful, show at Catholic Young Men’s Society in Ringsend in June, 1977. What hasn’t changed — couldn’t change, in truth — is frontman Paul Cleary’s passion for the music. Born on September 9, 1959, Paul remembers that first show all those years ago as him being “a bag of nerves, a skinny, uptight 17-year-old with a head full of music and dreams”.
As for the performance that night, he recalls through the mists of time that The Blades “played reasonably well — given it was the first time ever on stage for all of us. I don’t think I slept that night with the adrenaline coursing through my veins. If I had been told that I would still be doing it 40 years later I would have said ‘yes please’”, post-punk elder statesman Paul says. “It was such a pleasure and a privilege to be singing on stage, with real people listening and some even clapping... I couldn’t believe it. I really don’t know what I would be doing otherwise.” These days The Blades are: Paul on guitar and vocals, Brian Foley on bass, Jake Reilly on drums, Paul Grimes on trombone, Frank Duff on trumpet, Conor Brady on guitar and Cian Boylan (replacing Pat Fitzpatrick who sadly died in April) on keyboards.
Having played a sold out gig at the Academy in Dublin last Thursday, The Blades are about to release a fine new four-track EP entitled Everlasting Love Affair.
In 1989, Raymond Carver titled his latest tome What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. You could change ‘talk’ to ‘sing’ and you’d have the gist of The Blades’s new release. “On the main track, Everlasting Love Affair, I wanted to express, as best I could, my love of pop, soul, punk and the many artists who inspired me over the years,” Paul says referring to, unsurprisingly, The Pistols, The Clash, The Jam, Dexys Midnight Runners, Undertones, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Beatles, Kinks, The Who... “I suppose it’s time to admit that I’m no longer 18 and maybe a little bit of reflection — a ‘muse’ inventory if you will — wouldn’t go amiss. So what better way to do it than to make a list of albums from some of the singers and groups who I have admired over the years.”
Paul says he tried to encapsulate this love of music in the chorus where he sings: “Our love’s a philharmonic celebration of all that magic in the air, our love’s a pop song of a short duration, an everlasting love affair.’ On the other new track We’ll Go On, Paul wanted to write a song of hope and resilience “in the face of adversity”.
Sonically, Paul wanted it to sound “taut and spartan in contrast to the main track which, for us, is a big production number”, he says, adding that he re-recorded two old Blades chestnuts, Revelations and The Bride Wore White, “because I was never happy with the original recordings and knew in my heart that I didn’t do the songs justice the first time around.
“My only fear was that with the passing of so many years I might not be able to replicate, or come as near as dammit to, the original vocal but I think I managed to do it, ultimately it’s up to the listener to decide but I think the new recordings sound crisper and more vibrant than the ones recorded all those years ago.”
‘The Blades were a soundtrack of sorts to our 1980s youth’