Van is still the man
The Irish legend continues to work for a living – but admits he’ll have to slow down one day
to bring it back.” Despite his hard work ethic and constant gigging, Van thinks retirement must eventually come.
“I’ll keep going as long as I can but I’m sure at some point I’ll have to retire from touring because it’s quite exhausting, I find. So would anybody. I’ve been doing it now on and off for 53 years.”
In recent years, financial difficulties have made it necessary for him to stay on the road.
“I won’t go into details, but I had a bad accountant, money was going into a black hole.
“So I had to basically start again. I have all this money, they say, and these rich lists... I have so much money, but it’s a total fabrication.
“I don’t have that kind of money. So I’m kind of still working for a living.”
The title of the new album is self explanatory for a man with a genre-spanning repertoire and legendary multi-instrumental, composing, performing and vocal skills.
“People have said to me, ‘You do it all’, I say, ‘Yeah, I do, I do the whole spectrum’ and so it’s based on that. What people used to say about Bobby Darin – he did all kinds of stuff and he did it really well. So that’s the idea.”
Morrison’s vocals remain a miracle, considering his years of hard living – YouTube footage from the 1980s shows him smoking on stage.
“Yeah terrible,” he says, shaking his head. “I think if I’d continued smoking we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.” But Van, a true Irish working-class hero, made it all the way to Buckingham Palace for Prince Charles to knight him.
An enjoyable experience but one that has made no difference.
“I don’t actually know what it means in itself. What I know is that I enjoyed the experience of it, it was good, it was very different.”
He’s seen many contemporaries fall by the wayside, even younger icons like Prince, to whom he dedicated a song on stage the night after he died. So does he ever feel that it could easily have been him?
“No, I don’t,” he laughs. “I don’t like to dwell in morbidity... do you?
“I just prefer the memories I have, the good memories.”
Versatile is out now.
The 1979 debut album from the Dunfermlinebred group is an urgent post-punk pearl. Fronted by future Big Country star Stuart Adamson and TV presenter Richard Jobson months before the election of Margaret Thatcher, STD captured the unsettling and fraught mood of the times. Fusing Jobbo’s tempestuous vocals with the late Adamson’s splenetic guitars spawned a series of hits, including opening track Into The Valley. This CD re- issue box comes complete with demos and live discs. Semi-famous in the UK, this Bay Area rapper has designed a big concept double album for his latest release. Built around his wild life as a rock ’n’ roll bad boy and regretful coming-of-age survivor persona, it isn’t short of lyrical gaucheness or predictability. Current single Him & I, a duet with Halsey, is inspired by the story of Romeo and Juliet. The G Man’s tireless self-analysis edges toward being tiresome, but the assured beats and riffs give comfortable padding to his slick and expressive delivery.