Stephen was never one to create a Commotion.. but he’d like a Rattle at being back together
Former Lloyd Cole drummer keeping his hand in with Fugitives project but you get the impression he wouldn’t mind being involved in celebrating his ex band’s iconic album’s 40th anniversary
You’d imagine only a Simple Mind would these days turn down the opportunity to jam with Jim Kerr. But Stephen Irvine couldn’t see what all the commotion was about when he was asked at age 16 to play with the future superstar in his mates’ first punk rock outfit.
“I was in school with Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill and Brian Mcgee, the original drummer from Simple Minds. We were all in the same class in first year,” recalled Stephen about his classmates at Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow.
Mcgee would even later join German synth-pop outfit Propaganda. Incidentally, John Francis Mcelhoe of Texas fame was only a few years behind them.
While Stephen, of course, was the drummer in Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.
The idea of Stephen being in a punk outfit was never going to be a match made in heaven, seeing as his idol was the legendary drummer Roger Hawkins of the Mussel Shoals Rhythm Section, which were a famous studio band that recorded with Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett.
“I was in class with John Milarky and Allan Mcneill who went on to manage Hue and Cry. We used to rehearse in my bedroom,” Stephen added.
John and Jim Kerr formed a punk band called Johnny & The Self Abusers.
“John went away for the summer and wrote me a letter saying, ‘I’ve heard the future of music – it’s a band called The Ramones’. That was 1976.”
Stephen was then asked to join this earlier incarnation of Simple Minds. “At the time, I didn’t really get The Ramones. I pulled out of the first gig because I didn’t like the music. The two guys from my band ended up doing it with all the Simple Minds guys. That was their first gig,” he recalled, laughing.
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, along with The Waterboys, would later support Simple Minds at Ibrox Stadium in 1986.
It’s hard to imagine Glasgow Rangers’ ground being the preferred first choice of venue for such a big Celtic fan like Jim Kerr.
“I don’t think Parkhead was available!” joked Stephen, who has his own strong Irish connections. “One of my dad’s parents was born in Ireland and the other was from an Irish family,” he said.
He qualifies for an Irish passport under the Granny Rule. “I’m seriously considering it,” he added.
Stephen was “playing in about five different bands” when he first met Lloyd Cole.
“A friend of mine is Brendan Moon, who went on to manage Paolo Nutini. His brother had a guitar shop above Park Lane Studio,” he recalled about the recording studio frequented by the likes of INXS, Del Amitri, and Texas.
“And Brendan introduced me to the manager of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, which was basically three of them at the time.
“They asked me to come and do a showcase, because they’d already done a demo. They’d got some interest, but they didn’t really have a (full) band to play those songs. So I did the showcase and then they asked me to join.”
He added: “The band used to call me a ‘breadhead’. They were straight out of university and thinking, ‘Why do you always go on about money?’
“I was like, ‘Because we’ve got to eat!’ I had a young baby. So I was thinking, ‘I love doing this, but we’ve got to make some money’.”
Their classic debut album Rattlesnakes will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2024.
Stephen quipped about picking Charlotte Street as his favourite on it “because it’s got the most drumming in it!”
He added, “I think Perfect Skin is a great track as well; as is Forest Fire and Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken? I remember Camera Obscure did a song called Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken. But, for me personally, it’s Charlotte Street.”
Did he like Tori Amos’ cover of Rattlesnakes? “That was quite a good version,” he said.
We both agreed Rattlesnakes – an absolute brilliant album – was the best out of their three records.
“The first album was a very exciting experience. The second one (Easy Pieces, 1985) was brilliant to do, but we didn’t quite have as much control over it,” he admitted.
They had begun making Easy Pieces with their first album’s producer Paul Herdiman, who later worked his magic on Chris de Burgh’s smash hit The Lady in Red.
“After he did a couple of tracks the record company said, ‘We think you should have a big name producer on this’.
“Yes, it probably sold us a few records initially. But we would’ve been happier at the time with Paul. Some of the songs sound great now. But, in retrospect, we prefer the demos of some of the songs on the second album.
“The third one, Mainstream (1987) stands up very well, as well. But the first one captured the moment when we were all gung ho and in our twenties and ready to rock and take on the world.
“We recorded Rattlesnakes in a month, the whole thing from start to finish. Our third one took about nine months.”
In retrospect, Stephen “absolutely” agrees it was a bad idea for them to be known as Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. It would be a bit like Simple Minds being called Jim Kerr & The Simple Beats.
“At the time when they asked me to join I wasn’t really in a position to say, ‘Oh, hang on a minute!’ But he was the main man,” Stephen reasoned.
“The idea of us getting back together and doing more gigs would have been a more financially attractive proposition if it hadn’t been called Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, if it had just been called The Commotions.”
It wasn’t until the third record when all five members received equal credit on the album sleeve.
“Funny how that is the last one, isn’t it?” he quipped.
Joking aside, he added: “I think it was recognised that quite a big part of what it was to be in a band and to help sell the record was actually the touring part of it.”
Was their much tension during their final days together?
“No. Lloyd told us he wanted to leave before the third album came out. We toured for nine months after that,” Stephen said.
“Everybody in the band got on really well. Even when we knew we were breaking up and he was leaving to do his thing, we still always had a good laugh.
“I think he, at that point, felt under a lot of pressure to deliver the goods for everybody really.
“And I think he just couldn’t handle the pressure of that and then decided (to leave).
“And also, he had this thing about
You never know, the 40th anniversary is coming up. So who knows what’ll happen if we’re all still alive.
‘all great bands only make three records’.
“It’s a load of b ****** k, if you ask me.”
Most great bands usually age like fine wine.
“Precisely my point. I wanted to keep on making records; then in 20 years’ time we’d have a back catalogue. But it didn’t work out like that,” he shrugged.
“Just keep on churning them out. But if you’re going to do that you have to be able to vent your frustrations.
“And during the third album, Lloyd felt a lot of pressure and wasn’t able to vent. And (that) therefore meant he had to break it in order to mend himself, I guess. I’m surmising.
“He was always the main focus. Everybody wanted to talk to Lloyd. Nobody wanted to talk to ‘just’ the drummer or bass player, or very rarely anyway. There was a lot of pressure on him.
“I don’t think he was particularly good at venting that pressure. I think he let the pressure get to him over time and then his way of fixing it was to leave the band.”
There was never any bad words exchanged in the studio, but Stephen half-joked that things might have been better if there had been some tension between them all.
“Maybe there should’ve been… maybe it could have gotten to the bottom of his problems, or his tension, or concerns. So, it was never addressed,” he reflected.
Nor does Stephen have a bad word to say about his former lead singer over it all. He’s quick to sing Lloyd’s praises, if anything.
“It’s all water under the bridge now. We are all still good pals anyway,” he said.
Stephen didn’t allow himself to get down in the dumps about it. “It was more of a ‘dust yourself down’ and do something else,” recalled Stephen who next formed a band called Bloomsday with Neil Clark from the Commotions.”
Coincidentally, it was the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses on the day I spoke with Stephen on Zoom.
Stephen only made it up to page 65 of Ulysses.
“I was mortified because I couldn’t get through it. I thought, ‘This is too much like hard work! I was in my early twenties at that point and I thought, ‘I should read James Joyce,” he said.
“I’ve still got the book, but I’ve never gone back to it.”
Stephen later ended up working as a session player with the likes of Del Amitri (recording five tracks on their second album Waking Hours, 1989), Saint Eitienne’s Sarah Cracknell and “a big French pop star called Etienne Daho, who was the George Michael of France”.
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions got back together for a string of gigs to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rattlesnakes (above) in 2004.
“You never know, the 40th anniversary is coming up. So who knows what’ll happen if we’re all still alive!” he joked.
It would be great to see them playing live again. “I would definitely not rule it out. It’s a distinct possibility,” he added.
Stephen had chatted with Lloyd only a week before this interview about Neil Young’s decision to remove his music from the streaming app Spotify. Young had lambasted them for giving a platform to stand-up comedian Joe Rogan, whose podcast was accused of promoting falsehoods about Coronavirus vaccines.
“We decided that we should take our stuff off Spotify as well in solidarity,” he said.
“Spotify is a total rip off from a musician’s point of view. I’ve always hated it.”
Stephen, who ran his own Scottishitalian cuisine restaurant called Irvin in London’s Crouch End between 2015-2021, has just recorded a new album with The Fugitives, which also includes Supertramp star John Helliwell.
Stephen got involved when the band’s frontman Matt Woolf popped into his restaurant and asked him if he fancied recording an album together.
“It’s basically Matt’s project. We used to be in a band together way back in the early ’90s,”
Stephen explained.
Asked to pick his favourite tracks on the new album entitled
Everymen Stephen said:
“I really enjoyed Trouble Connected. And 15
Minutes is also very good.
“There’s two different types of stuff on it: there’s guitar-based ones and the keyboard-based ones.”
The tunes were mostly composed by Matt on keyboards, or by their guitarist James Hender.
“The guitar-based ones are more straight ahead. Matt’s stuff was a little bit more intricate, a little more – for lack of a better word – progressive. Lots of pushed beats and intricate patterns,” Stephen continued.
“Matt’s are much more intricate timing-wise. So they were complex and really, really rewarding to do.
“James’ were more sort of play along, and just get a groove going.”
Does Stephen, who is now in his early 60s, plan to keep banging the drums until he’s 80 like his teenage hero Charlie Watts who died last year?
“Wouldn’t it be great to be as successful as the Rolling Stones!” he mused.
“I still play with a blues band in a bar called Ain’t Nothing But on Kingly Street in London, pretty much once a month.
“But I’m not really interested in doing the Chicago Shuffle. It’s not really my thing. We do sort of country blues. We do JJ Cale, Tom Waits, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith. It’s more country, groovy, but there’s some blues in there as well.”
Stephen – who got himself a replica of Charlie Watts’ Maple Gretch finish drum kit when Lloyd Cole and the Commotions signed to Polydor circa 1983 – also name checks Keith Moon, Stuart Copeland, Ringo Starr and Thin Lizzy’s Brian Downey as other drummers that he greatly admires.
He also became “very friendly with Larry Mullen” for a time after U2 went to see Lloyd Cole and the Commotions play at El Mocambo in Toronto in 1994.
“We used to hang out, but I haven’t seen him for a long time now,” he said.
“I’m about as technically gifted as Larry is! We run on power. We’re not technicians, let’s say.
“At that point when I used to hang out with them in the early ’90s there was security everywhere. It was crazy.
“They’re all really nice people. Most people are really nice – it’s just too many people want a piece of them.”
Some screaming music fans even made a commotion about Stephen’s band in their heyday.
He almost got “chased down the street” once on tour Down Under – when “a bunch of girls came running” towards him and their bassist Lawrence Donegan, now a journalist and an author.
Talk about being in a bona fide band on the run!
“There were also a bunch of Irish girls on the Tube in London after Rattlesnakes came out,” he concluded, laughing, “and they said, ‘It’s youse, isn’t it? You’re them!’”
Now he’s a bona fide Fugitive! ■■The Fugitives album
Everymen is released on February 25. For further info check out www.thefugitives.net