Damien Dempsey Jess O’Sullivan meets the Dublin troubador
Damien Dempsey has called on some Irish musical giants to help him re- imagine classic songs on his new album. He talks to Jess O’Sullivan about the danger of losing places where artists can share ideas
Damien Dempsey is in the mood to reminisce. “When I used to go to the International Bar in Dublin, in the ’90s, Dave Murphy had a singer-songwriter night there and it was this really great scene. The more established artists would come in, like Christy Moore and Glen Hansard, and then all the young artists too, and they’d all be mixing. That’s what was so great about the ’90s in Dublin.”
That freedom to rub shoulders and exchange ideas with giants of the Irish music community helped Dempsey create his debut album in 2000. It surely helped him come up with the title: They Don’t Teach You This Sh*t in School.
The man from Donaghmede spent the following years on the road, touring as support to legends like Bob Dylan, Morrissey and Willie Nelson, who each felt an affinity with Dempsey’s poet soul. This period completed his education in ways not covered in class at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, where he studied performance and music management. His new release, Union, will make it an even ten albums, but Dempsey still credits the artistic scene he was part of in his late teens and 20s as one of the most influential influences in his career. “It’s very important to have an artistic scene where people can learn from each other and swap ideas. When you meet someone else creative, you come away with some of their magic and you always learn something. It’s a passing of information but it’s also an evolution.”
However, Dempsey believes that Dublin’s wonderful melting pot of music and arts that inspired his earliest creative work is now endangered. In fact, he doubts that that kind of authentic meeting of minds can happen easily in today’s economic climate. “That scene was only there because people could afford to live in the city. If that hadn’t been possible, people would have had to leave, so it’s sad to think that scene could never have existed nowadays.”
He’s talking about skyrocketing rents, of course, that he says are pushing artists not only out of the cities, but out of Ireland entirely. This creative brain-drain is something he witnessed in June when he took part in the first Craw Festival, an arts and performance event in Berlin’s hipster Neukölln district, devised and organised by a group of Irish artists living in the German capital who can’t afford to live in Ireland any more. “They had to go because they couldn’t be creative and still stay in Ireland. To be honest, they’re fairly bitter. They’re angry about it, that they all had to leave. When I was younger, you could always get a bedsit somewhere, you could always rent somewhere, people had enough money to rent, but now people don’t because rent is just going up and up.” Dempsey’s success meant he was
able to afford a modest house in his native city, while continuing on a creatively fullling path, but he has made sacri ces. “If I had a partner and a few children, then I don’t think I’d be able to keep doing what I was doing. I’d have to get another source of income. I’m getting by just enough that I can pay the mortgage on the house I got, which is a very cheap house, considering. I look at the gures and I’d have to get a 9-to-5, or maybe I’d be playing pubs four or ve nights a week if I wanted a family home. en if you do that, you don’t get to do the bigger shows like the Iveagh Gardens, Vicar Street or the Cork Opera House, because people will just come to the pub and see you for much cheaper.”
Dempsey loves the opportunity for creative collaborations and his new album is a celebration of those possibilities. He performs with musicians known (Sinead O Connor and Moya Brennan) and new (Dan Sultan and Kate Tempest), re-imagining gems from his back catalogue, but there are also some new tracks. e song list reads like the wish-list of a man who is open to his music being interpreted in a myriad of ways, with little sense of preciousness or ego – every song is both an experiment and a joyful (sometimes tearful) adventure for both artists. “Imelda May, when we did Big Big Love, to see her singing it...it moved me to tears when I rst heard it. She was coming out of a break-up and she really got into the story of the song.” Dempsey, now in his 40s, says that he has no problem with the fact that he is now categorised as an “established artist.” He’s just glad he made it, but like the seasoned musicians who visited e International in his younger days to share and learn, Dempsey is interested in connecting with the next generation to keep the creative torch burning. His new song You’re Like e Water is a collaboration with Mick Sta ord aka Maverick Sabre, a wonderful young soul singer from New Ross, who although only 28, shares Dempsey’s love of reggae. “He wrote the melody and I wrote the lyrics, but when you get together with someone like that you do things that you never would have done if you were alone. Young men like him give me faith in the future of music.”
is exchange between musicians of all ages, backgrounds and genres is something Dempsey re ects on in his song e Keepers of the Flame with Lisa O’Neill, an acknowledgment of how much Irish traditional music was saved by the pipers, ddlers and singers of the Traveller community and how they passed it on to musicians all over the country. “Sitting around the camp re, telling stories and singing songs and playing music is something the ancient Irish did, and many Travellers still do. e keepers of the ame, we can’t let it die out, like the singsong in houses and ats.” Dempsey says that every collaborator had an impact on him, but working with Finbar Furey was a dream come true. “In my home in the 1980s, the four main staples that would be played on vinyl were e Dubliners, Christy Moore, Bob Marley and the Wailers, and the e Fureys and Davey Arthur. He’s been a hero of mine since I was a child, so to record with him is a huge thing for me. We spent a couple of days together, thinking up what song we’d do, so we spent time out in the sun in his back garden and he’d be telling great old stories, and we’d be singing a few old songs together. He played me many magical songs but Singing Bird was the one that ew away with my heart. Finbar told me it was about Jim Larkin speaking on a boat in the Li ey, as there was a warrant out for him, and how when he spoke he li ed people’s hearts much like singing birds do. Finbar is a great keeper of the ame and it was great to be around a legend like that.” Damien Dempsey’s new album Union is out now, and he plays Vicar Street on December 12 & 21 to 23. See damiendempsey.com for more live tour dates
When you meet someone else creative, you come away with some of their magic and you always learn something. It’s a passing of information but it’s also an evolution