In Conversation With Colin: Mike Scott of The Waterboys

From his home in Dublin, Mike Scott sat down with Newport City Radio’s Colin Palmer to chat about the new album from The Waterboys titled Life, Death And Dennis Hopper.

In a career that spans the past 40 years or more, Mike Scott has continually rung the changes musically, while consistently maintaining a distinctive sound that is instantly identifiable as his very own.

Born and raised in Scotland, Scott studied English literature at the University of Edinburgh and the lyrics of Scottish, Irish and English poets seeped into his writing. His adoptive home is Dublin, and Ireland at large, boasts a rich literary history. Four Nobel laureates in literature have emerged from the emerald isle, as a wayfaring bard himself Scott made the move to Dublin in 1986 and lived there until 1991 before returning again in 2008.

The Waterboys have been around in one form or another since 1983 with Mike Scott being the linchpin, a constant rock in the weary land of ever changing line-ups and he still remains a restless creative spirit, known for radical changes in musical style and approach.

Scott grew up in Ayr, and his Scots accent appears less pronounced today as he speaks to me in a soft lilting voice as we discuss The Waterboys new album Life, Death And Dennis Hopper. With customary cowboy hat sitting proudly on his head, Mike talks about the new concept album that in itself tells several stories at the same time.

“There’s a central story about Dennis Hopper”, states Mike. “But it’s also telling the story of our times, the story of the counterculture, which is a fascinating subject, and the further away we get from that big bang of the 1950s and ’60s, the more fascinating it becomes. There’s a sense of musical history in the record. It’s a rock ‘n roll record, and there’s a strong flavour of Americana in it too.”

As the man behind many successful songs, I was keen to ask about the project’s roots. Gracious and sincere in conversation, he revealed a bit about himself while discussing one of the biggest endeavours of his career.

He takes a thoughtful pause before answering and informing me that the catalyst was a visit to an art gallery. “That was when my interest in Dennis Hopper seriously began.” He continues. “It was a surprise more than anything else, it was Saville Row in central London and it was of course the famous Beatles rooftop concert and it’s also a street of tailor’s shops and I was probably looking for shirts or something like that and I turned the corner and there’s a beautiful art gallery called The Royal Academy, while I was passing it I noticed there was something advertised on a poster and it said ‘the lost album’. The word ‘album’ caught my attention because I thought it was something to do with music and then underneath it said ‘Dennis Hopper’. In my head Dennis Hopper was an actor and a real maverick character but I didn’t know of him as a photographer and I went in and there was an exhibition of all these beautiful black and white photographs from the 1960s and it gave a different idea of who Dennis Hopper was and I got interested in him as a character.

“I remember deciding I was going to find out more about Dennis and I immediately ordered a biography of him called Hopper written by a man called Tom Folsom who I later became friends with.” He proved to be very helpful in the making of the album. “He was a great fact checking source for me and he gave me a couple of ideas as well, there’s a track on the album Hollywood 55, and I told Tom I wanted to write a song about Denis’s early days in Hollywood and he said ‘you’ve got to mention Nick Ray and so Nick Ray is in the song. Thanks Tom”

The more one talks to this softly spoken unassuming man, the more it becomes apparent that music really is a passion for him. Did he set out to make a concept album?

“Once I had the idea, which is the concept, it just had its own life and momentum and Dennis was such a fascinating character and there was so many times in his life that echoed the culture of the times that it was very easy to pick episodes from his life and write songs about them. I would think how about the early days of pop art when he was befriending Andy Warhol, and bang – a song comes. How about the mid-60’s when he was doing weird B movies, bang – a song comes and so on.”

The opening track features Steve Earle on vocals. “Steve and I know each other, we’ve sung together on stage a few times and I had written a lyric Kansas about Denis’s childhood and I had written music for it but it didn’t sound right, it didn’t have an American mid-western mid-century quality to it. So I racked my brains who do I know that could pull that off and oh yes – Steve Earle, he could do it brilliantly. We also share managers and I have Steve’s e-mail address so it was dead easy to get in contact with him and put it together. He sent me a demo, he put music to it very quickly and his vocal on the demo was so perfect that I realised there’s no way I’m going to sing that now, so if Steve’s willing I’m going to use him on the album. But of course with the album being Denis’s life story it had to be the first song, the chronology dictated the track list so it ended up Steve Earle sings the first song on a Waterboys album, and of course I love that.”

There’s also a cameo appearance from Bruce Springsteen on the song Ten Years Gone, as Mike explains. “Bruce and I met once, he actually came to a Waterboys show in Dublin and perhaps fortunately for me I didn’t know he was at the show until the end when he came and said hello. I’m a long-time admirer of Bruce and always loved the way he tells stories on stage, I used to cherish all my bootlegs where he would do Pretty Flamingo or E Street Shuffle with all those very dramatic and wonderful elongated stories so I knew his spoken word delivery was of the very highest quality and so again through the manager we asked if Bruce would do it, and I had already actually done the voice over myself so we had a demo of it and Bruce used the framework of the demo but he did it very much in his own way and dramatic style. He sent me three takes of which I picked one, isn’t that great.” Scott positively beams with genuine delight as he recounts the Springsteen association.

Life, Death And Dennis Hopper had a longer gestation period than most Waterboys albums. “I’m very grateful to have had the time to work on it, I didn’t work on it for four years non-stop, I’ve done a couple of box sets during that time and made an album in 2022 All Souls Hill and busy touring with the band and so on, but every time I would get home I would listen to it again with fresh ears and be able to update it and return to it freshly. Sometimes I would even go six months without listening to any of it and then come back and I would have this fresh assessment of it and it’s so valuable to have that and to be able to fine tune it with a maintenance of perspective. If I had been working on it for six months full tilt I wouldn’t have had that perspective and I’m very grateful for that.”

Excerpts of this interview broadcast on The Rock Vault 1st April 2025. https://player.autopod.xyz/860080