Journalist/Broadcaster/Author
A mug of Caffe latte – up to €3. Single train fare from Laytown to Dublin – about €10. A weekend away for two in Prague (including meals, decent wine and unnecessary shopping) – about €1,000. A red brick house on Ailsbury Road – anywhere between €10m-€30m. Drinkies with the Pet Shop Boys – priceless. … Read more Interview: Pet Shop Boys
She is, as they say, a different kettle of fish, altogether. For some, American singer/songwriter/performer Tori Amos is many things to many people: a firebrand of individualism, a torchbearer for idiosyncrasy, a beacon of light for those wavering between independency and soul-selling. To others, she is the oddest side of odd: the woman suckling … Read more Interview: Tori Amos
Billy Corgan has been both baton master and whipping boy of a post-grunge generation. He was the front man of Smashing Pumpkins, the band some initially considered to be Nirvana’s poor relative; he is the rock star that even Sharon Osbourne – wife of dear, cerebrally-departed Ozzy – found to be unmanageable; he is a … Read more Interview: Billy Corgan
What a contradiction Maria McKee is: she exudes the type of laidback hippy chick demeanour that went out of style the day after Woodstock packed up, yet she’s no sooner sitting down at a table in a very posh Dublin hotel lounge – where customers are talking in little more than whispers – when she … Read more Interview: Maria McKee
As feasible manifestos go, it would seem that Fontaines D.C. have got it right: “A minimalist approach was there from the start: three chords, backbeat, don’t say anything at all. Play the songs, and let them speak for us.” There are in rock music many different stylistic strands yet, evidently, only two methods of … Read more Interview: Fontaines D.C.
Michael Stipe is looking, as usual, pensive. As slim as a pencil, he sports (actually, that’s hardly the word – there is nothing remotely sporty about Michael Stipe) a salt and pepper stubble beard that shades in his countenance; a continuous supply of match-thin roll your own cigarettes and a takeaway mug of coffee … Read more Interview: Michael Stipe
This music lark? It all started, recalls Gemma Hayes, in the late 1990s, in her sister’s bedroom in Dublin. There was a party in full swing downstairs, but she was hiding away from it, passing time by strumming her sister’s guitar and trying to sing a song. But then someone knocked on the bedroom … Read more Interview: Gemma Hayes
Brooklyn, June 29: David Byrne is on precious downtime, but he’s still eager to talk in his um-er-oh-maybe-I guess manner; it’s the verbal shorthand for what makes his nervous tics tick, but it’s so ineffably David Byrne it’s almost endearing (except when they go on to deliberate amongst themselves, that is; then it becomes … Read more Interview: David Byrne