When three fans put together an exhibition of memorabilia of Horslips, they never imagined it would lead to a re-formation of the rock group, writes Tony Clayton-Lea
Once upon a time there were three Irish men - Jim Nelis, Stephen Ferris and Paul Callaghan. They were Horslips fanatics, and in their own separate ways and by their own separate, wholly legal methods, collected whatever they could of the pioneering Irish band. While they each collected everything they could, each had his own specialty - Derry-based Nelis gathered posters, Ballymena-based Ferris collected media interviews, Co Cavan-based Callaghan collected vinyl.
While they were doing this throughout the 1970s - each unaware of the other's fanatical habits - Horslips were beating a path through fusion territory, reshaping traditional Irish music into something that kicked, bucked, and rocked as much as lilted. When the band split up in the early 1980s, one might have thought that the three, by then 20-somethings, would place their obsessive teenage pursuits behind them, settle down into careers, marriage, fatherhood, and make an occasional withdrawal from the memory bank whenever a familiar tune came weaving its way out of the radio or television.
Life got in the way, of course, but according to Stephen Ferris, he and his later cohorts were not average fans. The collecting continued apace through the 1980s, as the band members pursued solo careers.
As the 1980s melted into the 1990s, and the global village opened up shop via the internet, it became obvious that there were other collectors of Horslips artefacts and memorabilia out there. Fans started Horslips websites; former Horslips members Charles O'Connor (concertina, pipes and mandolin) and Johnny Fean (quite a number of guitars) set up their own websites, separately recruiting along the way Stephen Ferris, Jim Nelis, and Paul Callaghan. The paths of the three former teenage obsessives were about to intersect.
"As well as contributing to Johnny Fean's website," says Stephen Ferris, "I'd go along to his gigs, and one night in Derry, Johnny introduced me to Jim." Stephen recognised Jim from 20 years before that; he knew that Jim had a copy of The Book of Invasions in his house, with five stickers on the front of the cover that had been signed by the band. "Jim asked me how I knew this, and I told him that I remembered the night he got it signed - I'd seen him!"
Concurrent with all the website activity in the late 1990s was the well-documented court case and rights issues between Horslips and Northern Ireland-based Outlet Records. The band won back their record rights, resulting in Horslips inc. being revitalised. "That heralded a renaissance in the band," explains Ferris. "For the first time in ages the band got together, and for the first time in almost two decades there was a focus on them. They had a business again."
Around the same time, Jim Nelis approached the band members with the notion of curating an exhibition in their honour - an idea that had been floating around in his head for years. Approval was given, as were many items of hoarded memorabilia. Along the way, Jim Lockhart (multi-instrumentalist) mentioned that a guy called Paul Callaghan had huge amounts of Horslips-related material; when Nelis discovered that Stephen Ferris also had a large memorabilia collection the prospect of an exhibition became even more tangible, especially when internet-generated contributions from fans around the world were factored in.
The History of Horslips exhibition made its debut in Derry around 18 months ago. A non-touring, non-profit-making, pop visual art extravaganza, it is an ambitious and wholly comprehensive celebration of the legacy of Horslips, put together with care, passion and attention to detail. Its next stop is Drogheda, Co Louth, where it will sit in residence at the town's Droichead Arts Centre (with, says Ferris, the crucial input of Drogheda-based solicitor, music fan and guitar collector Paddy Goodwin). The launch tonight will see most if not all Horslips members present; a nine-piece, Omagh-based teenage tribute band will officially provide the music.
Ironically, the exhibition that began life at the band's natural end is now contributing to a resurgence of interest. "With the exhibition, we thought we were writing the final chapter of Horslips," says Ferris, "giving the lads the send-off we reckoned they deserved by putting together what we thought was a very credible thing. But instead of actually writing the last chapter, we were wetting the ink and dusting off the book. We were into a new phase."
The exhibition's next stop is Belfast's Waterfront Hall in early 2006; by that time a Horslips DVD will have been released, and interest in the band will probably grow even further. Whatever the band do to embrace this re-opening of their history - if anything - is open to discussion and debate. For fans such as Stephen Ferris, Jim Nelis and Paul Callaghan, it is reward enough that they have met the people whose music inspired them all those years ago, and which continues to have resonance in their lives.
"The objective was to put on an exhibition of memorabilia and honour the lads," reiterates Ferris. "Jim Nelis's objective for last year's event in Derry was that Horslips would open it. To have the lads open it, and re-form for it was amazing. But to have them re-form and record an album (last year's Roll Back, a collection of acoustic renderings of 15 Horslips songs) was beyond what any of us could ever have expected. For fanatics like us payback such as this outweighs any effort we could ever put into it."
• History of Horslips is at Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, until Oct 18th
