From Steeleye Span to The Pogues, Terry Woods has played a crucial role in the development of Irish music. He may be older and wiser, but the fires within still burn bright, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.
My God, but Terry Woods has been through the mill and around the houses. Now in his early 50s, his list of musical achievements through the decades include Sweeney's Men, Ireland's first prototypical electric folk group; the co-founding of Steeleye Span, one of the first UK folk bands, along with Fairport Convention, to authoritatively fuse folk with rock instruments; the mixture of folk and soft rock utilised in the music he made with his first wife, Gaye; The Pogues, which he joined in the second half of the 1980s, a natural extension of his original vision and a band that benefited immensely from his wealth of experience and status.
But what to do when The Pogues are resting? It's been a long, slow trawl back, but there was a time not too long ago when Woods was floundering. Side projects such as the short-lived Bucks (with Ron Kavana) and an equally brief stint at management (Roscommon's The Marbles) proved unsatisfying.
"The one thing no one seems to understand about the management business is that it's only a great idea when it works," says Woods ruefully. "Other than that, it's all money out and nothing coming in. It's a thankless task; unless you hit paydirt, that is, and then you're Mister Wonderful."
Sitting in a Navan hotel (he and his family live close to the Co Meath town), Woods looks like a refugee from a Quentin Tarantino movie: shaven head, goatee beard, clothes as loose and smart as his attitude. He exudes an assertive quality and a questioning nature; he's very much his own person and you get a definite impression if he doesn't like someone they'll soon know about it.
He has a new, eponymous band ready to roll out, with a début album and forthcoming Irish tour dates (as well as Canadian and Scandinavian tours in the winter months); he seems charged as he holds down another job while Shane MacGowan and company are otherwise engaged in their own extracurricular activities.
Wisely, he says he's not aiming to compete with either The Pogues or anything connected with what passes for musical entertainment these days.
The music on the album and what will be played on tour is, he says, "stuff I've written over the years that I haven't used, stuff that takes my fancy, which will work for the band".
The background aesthetic, says Woods, "is to play the music without anyone breaking their hearts over it. I don't want anyone thinking we're the Next Big Thing - we're not. I'm too old for that way of thinking, anyway. The record isn't the best one that's ever been made, but it wasn't made for that reason."
Clearly tired of the hype he has heard and been on the receiving end of throughout the years as a mainstay of Irish roots and folk/rock music, Woods is critical of the music industry in Ireland ("at the top, they all slap each other on the back; on the shop floor, there's nothing. Record companies aren't interested in signing anyone except acts that are market-based".) and of Ireland itself.
He used to believe, in his younger days, that if people like him left Ireland,only the philistines would be left. But over the last 10 years he has become very disillusioned with Ireland and says he'd be as comfortable living elsewhere.
Politically, he feels he can't trust anyone anymore, saying that it's not enough that someone is a good GAA man - or any other sportsman or woman for that matter - to become a politician. Politics as a subject needs to be taken on to the same level as doctors, he says; that a person has to have an academic, historical and social understanding of what the job entails.
"It isn't a question of lining your own pockets and looking for re-election for the sake of it. It's all about greed now, what you have and what you can get. A certain essence of the country is becoming more and more diluted. Dublin, too, has lost its character."
While he knows his name will open doors, he's equally aware his latest band will have to prove itself once they step over the threshold. Yet he battles with the music industry on virtually every level. He knows the major labels would take one look at him and close the door to the executive meeting room.
"Yet I know from experience," he says, "there is an enormous audience in places such as Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and parts of America for the kind of music we do. But it would be a bastard of a job to try to convince a major record label to put money into us." Which is why, like so many people who fail to pass the major label photogenic and style test, he has taken the independent route.
Woods's new record label is called the Four Corners Of Hell, a direct historical nod to a part of inner city Dublin where his father was born. The record itself (Music From The Four Corners Of Hell) is similarly out of time but curiously not of place.
There is a direct line from it to Sweeney's Men, Steeleye Span, the original Woods Band - even to The Pogues. "It all fits into the same bag," he explains.
While, historically, Woods is viewed as a crucial link between various stages of the development of Irish music, he sees himself perceived as "a cranky bastard, who's a bit of a loner, a bit left field, a little odd".
He doesn't think there would be a great deal of respect for him in the Irish music business or industry, which is probably true: "They're a bit wary of me, I think, but I don't really care to be honest; it's reciprocal, anyway. It used to worry me, when I was younger. I'm aware I have a reasonable reputation elsewhere, and it's the elsewhere bit I'm interested in."
HE'S taking the latest incarnation of The Woods Band in his stride, too long in the tooth to be concerned about the level of success outside his own terms. "I've always regarded music in a way that I would look at a plumber or an electrician - functional; it should be part of the way of life. I have very little time for the cult of celebrity - it's utter drivel and people who get trapped into it are silly. But I think music is something that people actually need, as much a part of our culture as tending to animals."
He's quit alcohol, as most people at his time of life have had to, for one reason or another. Drinking enough for a couple of generations ultimately bored him. There was a time, he admits, when he was afraid of himself, but not anymore, not for a long time.
"I was as bad and mad as everyone else," he says, "and wasn't an easy guy to be around when I was loaded."
Sober for 10 years and counting, Terry Woods views the bar around him with indifference. He feels quite happy that he's grown into himself, he reflects, nursing his coffee cup. "As you get older you become aware of your traits," he reasons, "and, even worse, you don't care what people think."
As for the new band and album, well, you won't be surprised to discover that Woods wouldn't be too disappointed if it just came and went and made a bit of a mark. His philosophy is simple and direct: "The record is a vehicle for the band. There is no point having pretensions about it."
Music From The Corners Of Hell by The Woods Band was released yesterday. The group plays the following dates in September: Thursday, 12th: The Spirit Store, Dundalk, Co Louth (042-9352697); Friday, 13th: Nerve Centre, Derry (048-71260562); Saturday, 14th: The Stables, Mullingar, Co Westmeath (044-40251); Tuesday, 17th: The Quays, Galway (091-568347); Thursday, 19th: Whelan's, Dublin (01-4780766); Friday, 20th: The Half Moon Theatre, Cork (021-4270022); Saturday, 21st: Dolan's Warehouse, Limerick (061-314483)