Pipeman Interviews The Waterboys at Bourbon & Beyond 2025

0:04 Hy you have done too, Yes, that's true. Why for you? You? This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four C Y Radio, and I'm here. With Mike's go off the war Boys. Nice here at Bourbon and Beyond. That's correct. It is on a very hot day. A very hot day. How do you like the drip bar though, that's pretty cool to have the drip bars? Well, that's where you are, yeah, okay, and it's got shades, so we're. All right, Yeah, there you go. That's where you got that drink there that all those cool drinks up there.

0:49 So how have you been treated so far? Bourbon Beyond Hows Danny Wimmer treat his artists? We seem to be all right. There was a bit of an upset about everybody having to move their shows two hours forward and then they get moved back one way forward. I think maybe there was some big artists. Was a bit insecure about his audience numbers and wanted no competition, that's my guess. But anyway, it seems to all have been semi resolved, and we played at four o'clock in the afternoon and it was okay, and everybody'd been very nice. I wish the sets were longer, right, it would be wonderful because we're just beginning to cook it half an hour and then it's the end, and I wish it was forty five or sixty minutes. And I don't feel in the audience would have liked that too.

1:30 Absolutely, and the audience loved it as it was. They probably were wanted to have you play all day. Well that's the theory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And man, you're still so busy after doing this all these years. You put out an album this year. Yeah, and life and another album this year. Yeah, Well they're both part of the same project. Really. The album that's already at is Life, Death and Dennis Hopper. It's the life story of Dennis told through songs. And the one that's coming in November is called Rips from the cutting room Floor and sold the funny some of the very comedic extras that were recorded during the album that didn't quite fit on the main album for one reason or. No this see. I love those best sometimes because they're so real. Me too, me too, you know.

2:11 You know, Dennis did a lot of adverts late in his career, and he always brought a real style to them. And that makes them very easy to spoof. And I did two spoof Dennis Hopper adverts audio only, but they were on the bonus album that's coming in November. Okay, you're gonna love this story, all right. Going back to the eighties, Remember Dennis Hopper had his drug prom and he was in the hospital. Yeah, well, my dad had a drug problem and ended up his roommate at that same hospital. WHOA, Like, what a trip? Right? Wow? For how long? Well, my dad got out in seventy two hours because he tricked them. He was baker acted, and then he somehow came to like real, he came to like senses for long enough to let them know he should let him out. Okay, he shouldn't have been let out, Yeah, right, that I could tell you. But he I mean, like he always used to talk about my punky was Dennis Hopper.

3:17 What privileged to have shared that space with Dennis open right right? You know. Yeah. When I saw that in your album, I'm like, that's the funniest crap ever. The connection right there and the song that's released as the first song released on the one coming in December. Yeh, oh my god, that's such a good song. Is that the next time I saw Elvis? Yes, yes, yes, So tell me a little bit about is our story behind me? Yeah, it's a story that Dennis often used to tell about meeting Elvis in Hollywood in. The late fifties. See, Elvis was a huge James Dean fun and by the time Elvis got to Hollywood, James Dean had died, but Dennis, being Dean's.

3:59 Protege and Powell, was the next best thing. So Elvis went to Dennis for some advice about making movies. And Elvis had just in his first movie script it called in him to punch a woman, and he was really freaked out but never struck a woman before. And Dennis said, well, don't worry, man, you don't have to really hit her. He just made it look like it hit her, and then they had a sound effect and everybody watching the cinema. Believes you've hit her, but you haven't really. And Elvis was really mad at Dennis because he thought the movies were real. Wow, so Dennis, it spoiled as illusion. So that's pretty well. Now. You said something else too that struck a connection again. My first name is Dean, and I was named after James Oh.

4:45 You're lucky man. Like, it's so wild the world we live in, in this whole big world, and we could sit here at Bourban Beyond and have connections like that, yeah, without ever even meeting. Yeah, the world is a very cool place. I reached a small cool place. Yes, How does it feel performing music after all these years? Like you've been doing it forever? It feels great to me, Dane. I'm sixty six years old. I started when I was about sixteen in the mid seventies with my first bands. I've been a professional musician since nineteen seventy nine. I still love doing it. I feel I get better. I don't have quite the same energy that I had when I was in my twenties, but I've learned how to use my energy much better than that guy there you go. And my voice is stronger and my songwriting powers are greater, and my band is better.

5:35 So I think that's how it should be. And it is definitely exactly how should be, you know, I was thinking yesterday I was watching Ringo Starr, which was like a dream for me because I was a Beatles freak. But I also started playing drums because of Ringo Star Okay, and I looked at this amazing musician who says mid eighties yeah, doing jumping jacks on stage and running around. I was like, oh my god, I hope I'm like him when I grow up. Well, his generation, the first sixties rock and rollers, to get to that age is showing us a different way to age. I think. Yeah, like Mick Jagger as well.

6:16 Look at Keith Richards whoever figured yeah, and look he's still going strong. And like you said, Mick Jagger going strong. Make Jigon can still do all those moves? Is that amazing? What? Like? And you're here and you're still doing all the moves. Yeah, And so it gives all the rest of us hope. And I'm not much below you. I'm not much below you either in age. But you know, I think it's a state of mind. Like I'm fifty eight. My grandkids can't keep up with me, you know, And people I'm here with they're like, ugh, we can't keep up with them. I think it's a stay of mind. It's not a number. Yeah, I think that's right and loving life.

6:57 Yeah. And I also had children late in life. My daughter was born when I was fifty four or someone was fifty seven. And that helps keep me young, and it's helped oil the wheels of my creativity because, especially when they were a little bit younger, I'd be constantly making up funny songs and telling them stories, so that I was old and it could be called on to do it at any moment. So I was always on. And I noticed that he coincided with a spartan my songwriting. I'm very grateful. That's phenomenal. Yeah, that's fine too. My dad, I was talking about he had I don't even remember how old he was, but I have a sister that's thirty years younger than me, whoa younger than all four of my kids. Yeah, he was probably around your age that you had your kid. Yeah, and it's like it was funny. Was married to my stepmother for three years, divorced for ten, had a quadruple bypass, they got back together, and he had a kid.

7:50 Wow, way to go, dad, Ill know right, Yeah. It's starting a new trend all of you. Yeah, like, yeah, how does it feel to be a dad at this stage of life? It's a cool. It was just fantastic and I'm kind of glad that I wasn't a diet in my thirties because. I'm cooler, No, and I know more and I'm not. Screwed up about anything and talking to impart good stuff to my kids. I think that makes me think of Ozzie. Okay, because Ozzie who just passed away. But you know how he was as a father with the kids, the later kids, I'm post the earlier kids, total difference. Yeah. I never really followed his TV program, but I always going to impression he was a very loving guy. Oh totally. And I guess like when he was younger he was too busy with the partying and the whole lifestyle.

8:35 They wasn't a parent that he had to be an older parent to be a good parent. Yes, yes, you know, and that's what he became. So that's cool. So one story, good or bad in your whole musical career, what would it be? One story? Yeah, I have a funny Bob Dylan story. I met Bob a couple of times in the mid eighties. He'd heard The Whole of the Moon, one of our early records, and he invited me to a studio in London. He was recorded with Dave Stewart of the Rhythmics, So I were very happy to accept. The message I got was Bob likes the whole of the moon. Do you want to come to the studio. So I turned up at the studio with my two band members who were also invited, and there was Bob, and he was very friendly. He had a little kind word for each of us. And at one point Dave Stewart came over and said, Mike even got any tunes that Bob could use? And you see what they were doing was they're making instrumentals that Bob was going to put lyrics to.

9:32 So I was saying, well, I've got a few. New songs, but I'm not giving them to Bob Dylan, you know Dylan or no Dylan. They're there for the water boys, like we Will Not Be Lovers, which is on the Fisherman' bluesal. That was one that was in my head at that. Nah. No, I'm not giving Bob Dylan that. No, I'm keeping that. But I did have one that didn't quite work for me, and it was in this kind of jazz rhythm. So I played it to them at the piano and Bob. I played it for about a minute and Bob came up and he but he's hand on my shoulder and he led it down to my and. He said, you can keep that one. It was the nicest rejection I've ever had. Oh so sweet, That's great. I love it. So how you going to top Bourban Beyond What Goes comes next?

10:16 You got the new album coming out on December fifth? But what else is it? Oh? Well, we're only halfway through our North American tour. We've got Nashville, Chicago, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, La San Diego, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Austin, Dallas, and Oklahoma. Said look, I'm an eye good boy, I know what they all are. How the hell did you remember all that? How indeed, I don't know. It's the first time I've ever remembered them all in. One Ellen's impressive, I'll tell you. Yeah. Well you are amazing. It's great to have you here at Bourban Beyond Mink you did? And is there any final words you want to leave our listeners with? Just like to say, it's such a wonderful privilege to play for North American audiences because so much of the music that I love, that we love that has formed modern culture, grew in the melting pot of America, and every city we go to has a different part of that story, and I find it incredibly inspiring to play in those cities with all that heritage, and also to audiences who live and breathe it, and they know exactly what we're saying in the music, and they know when to respond and how to respond, and it's just such a blessing, such a gas to play for a North American audience.

11:27 Well, those are great final words. I love hearing that because we want ours like you to come over and have a good time, and it seems like you are. I am sure having a good time there. It is. Thank you, Thank you for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Thanks man, Thank You for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin on w for CUI Radio.