The Answer have to be one of my very favourite Rock bands to come out of Belfast, and over the years they’ve made some wonderful music, the best of which you feel is yet to come. Last year frontman Cormac Neeson released his debut solo album ‘White Feather’ and it’s a whole other trip: wonderful heartfelt songs that move you and add another dimension to his catalogue. In November ‘White Feather’ gets re-released with extra tracks from the original sessions and a rather wonderful looking vinyl release too. Whilst covid-19 makes it hard for us all it’s especially hard for musicians and we talk about that, how the album was made, and also touch on upcoming new music from The Answer too.
Mark: Hey Cormac how are you?
Cormac: Yeah, I’m doing OK.
Mark: We’ve spoken a few times over the years, normally when there’s been a new album out from The Answer, but I guess never under such strange conditions as we’re having at the minute.
Cormac: Yeah yeah, it’s kinda crazy isn’t it! It’s a weird world to be in at the best of times but I suppose speaking from a musician’s point of view there’s so much uncertainty you can’t really plan, you know, more than a few days in advance right at the moment you know. So that’s a challenge, but you know yourself, you gotta keep going and keep trying to stay fresh and keep trying to stay creative.
Mark: It’s pretty hard. I mean we’re seeing a lot of stuff on the internet, and there’s some great stuff that you’ve been putting up there, so people are still having fun, finding new ways to reach out to people, but it’s not the same without that ‘live’ music. We’re lucky here in Western Australia that the isolation that we usually complain about is keeping things safe for us, we have no cases at the moment and whilst it’s not back to normal, or whatever that may be, it’s opening up and that’s meaning that local bands can play and get more people to listen to their own original music.
Cormac: Yeah for sure. I don’t think anybody’s going to take a live gig for granted ever again, or at least I hope they don’t (laughs) I hope that’s not the case for just the first month of normality and then everything goes back to like it was. But that’s good to hear that local bands are doing well out of it for sure.
Mark: You don’t realise how much you miss it until it’s gone. I know I was exactly 66 days without a live show over here.
Cormac: Wow.
Mark: We had an international act play, then two days later we closed the borders and it was 66 days before we got another show – a local band at 25% capacity. A pretty small crowd, everyone seated but it was good.
Cormac: Let’s hope we all get back to normal soon.
Mark: But all things Covid aside, ‘White Feather’, wow, I don’t know where to start! I’m loving listening to music in lock-down and I know I’d head the album before but what you’ve added to it is pretty special. Was it always the intention to reissue the album, or was that something that came about due to the whole situation we’re in?
Cormac: The re-issue was actually scheduled for May that’s just passed us by. And the delay has much to do with the coronavirus in that I couldn’t get out and play any gigs or anything else, but there was also the issue of distribution and manufacturing all shutting down at the same time as well. So for a whole bunch of reasons that I’m sure you can understand it was pushed back to the 7th of November. I suppose bigger picture-wise the plan with the re-issue you know ‘White Feather’ is one of those projects that I’ve actually never had a solid plan for from the beginning. It’s always been about (laughs) and that sounds very naive on my part being in the business for a few years now! But it began by sitting down in a room and writing some songs that meant an awful lot to me and it’s kind of snowballed from there. So I wrote a few more songs till it kind of felt like I had enough to make a record. So when I’d decided to make it, and decided where I wanted to do it, you know I’d written a lot of this stuff in Nashville, I felt I owed it to myself to follow that side of the project through. And then from that point on it was just, “well let’s see how it turns out” really and from there a few people listened to it and liked it and then Social Family (the label) came on board and after the initial release the reissue was kind of a plan hatched between myself and the record company. They’re great people and they came in with some very clear ideas and objectives, and I suppose brought a necessary focus to the project which maybe I needed. So the reissue is just a very good opportunity to maybe put the record in the spotlight again, well maybe not again, but just to keep the momentum rolling, you know. It’s also an opportunity to release a bunch more tracks, I’m sure every artist on the planet has talked to you about how you record more than you need and it’s really hard to leave those songs behind. So thankfully it’s a good way of getting those out. There’s still a few that we left behind and I apologise to those songs (laughs) but it’s great to get even more out there from that very creative time in my life, you know.
Mark: And it’s nice to have the vinyl out there too with a couple of new tracks added.
Cormac: Yeah there’s new tracks going on the vinyl and on the CD as well, and there’s going to be a couple that are specific to the vinyl just to make it a unique collectable, you know.
Mark: It’s always interesting when someone releases a solo album when they’re primarily known for being in a band, I’ve obviously followed you music over a number of years and it’s just kept getting better. I loved ‘New Horizons’, ‘Raise a Little Hell’ was better than that and then ‘Solas’ that came after that was really eye-opening. And then to hear something that was even more different in ‘White Feather’ for me is a treat, it’s always great to hear another side of an artist. How have people taken it? Have you got new fans coming on board who maybe don’t know what came before?
Cormac: I definitely think people are seeing the song-writer. The guy who writes the songs on the guitar and gets up there without any of, I suppose, the bravado and the noise that come with playing in a great Rock and Roll band. With that stripped I guess it shows a more honest side tome as an artist and I think people are tapping into that, you know. I mean the flip-side of that is obviously I don’t expect in a million years that every Rock and Roll fan that has listened to The Answer to be into what I’m doing now, you know. I wouldn’t presume that at all, but I think the most important part of all this is that I’m in a really good place right now with the music that I’m getting upon stage (laughs) well maybe not so right now, but the music that I’m putting out there and living by right now I guess. It feels like a necessary release for me you know, and that was really the motivation behind the whole thing in the first place – being able to get in my studio and create songs that I can put a big chunk of myself into. And also it’s a great challenge having to get out there on my own and not have anyone else to fall back on if something doesn’t go well. I think I’ve improved as a song-writer and a guitarist and probably as a front-person as well because it’s just you up there, you know, and you have to be accountable for every step of the way you know.
Mark: Nowhere to hide!
Cormac: (laughs) And then also The Answer have started writing again for a new project, and that feels better than it ever has done. I’ve always loved working with the guys and I’m very proud of what we’ve done to this point. We’ve made six records, and you do kind of need to be on your guard with regards to things getting a little stale or stagnant, you know. And I think having this break came at the perfect time for The Answer’s career, weirdly for me as well. There’s a new energy but it’s also a familiar energy, because you know we’ve lived out of each other’s pockets for so long. So it’s a really great and exciting thing to be writing in that world as well, and I appreciate it more than I ever have done, so it’s all kind of very self-perpetuating. It’s been a very positive experience.
Mark: Sound great and let’s hope it all fits together just as well.
Cormac: I have no idea where the ‘White Feather’ stuff will take me, but it’s something I’m very proud of.
Mark: I saw that you had some dates up. Saturday 8th August isn’t too far away just next weekend, which I think is the first one. Is all still good? Still going ahead?
Cormac: Yeah, so the dates in the immediate future are very much ‘social distanced government guideline’ gigs, you know where like the gig that you are talking about on the 8th is in the carpark of the venue that I’ve played many times in my life, you know. They’ve moved it out so they can have the gig all seated with proper distances and the proper guidelines adhered to. And I’m so thankful to have a couple of those opportunities to get upon stage again because even just having a rehearsal last night with the guys, I’m working as a three-piece at the moment with regards to presenting the ‘White Feather’ stuff, And honestly I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a band rehearsal as much as I did last night. And there was nothing weird or wonderful about it, it was just being able to stand in another room with other people (laughs).And even just to stand up and play, you know, was great. I’ve been doing like two online gigs a week for quite a few weeks now, and I’ve just been sitting in the same seat in the same spare room in my house, you know. So it’s good to be able to get up and ply live music that can physically move you again! (laughs). So I’ve got that gig and then it’s been billed as the world’s first socially distanced festival, and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s a Festival that happens every year here in Ireland and they’ve stripped everything right down, and again they’re doing t properly with all the right kind of social distancing and all the rest of it.
Mark: Sounds interesting!
Cormac: I’ve no idea how it’s all going to work out but I’m really excited about that as well. And even this Saturday night I’ve been doing a ‘virtual song-writers in the round’ and this week is the 20th episode, so myself and my song-writing partner Matt McGinn (He’s talking about ‘Cocoons’ if you’ve seen it) who we’ve been doing this whole project together with – I’m meeting him in the same room for the first time during all of this, and we’re doing this stand-alone gig on Saturday night to mark the occasion so there’s different things happening in the weeks ahead that just really ‘keep the fires burning’, if you like, you know. And then I’ve obviously got my fingers and toes crossed that the UK tour in November to mark the release of the re-issue is gonna go ahead. At the moment everybody is carrying on like it’s going ahead and I really hope that it will. But like we said at the beginning of this call, you can’t really plan much further than a week or two ahead right now you know. So we kind of tentatively keep preparing for that long-term goal, and let’s see what happens.
Mark: I feel for you. It is really one of those things when you can’t really plan, but you have to keep going. The most wonderful thing about the first gigs back, like we’re lucky to have had here, is that people can see that we can get back to a tiny slice of normality if we all do it safely and follow the guidelines. A lot of us miss that so much.
Cormac: Yeah, and you have to think about your own head as well. It’s been bad for a lot of people and we’ve been in a lot of weird and claustrophobic situations, so if it can be done healthily and it means that people are able to get out of the house, to as you say, taste even a slice of normality I think that’s going to go a long way to keeping people in the right headspace, you know.
Mark: It’s so good for people’s mental health definitely. They can see that it’s not lost and they can see that it’s coming back as we do better and better against this threat that’s out there hanging over us all. And it’s crazy how it’s panning out in different parts of the world though, I’ve talked to a lot of people in the States and they just can’t see an end to what’s happening over there which is horrible in itself. But there have been gigs going ahead both socially distanced and not socially distanced and it’s hard to know what’s going to happen.
Cormac: It’s so sad.
Mark: Let’s get back to the music now. Tell us about the new tracks on the re-release. Were they contemporary with the rest of the tracks on ‘White Feather?’ We have the bonus tracks, which I guess are the ones that didn’t make the first cut, but with the bonus tracks the one I particularly love is ‘Blue Beyond the Gray’.
Cormac: Yeah that’s the rockers heart coming out in you there! (laughs) No they are all very much contemporary to the original sessions and the original writing of the record. ‘Blue Beyond the Gray’ I wrote with a guy whose name is actually Blue, but that was not his ego taking over there, it was separate from that. A guy called Blue Miller and another fella called James Elliott who is actually the head of song writing a Belmont University in Nashville, the big kind of Music College in Nashville, I remember meeting James and he took me for a walk around the campus and showed me the recording studios that those guys use. And it’s that famous recording studio that you’ve seen pictures of on umpteen documentaries about umpteen classic albums like where Dylan recorded ‘Nashville Skyline.’ He showed me the mixing desk where The Band recorded The Last Waltz, you know that documentary?
Mark: Yeah.
Cormac: Whenever Rick Danko’s sitting at the mixing desk saying “I’m just trying to keep busy” – he showed me that very mixing desk, he showed me the spot, there’s an ‘X’ that marks the spot where Patsy Cline recorded ‘Crazy’
Mark: Wow
Cormac: There’s just so much history in that town alone, but James gave me a special insider’s tour of the ties past and it was amazing. And that evening we sat down and we wrote ‘Blue Beyond the Gray’ and I said to Blue Millar actually, I wanted to write something kind of Allman Brothersy, you know. I think we’d just been vibing out to the Allman Brothers a few days previously and I said I want to write a song like that! And he said “We can sure try”.
Mark: (laughs)
Cormac: So we sat down and not that I’d claim it to be particularly Allman Brothersy in the end, but it turned into a pretty cool track.
Mark: I get that, totally.
Cormac: and that kind of ‘barber shoppy’ swampy kinda acapella section at the start, I just recorded all those vocals myself back Ireland. I just wanted to kinda recreate something like Swampy, and I kind of knew the sound that I wanted but if I was to get a load of dudes into the studio to record that, I could never communicate exactly what I wanted so I just thought “I’ll do that myself” and it turned into a pretty interesting intro to a song, you know. So that one came out well. Blue Millar is actually no longer with us unfortunately, he was meant to produce the record and he was weirdly and tragically rushed into hospital the first day of recording the album and it turned out that he had a problem with his brain and he then spent the next six months fighting this thing but unfortunately passed away the following summer. He co-wrote a few songs on the record with me, so it’s just a kind of little sub-plot to the depth of meaning behind this record. And when I sing these songs that he was involved in I very much try to do those songs justice to honour his name, as well as just getting up there and playing some great songs, you know. So I just wanted to tip the hat to a dear friend, a talented and unbelievably great song writer from Nashville.
Mark: Well it’s a beautiful collection of songs and it does what I love music to do which is to play with your emotions. And that’s just added another layer. For me, music has to move you if it’s really gonna stand the test of time. And I think you have an album here that in ten, twenty years’ time, I’ll still be playing. Like Steve Marriott once said – the test of a great song is if you can get up there with a voice and an acoustic guitar and move people, that’s a great song.
Cormac: Yeah I totally agree with that. You know even a lot of The Answer stuff and especially in recent years I will always take the acoustic guitar out after the boys have rocked out and we’ve got a whole lot of riffling going on, I’ll go into a separate room and try and work out how to play it on the acoustic guitar and the way the chords would go just to check how the melodies and the lyrics sit on top of it all you know. A song is always a weird blend with all those elements to the music and they all have to really work in tandem together. And Steve Marriott know better than most (laughs)
Mark: He does, a great guy, I got to meet him once and I couldn’t say a word I was that awestruck.
Cormac: No way, that would have been awesome, I’m jealous.
Mark: Yeah many years ago he was playing in a local pub when I was a student playing with ‘A Packet of Three’ I think it was at the time.
Cormac: No way! Wow.
Mark: Yeah he just came up to the bar where I was stood with a cigarette in one hand and a pint in the other and just smiled. And I was frozen, I just thought I can’t talk to this guy he’s too much of a legend.
Cormac: (laughs)
Mark: One of my cherished memories and a huge loss to music.
We’ve been asking people over the course of the last few months of interviews to suggest something that people might want to checkout whilst they’re in isolation, or whatever the situation they’re in, just some music that you think might help ease things for people in these storage times. What would you recommend for our readers?
Cormac: That’s a big old question. Individual songs there’s a couple at the moment in this world of steaming where you can just share the song into the ether and all of a sudden there’s a device that will play it for you in the kitchen, you know. ‘My Morning Song’ by The Black Crowes I’ve just rediscovered, it’s so weird I used to listen to The Black Crowes constantly, and then I suppose it’s kind of to do with my own journey with the solo project, I kind of moved into a lot of stuff with just a different sonic, probably a lot more Folky and Rootsy stuff, you know. But whenever The Answer met back up again after maybe a year and a half we just started blasting Black Crowes records again and ‘My Morning Song’ came on and I’d ‘d forgotten just what that song can do to you. It just hits you. And there’s a few songs by the Black Crows like ‘Soul Singing’, ‘Sting Me’ they’re songs that it doesn’t matter what time of the day or where you are when you hear them you just can’t help but start moving, and that’s what music is all about right there. Music that can really transform your mood and take you to a different place. So I suppose that little trio of Black Crowes songs is a good starting point.
Mark: Wonderful, I won’t stop you but we’ll come back to that, I’ll let you go on! (laughs).
Cormac: (laughs) And then I suppose something to kind of rest the eardrums for a while there’s Tom Wait’s ‘closing Time’ T Wait’s debut album. I remember picking it up at a record shop, we were doing an instore in Toulouse in France and the beautiful thing about record store gigs is that the guy who runs the record store will inevitably come up to you after the gig and go “You guys pick an album and it’s on the house” you know. And you get to pick anything in the shop, and for some reason I picked up Tom Wait’s closing time, I just liked the look of it. I didn’t really know too much about it, obviously I’d listened to a bit of Tom Waits but didn’t know too much about the debut album and the songs on it. But they’re songs that just move you and that’s what it’s all about.
Mark: I know what you mean, I actually worked back with Tom, I think the first album I heard of his was probably ‘Swordfishtrombones’ after seeing ‘In the Neighbourhood’ on TV, and as you work back you realise what a genius he was. What I was going to ask you before when we talked about The Black Crowes, was that I was actually quite getting into The Magpie Salute, I actually spoke to rich a couple of times when those albums came out, and now we’re back to The Black Crowes again, albeit stalled due to the pandemic.
Cormac: I know the boys, they can’t make up their minds what they want to do, so they can’t. Funnily Rich came through Belfast maybe two or three years ago and I have a band over here in Belfast called ‘The Unholy Gospel Band’ and we do kind of out own interpretations of classic Gospel and Soul songs. Our tagline is “we ain’t Holy but the music is Gospel”
Mark: I really like the sound of that!
Cormac: It’s just a lot of fun, they’re great players and we play some gigs around the town and our first ever gig was the same day as the Rich Robinson show. Our show was in the afternoon so we just kind of kept on getting the beers in and then we headed down to see Rich Robinson at the Empire Music Hall in Belfast. It was just a great night, just him and his guitar with these beautiful open tunings that sounded like there were three guitar players there. It was great to see.
Mark: Great, great music. Thank you so much for taking the timeout of your day to talk to The Rockpit it’s always great to talk to you. I think I’m going to listen to Tom Waits now after I’ve finished ‘White Feather’ again.
Cormac: (laughs)
Mark: You stay safe Cormac, great to hear about the live dates, hopefully everything will go well and we’ll be opened up again soon. I’d love to see you down in Australia at some point either solo or with the band.
Cormac: Yeah man I would not rule it out, we’ve got, as you know some serious record company contacts down there now, so maybe those guys can sort it out for us.
Mark: Sounds perfect. Thank you so much.
Cormac: Alright brother great talking to you, bye bye.
