Tell us about your early musical life. Did you come from a musical family? Did you have lessons?

      Well, no I don't come from a musical family as such, though I did discover a couple of years ago that my Dad's uncle, Andy Howell, was a national sean-nós champion. My Mom's 'party-piece' was singing 'The Holy City' and I remember her doing a good job. My Dad's piece was 'The Four Farrellys', a poem by Percy French -- again, very well done. My Dad seems to have thousands of bits of verse and poetry on the tip of his tongue. I do remember him taking up the chromatic harmonica when I was a kid but it didn't last. We did, however, have what may have been the first stereo in Ireland. Paddy (my Da) was in Dublin for some conference or other and saw a demonstration of 'stereophonic sound'. They played a disc of a ping-pong match -- left 'think' -- right 'thonk' -- very cool. Anyway he bought the demonstration model as the show was ending and a record of Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter -- even more cool. In around 1959 I remember the EP of 'Mise Éire' by Seán Ó Riada appearing in the house. This was a film soundtrack of traditional Irish music played by symphony orchestra; I wore that thing out. We also in time acquired lots of boxed collections of classical music, a little jazz. The only thing we got that I didn't like was a collection of 'folk songs' that seemed to be sung by opera singers -- just awful.
      Around the time of the Beatles I also heard the first Chieftains LP and 'Playboy of the Western World' -- Ó Riada again. They didn't supplant the Beatles in my affections but the effect was powerful nonetheless.
      When I went away to boarding school I remember the new boys lining up in a corridor to enter a room one by one where Fr. Arnold gave us a singing test. It was what I imagine an Army medical to be like -- a 'musical' I guess. Well, I got to be in the choir and the bonus was you got free tuition on a musical instrument of your choice. For some reason I said 'trumpet' when asked -- it just popped into my head -- and thus began my musical education. I became a big Herb Alpert fan and even had a band doing covers. But along the way my friend, Michael Dervan, played me stuff like John Mayall's 'Bare Wires' with Henry Lowther playing cornet. He also taught me rudiments of improvisation -- that was a revelation. In time I remember swapping a Herb Alpert LP for Dylan's 'Blonde on Blonde'. I got out of high school in 1969

How did you become interested in Irish music? What is it that makes that music compelling for you?

      Oh, my. Well I grew up hearing it -- on the radio -- in people's houses -- at fetes. I mean, sometimes it wasn't particularly well played and by the the time I was a teenager, and knew everything, Irish music was decidedly uncool. But then I heard Planxty, The Bothy Band et al and those records transfixed me. Planxty, in particular. I once saw The Bothy Band in England and the music was great even if the band seemed shy and diffident on stage.
      I suppose I like Irish music for the wonderful melodies -- that modal thing is so much more interesting to me -- and of course the songs. I love a good story and I especially love a good story well told. There is always that social element to the music, too. I first got actively involved in Irish music after going to a pub because I'd heard that there was music there.

What sort of music do you mostly listen to for enjoyment?

      Last night I listened to Dino Saluzzi with Charlie Hayden and the first Deiseal CD, 'The Long, Long Note'. I'd not listened Deiseal in a while and had forgotten how much I loved this CD. This is a lovely intelligent recording. It was the fore-runner of what is becoming known as 'Hiberno-jazz' but should be required listening for anyone attempting to 'push the envelope' in Irish music. There are a lot of unfortunate musical marriages out there, a lot of contrived hybrids and cross-genre experiments that don't work. There are a lot that do work -- 'The Long, Long Note' is one of them.
      For everyday, I suppose I listen mostly to classical music but recent listens (in the last few days) have included 'Red on Blonde' by Tim O'Brien, 'The Last Prophet' by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, 'The Comedian Harmonists' (amazing), Ti Jaz 'Rêves Sauvages' and 'Louisiana Hayride Archives' featuring Elvis Presley. I'm also a big fan of Hamster Theater.

What do you like best about being in Colcannon?

      The funny, talented people in the band. I'm a great admirer of my bandmates and think of them as my best friends. I love working with them -- observing a tune develop from dots on a page to something really moving or exciting, or how some little detail can be the perfect touch. I think audiences can also tell that we like each other and are having a good time up there.

What do you like least?

      Motel room beds, maybe? How hard it is to find a quiet place to unwind after a gig? I don't want to go to a place where I have to shout over the music to be heard; where I can see a television everywhere I turn. I didn't care for it when I was twenty either. I like the pub ambiance not the bar ambiance.

What do you do for fun?

      As you can tell, I'm too much of a grouch to have fun. Actually, I like cooking -- I find it very meditative. I really enjoy teaching Irish language class -- I've met some great people and I, at least, have a great time. I love being with my wife; we spend a lot of time together and really enjoy each other. Yoga. Walking. And, of course, the band -- the band can be a lot of work sometimes, but it's heck of a lot of fun.

What kind of books do you read? Anything recently that you'd recommend?

      I read all kinds. A few months ago I made contact again with an old friend from my days in England, Chris Bareford. In order to catch up with what had being going on we swapped lists. This was my list of books off the top-of-my head that I recalled enjoying or as having made an impression on me. There are many more:

• Ulysses -- Joyce
• Finnegan's Wake -- Joyce
• Tristram Shandy -- Sterne
• Les Miserables -- Hugo
• The Master and Margarita -- Bulgakov
• Titus Groan -- Peake
• Sacred Hunger -- Unsworth
• Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha -- Doyle
• Earthly Power -- Burgess
• My Uncle Silas -- Bates
• Riddley Walker -- Hoban
• At Swin-Two-Birds -- O'Brien
• Rebel Angels -- Davies

      Right now I'm reading Pete Hamill's A Drinking Life and the Seamus Heaney translation of "Beowulf" -- I can recommend both highly. I also recently read the two-part Peter Guralnick bioghraphy of Elvis -- very fine stuff. In the wings are Roddy Doyle's A Star called Henry and a Reginald Hill mystery On Beulah Height -- both excellent writers, so I'm looking forward to that.

So, what's new?

     Well, where to start ... lots of things really. Just last August I became a grandfather. There's the whole story about reuniting with Tara in August 2000 -- well almost exactly two years later she and her husband Scot had a baby boy -- Bret Aidan Knutson. So, at a time when a number of my friends are becoming parents, I became a grandparent. I was twenty-two when Tara was born ... at least I was precocious in something.

So how's the relationship with Tara?

     It's really great. It's frightening to think how little we might have had in common but, in actual fact, we think alike in many ways. She's very sympathique -- we have similar senses of humour; there are no off-limits subjects. We like each other a lot. And Bret, of course, -- well, I'm biased -- and there's nothing more boring than other people's grandchildren -- but, I think 's wildly talented and extremely handsome. Jean and I went to visit them before going over to Ireland this October.

You have family there still?

     A brother and a sister -- with two other sisters living in Scotland and three brothers living in England...

So there are...?

     Eight of us all together. Five boys, three girls. But even though we're scattered Ireland is still home in many ways. There's a family home on Aranmore Island that we all own in common -- or rather, none of us actually owns it. There's an arrangement called a tontine -- 'a last man club'. The house is in a kind of trust whereby we all have the use of it but no right of possession until there's only one of us left. The last surviving sibling inherits.

And you're the eldest?

     Yes.

So, how was the trip?

     It was great. We went to England first and saw my brother Maodhog in Luton; then on to Bedford and stayed with my old, great friends Chris and Viv Bareford. I managed to see a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a long, long time. I could tell you more about that but we'd be here all night. After Bedford we flew up to Glasgow where my sisters Anne and Karen and their families live -- we spent most of the night sitting up talking. The following evening we flew over to Belfast and then by car on to Donegal with my sister Sorcha. It was a hectic few days but when we got to Aranmore we just relaxed.

Did you get to hear any music?

     Well, we were intending to go to a session the Central Hotel in Raphoe but we got in kind of late and were exhausted. Probably still jet-lagged, too. Then once we got to the island we just did some intense relaxing. It had been a fairly hectic Autumn. We'd been working on the new CD and then getting ready to perform Mike's piece, 'Lusanna' so we were ready for a break. We took a lot of walks around the island -- Jean took more than me. She had a new camera to play with and it's a beautiful place. We had some good seafood while we were there but tended to stay out of the pubs. I gave up drinking a few years ago so I don't go to bars as often and, besides, the cigarette smoke is just awful in most of them -- though since we were there they've instituted a new law forbidding smoking in bars. A good thing, too. There'd be nights when you'd walk out of the pub feeling like a ham ready to drop off the bone.
     Anyway, we mostly sat by the fire, drank tea and read.

What did you read?

     I spent a lot of time on Richard Tarnas' Passion of the Western Mind. I studied some Philosophy at University years ago but had no real grasp of the history of Western thought. As an artist, I think reason is only half the story but I have a horror of superstition -- a force far too common in the world for far too long a time -- so people like Socrates who questioned cherished beliefs are heroic figures in my imagination. Anyway, I liked the book a lot. It was slow going but well worth it. Right now I'm really enjoying a book called Think by Simon Blackburn -- another book investigating some of the perennial philosophical questions -- free will, the self, God.

Heavy stuff!

Well, it demands some thought but I just take my time. It's actually very stimulating stuff, not at all the fearful ponderous stuff that ponderous people might have you believe it is. And, you know, I read lots of lighter stuff, too. I really like good mysteries -- been reading a lot of Peter Robinson, Ian Rankin, Michael Connolly.

Anything else?

     Let's see. I read a few John Banville books -- Mefisto, The Untouchable and The Book of Evidence. Mefisto didn't quite work for me. The Untouchable I liked a lot -- a fictionalized biography of Sir Anthony Blount -- the Queen's Art Curator who, late in life, was unmasked as a Soviet spy. The Book of Evidence was just wonderful. A portrait of the banality of evil. Banville is a fine writer and it's just amazing to read this book and watch in dumbstruck awe as the protagonist goes about a witless evil. And at the same time you feel a sort repulsed sympathy. Great book.
     I can also highly recommend The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje -- wonderful writing. I've had my copy of it since it came out and for some reason never got around to reading it. I liked Atonement by Ian McEwan but I also found it harrowing. Then there was Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald. A strange book. It's very quiet, almost distant but it draws you in bit by bit. Also it's written in a kind of double first person. The narrator -- who is never identified -- speaks in the first person, quoting the protagonist, Austerlitz. Since the book is about identity this has the effect of creating a strange dislocation. Of all the books I've read in a while it's been the one that keeps coming back to me.

What about music?

     I've been listening a lot to Gorecki, Arvo Part, Janacek and Tavener. Also some Michael Marra, David Gray and Coldplay. And, just in the last few weeks, to Jake Thackray. He wrote Sister Josephine and he died on Christmas Eve. There's not a lot of his material in print, which is a real shame, though EMI will be releasing a compilation in April 2003. The best of his stuff is really wonderful -- a great wordsmith:

"I love a good bum on a woman
It makes my day
To me it is palpable proof of God's existence
A posteriori"

The song ('On Again, On Again') continues in a lovely tongue-in-cheek misogynistic rant -- and other times he's completely moving -- 'The Poor Sod' is about 90 seconds of perfection. He can be weird and whimsical in one song and sharply incisive in the next. Not all of his stuff is wonderful -- but a lot of it is and when it's good, it's really good.

Any Irish music?

     Not a lot recently. I saw Bohola in New York recently and liked them. I've mostly been working on some sean-n—s songs and I'm just staying away from anything too recent. Just hanging out with the old stuff. And I've been learning to play the trombone.

The trombone...?

     Yeah. Jean found one in good working order in a thrift store and bought it for me. I wrote a part for The Primrose Polka, which we do in our Christmas show, and managed to memorise it. It went pretty well, I thought -- and no one has said otherwise yet. Not that I expect you'll be hearing a lot of trombone at our gigs -- I know my limitations.