I thought, I've given up booze that's the hard bit.
But that's not the hard bit, the hard bit is six months later.
It just felt like this
this wall of demons just sort of right in my face.
And all the things that I'd been sort of burying
with the booze and drowning in booze all came up.
Almost at once.
Like just in a kind of procession like, "Here we are."
That's a really jaunty mental image to describe really awful things.
They were delighted to be out.
That was when I closed down.
I thought I had to insulate
not just my own brain from this but I have to insulate the outside world from this because, y'know
it felt that it was so loud in my head that all the people could hear me
on the bus or something like that.
You know there were times when we were making this, times when I was writing it
when I was alone, when I thought that
that this was never gonna,
I was never gonna get there.
And for it to be the day of release
it is...
I read a great interview where you said there were parts of your brain that'd been pickled,
that were no longer pickled.
What are the parts of your brain that you couldn't access when you were in that state, that you can access now?
I quit drinking about 2 years ago and that helped the clarity that came with that, was the missing piece.
Me trying to force the album out of a drunken mind.
I think it came with a sort of combined thing of just not being afraid
to look into the dark places.
All the things I'd been hiding from or running from my whole life.
I'm not afraid to stare at them anymore,
I'm not afraid to share them anymore, I'm not afraid of them anymore.
I actually kinda of feel like I've made friends with them.
And if you can make friends with your monsters,
then you're going to live a much healthier, happier life.
You know they are part of us all, our dark places are part of us all.
You know, they are formative in a lot of ways.
I think that some of our negative experiences inform as much of us as our positive ones.
And there's some things in my life that I might never shake off
and that's why I always have to be vigilant of the depression.
If I reel from it I'm scared of it.
Those are the times that I
sort of-
I've got nowhere else to run.
I'm only inside my own brain.
So it becomes a labyrinth.
"This is another new song that we've never played."
"This is about my father. My dad has dementia."
"This song is written about him, means a lot to me."
It's not an insignificant thing to be public and talk about
your father's going through dementia.
Take me back to that point where you were writing that song.
Was there a catalyst for why you sat down and it started kind of flowing out of you?
I never told this story but I was writing another song
about my dad
and every time I would leave home, which was a lot
I'd go home and then I would have to go away to go on tour, back to America or whatever-
I would say, 'I love you dad.'
before I left and he would go, 'uhuh.'
I know that he loves me but you don't hear those words.
It's a very Irish kinda thing.
But I was sorta trying to write a song about that but it just seemed mean.
And then I started writing a poem to kinda
clear that out.
The first stanza I guess, just came out really easily.
"Soon you'll not remember anything but some day neither will I."
And it seemed to just connect the both of us.
Why was it important for you to play it for him in that environment?
I wanted him to
I wanted him to...
to hear it.
I don't know when
he might not hear it
again.
I don't know.
During that gig he turned to my
mum and said,
I was talking in between songs, turned to my mum and said
'Who's that talking there?'
And my mum said 'That's Gary, it's your son.'
And he's like 'Oh yeah yeah.'
That was a shift in...
in his illness that hadn't happened up until that point.
Not only did we play 'Soon' for the first time to him,
his disease decided that that was the time that it would shift.
We'd made a video for every song on the album
and what I wanted to do with 'Soon'
was I wanted it to be me and my dad watching old home movies of us together.
We spent the whole day listening to the song, obviously me singing it
and you know your shooting a video there's lost of camera
crew and people around and
and then sometimes he would reach over to me.
He was sitting there, I was sitting here
and he would sorta lean over and go,
'This is great. This is great.'
-'This is great.' -'I'm just singing a song dad.'
We're actually making a video here.
Glad you're having a good time.
But I've gotta work.
It was the day that I'll
that I'll never forget.
And that the end of the day he was
emotional, he's not an emotional guy.
Nathan, why does the band work? Why has it persisted all these years?
Um, stubbornness.
-Strong answer I like it. -Nowhere else to be.
There's so many things.
With this last five years I think,
just honesty.
It's not always easy.
Yeah we would go whole tours sometimes without actually speaking about anything.
Then by the end of the last tour,
him and I weren't hardly talking.
That ends up being corrosive,
because people start to resent each other.
'Oh fuck I can't even talk to these people any more, fuck them.'
So you just shut your mouth.
And you move forward and
it just builds this resentment within and the band.
And by the end of the last tour...
-Had a blowout for sure. -And we had a very difficult time.
And it took a long time after the tour to reconnect with each other.
How do you start that conversation if you haven't spoken for a while?
How do you make that first move?
You started walking home one night from the studio
and you ended up at my house.
Yeah.
Which was miles out of your way.
And you rang my doorbell and I was expecting to see you there and the conversation we had that night was
changed everything.
We talked for hours about everything.
But all the things that we hadn't said to each other,
for so long.
And we've been extraordinarily close ever since.
If somebody's watching this
who is in the sort of dark place that you were in
3, 4 years ago.
What would you say to them? What would your
advice be to that person?
The thing that was hardest for me initially,
was talking about it at all.
These guys didn't know I was going through it.
I didn't talk about it for the longest time.
From when I was a teenager I was going through this stuff and I never talked about it.
I was always too afraid to.
The thing that released me from that fear was talking about it.
It sounds like the easiest thing in the world and it can be the most difficult thing in the world.
It really can. So actually open your mouth and admit
what your feeling inside is a daunting, daunting thing.
Whatever it is, whatever you're going through,
I promise you, whatever it is, I promise to everybody whatever it is,
it's not too hard for your friends to take.
Or go and see a professional, in fact
speak to your friends about it first and then go and see a professional.
Open the door with people that you love and people that you trust.
You don't have to live in isolation.
I don't feel depressed anymore.
I love that it's a constant sort of vigil, you have to maintain alert.
I'll talk about it and I'll talk about it openly.
And hopefully, it leads to other people, maybe feeling like they can talk about it openly.
Or it makes them feel like they're not alone.
Guys, I'm gonna go for the double handshake.
"For all acquaintance be forgot"
The weirdest way to end an interview ever.