FT: The new album, ‘No names’, has been receiving some of the best reviews of your career, and fans are loving it. Why do you think this album is having such resonance in particular?
Ian: I don’t really know. It’s hard to say. I don’t put a record out unless I’m really, really happy with the way they sound, the production, and the finish. So I’m always happy when I put them out, but why this one has done so well is hard to say. We had a really good PR team on it, ‘Measure PR’ from London; the lad from there, Steve, did a really good job on the promo for it. But I think things have been slowly but surely building for me over the past 10 years, anyway, so maybe this is the culmination of that momentum. I can’t think of that many artists who have been around as long as I have and are doing their best work later on in their career. Most tend to be ‘heritage artists’, where they tour and play the hits. I think my best work has maybe been in this album, and the two before.
FT: ‘Here I Lie ’ and ‘One Hand on the Starry Plough’ were stellar works!
Ian: So, this album I think is following on. It’s just strong songs. And they’re incredibly difficult to write! You have to wait around for them to arrive. Once the idea arrives, you have to execute it as well as possible. I’m just happy and relieved that I’m an artistic going concern, and I’m not just playing ‘Raid the Palace’, ‘Fair blows the wind for France’ or even ‘Does this train stop on Merseyside’. There are songs added to the ones that people really like, and it’s an ongoing thing.
FT: Adding to that long list of classics and fan favourites?
Ian: Yeah, I suppose the downside is, you can’t play them all live! Some songs that people really like just can’t get their way into the set. But that’s a nice problem to have.
FT: Can we talk about some of the individual songs on the album? You’ve never been one to shy away from social or political issues, let’s be honest. ‘Stand your ground’. That could be your musical manifesto?
Ian: Yeah, you could say that, couldn’t you? I’ve always kind of stood still, and not chased fads or sounds. I didn’t have a grunge period, or a ‘Mumford and Sons’ English folk period! So I just write my songs the way that I write them, and try and make them as strong as possible, and the tunes really good, and try and speak openly about the things that I see and feel in my life. Being a parent or a socialist, or being a fan or whatever it may be. Your emotions, or an observation you’ve had about life over the years. I don’t really think about it; I just write them. If they come out and they have something to say, then all well and good. If they are personal songs, I feel the same about them. So, yes, ‘Stand Your Ground’, even though that’s not a political song as such, it’s a personal song really; it does kind of sum up my own ethos.
FT: I’ve just been reading about Macklemore, who’s been getting some grief about his strong support for Palestine and calling out the genocide in Gaza, on his support slot with Ed Sheeran. This has led to some calling for him to be cancelled, and others say that artists should stay out of politics. I think we would both agree the artist merely reflects what he sees and comments on, but I’m interested to hear your views on this?
Ian: I’ve just been out for my dinner, and how much it cost me is political; I’ve just walked on pavements, and how well kept they are is political. People who serve me in shops or the Monday Club (Ian runs a night in the Cavern Club for Singer/songwriters to platform their talents, with a strict ‘no covers’ policy), how much the pint will be, how people will be with each other, it’s all political! Even if you don’t think those things are political, or don’t count, The Clash, John Lennon, Public Enemy, The Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Kneecap, The Mary Wallopers, some of the greatest music I’ve heard in my life, have been political. There’s been protest music all through the years: Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie. So anybody who says ‘Oh, keep politics out of music’ is actually right-wing. That’s what they’re exposing about themselves.
FT: Can you tell us a little about the title track, ‘No names’?
Ian: It’s an observation from where I’m from, which is a deeply working-class Liverpool overspill town called Ellesmere Port. Brought up in a Council house, which me mum and dad still live in; everyone was from Liverpool, and that was our culture. In that experience of being brought there in the 70s and 80s, in that environment and that town, there was always the threat of violence. It was always near, and you developed skills to deal with it. To either avoid it as skilfully as possible, or if you were a hard case, you’d get involved, and you’d be fighting all the time, and I wasn’t that. I was way too sensitive. I was into books and music. So ‘No names’ was a cry that went around the town from some of the hard cases. If there was an incident, it was a case of being told, ‘If the police come asking about anything, don’t give them any names’, and that title just struck me, even years after.
In the song itself, I talk about some of the people and characters I knew. They had an alternative view of how the town should be governed. If the police were ‘the law of the land’, they had ‘the law of the street’, of which these people tended to have control. And everybody was either friends of them or scared of them, and by the end of the song, I get caught up in violence myself, which actually happened. It’s a bit Springsteen, a kinda street opera if you like.
FT: I think that particular song will have resonance here with the role of paramilitaries in the Troubles!
Ian: Yeah, I had just a flavour of it; you lived it here! There was a real political edge to it.
FT: There are some really powerful songs on the album, that I imagine will take a life of their own, live? ‘Keynote speech’ in praise of the NHS is one, and ‘The Cleaner ’ is such an anthem for the dignity of the working class, I suppose?
Ian: As it says in the song, the cleaners are on the front line of the class struggle. My mum was a cleaner for a long time. When we had Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the Labour Party, we had a chance of a little bit of mild socialism. But we saw our party, the Labour Party, turn on him and make sure that he couldn’t be elected. Yeah, it was the Tories and the establishment and the media that scared, but the one that really stopped him from getting there was the party itself. And at that point, it led to a schism in the party that will play out for decades to come.
FT: The song is a standout on the album, and getting the mighty Elvis Costello to not only sing on the track, but appear in the video. Bit of a master stroke getting him to bookend the track?
Ian: And he just does a brilliant job! The song is in just the right key, and he nails it! I know this sounds mad, but he just sounds so like Elvis Costello! Elvis is very forthright with his opinions; he wouldn’t stand on ceremony, so if he didn’t like it, he’d say, ‘that one’s shite, Ian’!
At this point in my career, for it to stand with anything we’ve ever done is such a fulfilling feeling for me. Elvis Costello singing on one of your songs! It’s just mad!
FT: I bumped into a mutual friend of ours, Phil Scraton (Phil is best known for his incisive investigations into the Hillsborough disaster and his ongoing support of the families. Also a very discriminating music fan). I told him I was interviewing you today, and he wanted to ask you about probably your most famous song, ‘Does this train stop on Merseyside?’ He mentioned that you connect so many historical events to Liverpool: the slave trade, the Irish famine, and of course the Hillsborough disaster. Profound events that encapsulate the history of the city, but Phil wanted to know: what inspired you to write it?
Ian: Phil’s a great man, send him my love.
It happened really quickly; it came together in an afternoon. I got sent an email, which was sent to many, and it was the story of William J. McKenzie’s tomb, on that peculiar pyramid-shaped grave, which I had seen my whole life, walked past it many times, and it is an odd-looking thing. And I read this brilliant ghost story about William J. McKenzie, and that triggered something in my mind that said, why have so many big, global events happen in this city? Obviously, good and bad. Why is this city such a focal point for these things? My mind then just tripped into all of those things, including those you mentioned, the prosaic things like EasyJet setting up their operations, the fact that it’s a party town on Mathew Street. The Beatles are all over, but they don’t get explicitly mentioned. Their first manager, Alan Williams, does. Ireland itself only gets a mention in reference to the famine boats, but it’s all over the song too. It all came out really quickly. I stopped briefly for the last verses, because they were the most important.
The lines about the horrific Bulger murder and then the lines referencing Hillsborough, because I have got so many friends who were survivors from Hillsborough, I had to get those lines right, because they were so important and sensitive. And it’s a protest as well. That wasn’t the prevailing view when I wrote it. Most of the country in the UK thought of it in terms of what the Sun had written about us. And thankfully, I got that right.
I’ve had survivors, when I’ve played it, and they haven’t been expecting it, and it’s upset them. These things happen occasionally, but it shows the potency of the words, I guess, and I’m never going to stop singing it.
FT: It is a beautiful, powerful song, whether you’re from Liverpool. There is a resonance that touches many. Christy Moore does a wonderful version of it, and I know there’s a lot of mutual respect between the two of you.
Ian: Yeah, I love his version. Proud to call him a mate and an inspiration. And so funny, god he makes me laugh. And Damo (Dempsey), is the same. Very supportive of the issues behind the songs.
FT: So might there be a few guest artists at the Dublin gig?
Ian: Well, you never know, we’ll have to wait and see!
FT: Your Irish gigs have grown each time you’ve toured here. This time it’s with a seven-piece band. So what can your fans this side of the Irish Sea expect?
Ian – You’re just going to get thoroughly entertained and have a good night out. If you’re struggling a little bit, we’ll do our best to make you feel a bit better. Put a little bit of positivity in your life. You’ll have some fun, cry a few tears, maybe. The band and audience will be as one, and that is my job on the night. You buy a ticket, and you’ll walk out the Deer’s Head thinking, ‘I really enjoyed myself tonight’!
FT: I can’t wait to see you and the band in action. Safe travels, and I’ll see you on the 25th.
Ian: See you there, mate!
Ian Prowse plays The Deer’s Head, Belfast on 25th September. Tickets via Eventbrite.