Phil Chevron interview…

…in the Mail, conducted by Jason O’Toole. The following are taken from two interviews conducted by O’Toole earlier this year in the Irish Mail when Phil Chevron went public about his terminal illness. They’re both sympathetic pieces that offer a real insight into someone who was clearly a very genuine character and a very talented musician and composer.

Chevron had lost his voice to his illness and the interview was done by email, as he said:

‘But don’t worry about it, I’m quite used to email interviews and reasonably literate. I won’t let you down if you keep faith with me, too.’ He was more than true to his word.

I start our correspondence by explaining that I can’t even begin to imagine how frustrating and painful it must feel for a musician to be no longer able to use his voice, particularly as Philip is lead singer of The Radiators, who only recorded their latest album last year and are still performing live. ‘There are no words [to describe it],’ he responds simply. Despite it being ‘impossible to measure life expectancy’ as he lives out his final months, Philip is determined to enjoy each day to the full and will continue playing concerts and recording music. ‘I’ve just decided to continue living,’ he says. ‘I can no longer sing or even speak, which is a massive bummer, but I can still play and I can still write. ‘As nobody is in a position to give me a cut-off point, I just carry on as normally as my daily health allows. ‘There are up and down days, so it’s hard to commit to something where my reliability is a factor, but I get around most things.’

The illness had first manifested itself in 2006 while he was working on an album with The Radiators, but he had self-medicated until the pain had become too great.

‘ I had, stupidly, persuaded myself I was going to live into my 80s live and now everything felt compressed. ‘But then, after a couple of days, I just got on with it. I lead an interesting life, chasing the best theatre and opera around the world. ‘I’m mostly in Dublin but I still love to travel to “my cities” and do so at every opportunity. ‘I have favourite cities I like to spend time in — London, Dublin, New York, Berlin, Paris, Galway, San Francisco. I do my very best to get around still, medical procedures and doctor’s orders permitting.’

And he continued:

Philip, whose father was a renowned theatre critic, insists that he is in no pain at the moment. ‘I’m fortunate. The palliative care I get is exceptional. The pain and discomfort management I get is world class.’

He remained remarkably stoic:

Many people turn to God when faced with serious illness, so is he religious? ‘Absolutely not, though I defend to the death anyone else’s right to be. There will be no deathbed conversion, no calling for the priest, no last-minute acts of contrition.

And:

‘Just, I hope, a real gratitude that I made it here at all, against the odds probably, and enjoyed the awesome world we have created for ourselves out of sheer initiative and curiosity. ‘But I do also subscribe to Hamlet’s caution to Horatio that there may be more than is “dreamt of in your philosophy”. I hope there is, that would be even greater fun. ‘But I’m satisfied. I met people, I heard music, I saw movies, I experienced theatre. ‘Why would you need an organising deity with all that going on?’

As regards other aspects of his life he was forthcoming:

Living on his own in Santry — the same Northside suburb he grew up in— Philip, who is gay, is reflective about how he never settled down with a partner. ‘I chose poorly and I chose well, like most people in a position where one’s judgement might be considered vulnerable and therefore questionable. Unfortunately, life itself adds an extra dimension. The man I loved most died in 1992.’ It’s clear that the death of his former lover is still painful for him to discuss because it’s the only subject he was unwilling to elaborate on further. ‘I have nothing more to say about Achim,’ is as much as he is willing to venture on the subject.

And he was very willing to offer a political view of these matters:

Same-sex marriage is currently a contentious issue for the public and Government alike. Enda Kenny is refusing to reveal publicly his stance on the issue, but in an interview with me in 2007 he told me twice that he was against same-sex marriage. Philip clearly isn’t impressed with the Taoiseach’s refusal to discuss the issue. ‘I don’t think much about Kenny at all. I’m a little surprised he hasn’t taken the Obama line — that his thinking has “evolved” on the matter. But what does it matter? If it’s not Kenny it’s [Micheál] Martin, if not Tweedle Dum then Tweedle Dee.’

As to himself?

Would he have liked to have been married? ‘As a gay man, I look around in awe at how quickly we’re arriving at equality in the realm of marriage and child-rearing. ‘It’s wonderful. It all adds to the diversity that will be the one thing that saves the world from itself, the rejection of status quo. ‘It’s nothing short of remarkable that we have only just buried Margaret Thatcher, the woman who dared to outlaw us as “pretend families” as recently as The Pogues’ heyday. ‘That said, I’m not sure, given the choice, I would ever have gotten married. ‘Too selfish, too set in my ways. But I never found the right man anyway. Got close a few times.’

Chevron was part and parcel of the culture of the Pogues. He remembered that:

Being set in his ways also brought Philip close to death several times — he twice underwent life-saving operations on his liver back in 1994 as a result of his heavy drinking when The Pogues were enjoying their most successful years with hits like Fairytale of New York. ‘I had spent most of 1994 in and out of hospital in England trying to deal with an ever more troublesome liver which almost killed me twice. So, I took some time out [from the band]. ‘I had ascites — they drain out about 20 litres of excess fluid from your liver area over a period of time. It drains into a bag, it’s not pretty. Second time I vowed there would be no third. [It was a] life changing experience, yes.’ He has been sober for 18 years now. ‘I was fortunate after they saved my liver to get into a residential six-week rehab programme in Nottingham, where I was able to focus uninterrupted on my illness, and from there to find a way of life that allows me to stay away from my poison, alcohol, in 24-hour increments. ‘This becomes important because you can’t tell an alcoholic he or she can’t drink for the rest of their life, it just doesn’t compute. ‘But 24 hours, one day, seems like it might be manageable, even if, at first, you have to break it down into hours or minutes. At first I was astonished not to have had a drink for a week, a month, a year. But after a while people are sending you gift cards congratulating you on 18 years of sobriety because you are vigilant, always. ‘Because you are just one drink away, one day away, from disaster. But sobriety becomes habitual too. It becomes who you are, someone you have no cause to feel shameful of.’

And he summed up his life:

‘I am a gay, Irish, Catholic, alcoholic, Pogue who is about to die from cancer — and don’t think I don’t know it.

In relation to the Pogues and The Radiators:

Lead guitarist with The Pogues, and the man who wrote some of their biggest hits including Thousands Are Sailing, it’s safe to say that Philip’s place in the music industry and the fans’ hearts are well secured.

And his musical journey is one many will identify with:

Born Philip Ryan, his musical journey began in Santry, north Dublin, where growing up he learned to play music on a ‘sophisticated toy piano’ before being inspired to switch to the guitar by his ‘cool uncle’. In the mid-Seventies, Philip first made an impact on the Dublin music scene as part of punk band The Radiators From Space. Hugely popular with Irish audiences, in 1976 they were signed to indie label Chiswick Records. When their first album, TV Tube Heart, was released the following year, the band were tipped for international stardom and made the move to London. ‘We went to London for the eternal reason that there was no work for us in Ireland,’ Philip recounts. ‘But this also put us into the commercial treadmill in Britain, which in turn signalled our “end” when we did not live up to commercial demands with our second album. We did not get the breaks we may have deserved, but that’s just showbusiness.’ It was at The Radiators’ first ever gig in London when Philip met Shane MacGowan. ‘Shane came to see The Radiators at our very first gig in London in 1977 and I’ve known him ever since. He’s a very attractive individual because the energies that make him great are the same ones that make him a pain in the a**. He appears careless of his gifts, heedless, but he’s not really. ‘It’s tougher for him than it is for any of the people dropping like flies in the wake of his unreliability. He’s a selfish guy, but that’s part of the equation too; he has to protect whatever it is he needs to protect in order to be Shane MacGowan. So, you know, if you don’t understand this, don’t join his band.’

As to the Pogues:

After The Radiators split in 1981, Philip went to work alongside Shane for a chain of independent record shops and the two became close friends. ‘Shane and I worked in separate but related Oldies record emporia — Rock On (me) and Rocks Off (he) in London. My one is immortalised in Thin Lizzy’s The Rocker. I was there for four years and loved it. It was like a post-graduate course in 20th-century music. It was a real wrench to leave it to join The Pogues full-time.’ Initially, Shane had invited Philip along as a producer to help the band record some songs for an EP. He joined them full-time when Shane decided to concentrate on singing after their successful debut album. Known as much for their party-hard lifestyles as their music, as The Pogues’ fame grew over the next decade, Philip found his own drinking began to spiral out of control. ‘What happened to me happens to guys every day of the week in the real world. I was an alcoholic reaching his rock bottom and I needed to do something about that or die, simple as.

And he said:

Amusingly and ironically, I was hiding in plain sight in the most perfect hiding place in the world — The Pogues — but that’s neither here nor there. ‘I was a drunk and I needed to figure out a way to deal with that before it became too late. Alcoholism changes you fundamentally. I think every alkie understands that implicitly the first time they drink alcoholically, which is when you drink specifically to be someone else. Sooner or later, someone else is who you are, someone you hear about the next day, someone you don’t know, someone you can’t really imagine, someone of whom you’re ashamed.’ After being rushed to hospital with liver failure that ‘almost killed me twice’, Philip spent the best part of 1994 in and out of hospital. In 1995, he quit drinking — and the band. He strenuously rejects reports from the time which suggested he also had a drug problem. ‘I drank but I seldom drugged! Like most rock ’n’ roll musicians, I have experimented with drugs. In my case, none of them really passed the litmus test and I found it quite easy to just leave them be. I was already addicted to the drug that is alcohol.

This had repercussions in relation to the Pogues:

By this time, Shane had already left The Pogues. Philip insists that the widely-held view that Shane was sacked by the band for unprofessional behaviour is not true. ‘Shane wasn’t actually kicked out. It had become clear he hated touring, but was proving unable to actually say so. He needed a nudge to admit it was the case. The rest of us had not yet become tour weary and wanted to carry on.’ A FTER he was released from hospital, Philip rejoined The Pogues. However, he felt that it wasn’t the same outfit without Shane at the helm. ‘When I went back to the band I discovered I didn’t really want to rejoin and they’d probably had enough of me too. Despite the commercial success — Tuesday Morning was our biggest hit since Fairytale Of New York and showed we could carry on without Shane — frankly the whole thing was getting wearying for all of us. It was still an interesting band, it just wasn’t what we u n d e r s t o o d T h e Pogues to be. ‘It’s important to understand that once a chemistry as volatile but perfect as The Pogues falls apart — as it started to with the removal/departure of Shane — the remaining elements no longer bump up against each other in the productive way they once did. A band is a living organism. ‘By the time I left again, Terry Woods and James Fearnley had also gone, key men both. I wasn’t quite sure what was left but it wasn’t doing much to get excited about and that was both all our faults and none of our fault. ‘The Pogues without so many Pogues was still The Pogues and still an impressive contemporary band. But they were never more than that — as they had once been. So what was the point? ‘But leaving that bubble is incredibly scary, too. You find a niche, it becomes the part you play. You could easily grow fat and cosy playing it. But hell, you know, you’re not yet 40. Get a life!’

He was reserved about his own talents, but there’s no question that he was enormously gifted:

…writing The Pogues hit Thousands Are Sailing as well as Song Of The Faithful Departed for The Radiators, which was later covered by Christy Moore. ‘I’ve always been reasonably secure in my position as a songwriter,’ Philip states.

And he continues:

Philip was inspired to write that particular song by the memory of watching JFK’s motorcade whisk past his street shortly after the president had landed at Dublin Airport 50 years ago this month. ‘I had just turned six when President Kennedy passed by at the end of our road in his motorcade. I could have reached out and touched him as I waved my standard issue little paper stars and stripes. We were the first straggly groups of people who would greet him in ever-increasing numbers over the next few days. But the moment changed my life.’

He also comes across as a very strong character:

Returning to the subject of The Pogues, I tell Philip that I’ve just purchased a copy of fellow bandmember James Fearnley’s memoirs, Here Comes Everybody: The Story Of The Pogues. When I jokingly ask him whether I should take the book with a pinch of salt, he replies goodhumouredly: ‘Oh, it deserves something more than salt. A glass of nice light Alsace-derived vino.’ ‘It’s exceptionally well written,’ he continues more seriously. ‘It’s exactly how I imagine I would have remembered it if I were James Fearnley, which I’m not. In a band that large, it’s perfectly possible, likely even, that entirely unique and separate empirical narratives exist to feed memoirs. ‘Darryl, our bassist, caught this perfectly many years ago when — in satire of Shane’s book A Drink with Shane MacGowan — he announced his own memoirs would be titled A Cup of Tea with Darryl Hunt. None of the seven or eight biographies or autobiographies of The Pogues are, or could be, a fair portrayal of the band. It’s not that kind of band.’ James Fearnley wrote in his book how he was ‘flattered’ by the ‘obvious crush’ that Philip, who is gay, had on him. He describes being ‘drunk enough to dismiss the shock of the unfamiliar’ as the two shared a kiss that ‘seemed to have gone for ever’ one night during the band’s formative years. Philip, who knew he was gay from age six, tells me that he never struggled with his sexuality. ‘I was subject to all the usual bull**** a kid of my generation experienced — from negative stereotypes on TV to actual physical and verbal threats from sexually-insecure bullies. ‘I never struggled with my sexuality, in the sense that it was always clear to me — only with other people’s acceptance of it. But there comes a point where you just stop being polite about tolerance and acceptance and diversity and shout: “Know what? I’m gay. Deal with it!” Nobody who cared about me or whom I cared about had a problem accepting who I was.’

O’Toole ends the interview with the following thought:

[Philip] has no plans to write his own memoirs. ‘It sounds like a lot of hard work. I’m not sure the market can support how much it would cost a publisher to persuade me.’ Besides, he adds, he is not interested in rehashing anecdotal drunken tales about The Pogues. ‘They’ve all been used up and recycled in the memoirs and biographies and documentaries so often that I sicken of them.’ I’d wager that Philip Chevron’s many fans wouldn’t feel the same.

Very true. A great series of interviews of a great and very human person.