MacD on Music: Power of Dreams

Getting a band back together can be tricky. Fleetwood Mac pulled it off in 1997 when the ‘Rumours’ line-up got back together for ‘The Dance’, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers soared to new heights when they reunited with John Frusciante for 1999’s ‘Californication’.

This week, I’m talking to Craig Walker, frontman of Irish alternative legends Power of Dreams, who have recently reunited with original bass player Mick Lennox for the first time since 2010 to release their new single ‘Somebody Somewhere’ ahead of a (mostly) sold out tour of Ireland and the UK.

I spoke with Craig to talk about the band and the reunion: “We formed in Dublin in 1998, myself and my brother Keith, who’s the drummer. We were teenagers and we started playing locally, and quite soon after we started writing our own music, which kind of led to us building a following.

"We played a show in The Underground on Dame Street, which isn’t there anymore, and a guy came up to us after the show and offered us a record deal with Setanta Records. He’d later sign The Divine Comedy and Edwin Collins and people like that, but we were the second release on the label.

“We went to London and our debut EP, ‘A Little Piece of God’, was produced by John O’Neill of The Undertones. We were still teenagers, so we went home and went back to school and didn’t think anything about it, and then we got a call from the label boss to say that the single had got Single of the Week in the weekly papers and was blowing up.

"That was the starting point, and things went crazy from then on. Journalists were being sent over to interview us while we were still at school. I had to leave the Leaving Cert exam to go meet a journalist for either NME or Melody Maker. Quite soon after, Polydor and other labels started chasing after us.

"We eventually signed to Polydor in the UK for a five-album deal and released our first single for them in June 1990. The debut album did great and it took us around the world. We went all over Europe with The Mission, so we went from doing the Leaving Cert to being on the road and living the rock’n’roll dream.

“It felt like everything we did for a while turned to gold. We had a fan base immediately in Japan, which was amazing, so we went there a lot. Everything was going right, but it doesn’t stay like that with a major label. The bill starts adding up, and if they’re not getting hit singles, everyone starts to get tetchy. We had a good run though.

"We did two albums with Polydor UK and two with Polydor Japan. We released the first album in 1990, and the music world was very different. You fast forward two or three years and grunge just took over the world. It was like Year Zero, then, to counter that, Britpop came along, so you had these two major cultural shifts in the music landscape, and we found ourselves in limbo.

"We split up in ‘96, then for the twentieth anniversary of the first album in 2010 we got back together for a tour, which was great fun. It was great to reconnect and become friends again. We’ve done bits and pieces since then. We did an album [Ausländer] during Lockdown, but Mick [bass] wasn’t involved. He was too busy with work, so we did it without him. It was done remotely, and it was great to be making music with Keith [Walker, drums] and Ian [Olney, guitar] again, and Erik Alcock, who produced the album, was great to work with too. He replaced Mick for a while on bass.

"Last summer and Mick, who’s a promoter for a booking agency now, called us up and said ‘Lads, you’ve been offered this festival in Ireland. Are you up for it?’ and through that we formed our first WhatsApp group as a band. Being on that was just having the craic and reminiscing, and you realize there’s a lot of love there, a lot of fun. We got on like a house on fire again and all the grievances that might’ve been there were gone.”

And that’s it from Craig and Power of Dreams. I could easily get a second article from our chat but, unfortunately, I only have so much room. Their new single ‘Somebody Somewhere’ is out now.

Now, onto other business. Regular readers will be familiar with Martin Malone and his band Innocents Abroad, who, like Power of Dreams, have recently re-emerged after a few years out of the spotlight.

The band are currently busy working on the follow up to their acclaimed comeback ‘Late Spring’ (available now in Cool Discs, along with their compilation ‘Slow Time 1984-1988’), but now Martin is reissuing his solo catalogue, starting with ‘The Training for Loneliness’, originally released in 2001. The album has been remastered by Richard Werner and will be available digitally from December 1, along with a very limited number of CDs.

Lastly, Sunset Theory will be playing the Nerve Centre this Friday, November 13 along with The Waiting Room Magazines and Sunbleach. The gig is for ages 14+ and a no alcohol show. Tickets are £5 plus booking fee and doors are 7pm.

Finally, time for the socials. Sunset Theory can be found on Instagram @sunsettheory_, Martin Malone @these_twain and Power of Dreams @2hellwithcommonsense.