MacD on Music: Smooth Criminal

Halloween in Derry is the stuff of legend. As well as the biggest festival in Europe, we also offer plenty for lovers of live music around the town. The last few years have seen the likes of CHERYM, Crash Test Dummies and Alabama 3 playing Halloween gigs here, and this year the tradition continues with Huey Morgan, former frontman of Fun Lovin’ Criminals, taking to the stage in the Guildhall on November 1st to mark thirty years of the band’s debut album ‘Come Find Yourself’.

I got to speak with Huey recently about the gig and coming to Derry: “I’ve done some shows there, but it’s my first time going back in a long time. It’s been thirty years since the first record came out, and there’s been an overwhelming demand for me to come by and play it for people. I love the people in Derry. I’ve been doing some stuff there for a minute and it’ll be nice to stop by and say ‘What’s up’.”

“It’s flattering to be able to revisit a piece of art that you created thirty years ago as a completely different individual. It’s touched my life, and I’ve found it’s touched a lot more people than I thought it had. It’s a great opportunity to reconnect with those people.”

I asked his thoughts on new generations discovering the album: “That’s one of the cool things about it. We produced it ourselves, and it’s really flattering to have people, years later, especially young people, with all the crazy music they have available to them, to find our stuff and really attach themselves to it and make that connection.”

“These are stories of my life up to that point. They are literally the things that brought me to a lot of people’s attention. The guy who wrote those songs is very different to the man I am today. Nothing’s killed me yet.”

“I’ve been playing music for the last couple of years again after taking some time off. It’s been really rewarding and I’m having fun doing it. My old band broke up, but the other guys didn’t get the memo. I wrote all the songs in the other band I was in, and it was all my idea anyway, but it seems like those guys wanted to do something without me, which was fine. I’ve always done everything I wanted to do with my music. That’s kind of the idea behind it.”

“I wrote a book not too long ago called ‘Huey Morgan: The Fun Lovin’ Criminal’, which is a memoir of right around the time that I recorded this record, and I tell a lot of behind the scenes stories of how the record came about, and what my attitude was towards music at that point, because I’d just gotten out of the Marine Corps in America, and I was trying to make that transition from being in the military to being a civilian again. I describe [the transition] in more depth than I can get into now, but it was very difficult. Being a marine is a very unique situation, and getting out of that, it being probably the only family I’d had up to that point, it was a difficult to try and go on my own and try and create this band and battle a lot of mental health issues at the same time.”

I mentioned his unique sound: “It was one of the things that I wanted to do. I didn’t want to make music that sounded like anything else. There was no point. If I could do something different and unique, that was kind of the idea behind being creative. You want to have that unique expression, to see, ultimately, if there’s anybody else in the world that thinks or feels the same way you do about things.”

And that’s it from Huey Morgan. He’ll be playing the Guildhall on November 1st with support from Hypnic Jerk. Tickets are £31.62 and available at ticketsource.com.

Now, onto other business. This Saturday will see the High End Dead release their debut, self-titled EP onto streaming services. The band, made up of Owen ‘Ozie’ Coyle (vocals), Caoilte Canning (drums/bass), Aidan Lynch (keys), Jason Welsh (vocals/drums) and Josh McGeoghan (guitar), have been a fixture of the Derry music scene since making their live debut in 2022. The group, who are all on the autism spectrum, “aim to promote awareness of neurodivergence and disability representation in the local music scene” and have, to date, released three singles (all from the EP).

They’ll also be supporting A Band With No Name tomorrow night (October 23rd) in Bennigan’s. Tickets are £10 and available on Eventbrite.

Finally, time for the socials. The High End Dead can be found on Instagram @thehighenddead, Hypnic Jerk @hypnicjerk76 and Huey Morgan @hueymorgan.