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My dad had a massive record collection. It was filled with doo-wop records from his childhood, and some questionable folk albums from the ’70s. Yet, there was one album he always pointed out as one of his all-time favorites. “This is the greatest name for an album ever” he would say with his famous half-crooked smile and it was an album he cherished to the day he passed — Rum, Sodomy and The Lash by The Pogues. It was an album that tapped into his love for our Irish heritage, and something he shared with his godson, who had purchased the album for him upon its release.
This anecdote perfectly crystallizes the legacy of the music of The Pogues — it’s timeless and transcendental. Their lyrics of everyday life and the working class, their reverence for traditional Irish music, and the inherent sense of hope and rebellion imbued into every word and note resonates with anyone with a set of ears — not just an ounce of Irish blood in their veins.
Rum, Sodomy and The Lash celebrates its 40th Anniversary this year, and to celebrate the band is not only releasing a commemorative album, they’ve come to North America with a cavalcade of Irish and English musicians for a festival-like celebration of the seminal record.
Recently, we had the absolute honor and privilege to speak with Spider Ryan, one of the founding members of The Pogues, to discuss the legacy of the album, the decision to create this festival-esque tour, and performing without the late, great Shane MacGowan.
So, you got the reissue of Rum of Sodomy and the Lash — which is one of my dad’s all-time favorite albums — coming out on the 24th of October. It’s loaded with B-Sides, Poguetry in Motion, live cuts, all sorts of stuff. How intimately involved were you in the selection of all this bonus stuff that was going on the special edition?
To be perfectly honest, I’ve been so tied up with getting everything ready for this tour that we’re about to embark on and the UK tour which we did in May. I’ve not actually been that involved myself in putting this together. That’s kind of been the other guys and our manager, Mark, and the good people at Warner Bros as well. No, I’m not gonna be mean about Warners they pay a couple bills, for sure (laughs).
Let’s push the special edition together aside for a second. How do you feel about having a record that’s not only turned 40 years, but is also a critically acclaimed album, and an album that’s absolutely beloved by music fans the world over. How do you even begin to process this?
I think you have to be a bit sort of honest. You have to distance yourself to a certain extent in order to be objective about it. Let me just, backtrack slightly. During COVID, during lockdown, Tim Burgess from The Charlatans, on Twitter, as it was then, did a thing called Tim’s Twitter Listening Party. Basically, he’d take an album, run through the album, and you’d have people live tweeting and the artist would respond, assuming they were still alive. [The show was] people who were qualified to speak, talking about whatever album it was they decided to play, and people would also be live tweeting in with their own recollections, responses, saying stuff about it.
When they did the first three Pogues albums I think it was the first time that I’d actually sat down and really listened to them as records in a long, long time. One of the things that really struck me then was — and obviously it’s something that I kind of knew anyway because we had had all the years of reunions and everything — it’s just how fresh and how much of an impact, and how much weight those songs still have, and how the band, never in any way, musically ever sounds dated.
I think part of that is simply because our sound was never specific to a certain era. We weren’t known for our ’80s drum sound, or whatever it might be. The nature of the stuff we do, especially the old traditional songs, they’re timeless by their very nature. It’s all how fresh and how powerful everything was, but also it was the way that people were talking about it. This is something that we saw during the reunion shows and also with the shows that we’ve done to mark the 40th anniversary of Red Roses for Me in London and Dublin, and then the Rum, Sodomy and the Lash Tour we did in the UK is the age range. The audience is really [made up of] people who were around back in the day [as there’s] rows of their other shiny bald heads.
I think with The Pogues there’s a two-fold thing going on. It’s a generational thing. You were talking about your dad. People would take their kids along [to our shows], but now we’re coming to a situation because it has been 40 years, where their kids are bringing their kids along. So you’ve got three generations [coming to shows and listening to the music]. But at the same time as that happening, you’ve also got the fact that it’s really fucking good music. It has immense emotional resonance. It’s literary, and it’s intelligent. It’s substantive, or maybe I should say substantial. Or maybe even both of those things. There are kids whose parents maybe hated the Pogues, but they are like, “No, no, no, I fucking love this band.”
“Fairytale of New York” in the Northeast — especially New York and New Jersey — is our Christmas song.
That’s brilliant, though, yeah!
I used to DJ the site’s annual Christmas Show and I’d always close the set out with that song. And anytime you’re in a bar in this area around Christmas, you’re bound to hear that song.
That’s really good to know, because that’s what it’s kind of meant to make an impact.
It’s something that people in this area, with even a drop of Irish blood running through their veins, cling to. We love telling people how Irish we are, and we celebrate all things Irish. Although I was scolded by a cast member from Game of Thrones who told me that since I was born in America — I’m American not Irish.
You know I have no Irish in me whatsoever. Not a drop, and I feel Irish.
Yes, and the irony of all that is not lost on me, and we could sit here all day discussing this (it’d probably make a great podcast). However, we need to talk about this tour coming up. You are bringing one hell of a collection of musicians and singers with you on this tour. What was the decision to do a festival-like vibe tour in North America?
The initial approach that was made to me, back in February of 2024, was, I got an email from Tom Coll, the drummer in Fontaine’s DC…
What a band.
What a band, yeah, what a band. Tom and his friend Campbell, who has a sort of a folk collective/promoter/record label band sort of thing called Broadside Hacks here in London were doing a weekend of Irish music at this little folk club in East London. They realized that it was February 24 and it was 40 years since The Pogues put out Red Roses for Me. [They thought] it’d be nice maybe to do something to mark that, and they were talking to Geoff Travis, who is the guy that runs Rough Trade.
[Geoff told them] ‘You should maybe have a word with Spider because he might be interested in doing that.” I think I might have been in Geoff’s mind, because I’ve been very, very vocal about Lankum who are on Rough Trade [label]. There’s a lot of the people in this wave of brilliance that’s coming out of Ireland, signed to Rough Trade or River Lea.
So they got in touch, and it just sounded very sort of low-key. The idea was that we’d use some of the people that they had already for that weekend. I just put together this kind of small thing based around the album because there was no budget. We wouldn’t have been able to afford to bring, like, say, for example, James Fearnley [accordion player for The Pogues] over from Los Angeles as Jem is a pretty busy guy. So I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll just stick with what we’ve got here’ and we announced it. It sold out in no time at all. I mean, really, just like a couple of minutes. And it was only a small place, I mean, like 300 people, but still, boom, just gone with this waiting list of about another 1,500 people who wanted tickets. So we were like, ‘Oh, fuck, what are we gonna do? Should we have a matinee show? No, that’s a terrible idea.’
Then it was one of Lankum’s managers, Cian [Lawless] and Daragh Lynch [from Lankum], who’s one of the guys coming we’re bringing over, said, ‘Why don’t you do it at Hackney Empire?’ Lankum was playing at Hackney Empire, which is this old musical theater, what you guys would call a vaudeville theater. [They said], ‘Why don’t you see if you can take it there?’ They had that evening, that same Friday evening free. They didn’t have anyone booked, so we grabbed it. I think [that was] the fastest turnaround that they’ve ever had — 5 or 6 weeks before the actual show. So we turned around, this 1,600 capacity [venue] sold it out. We could have gone to a bigger venue, but we were just gonna stick with it. All this basically meant that we suddenly had more of a budget, so we were able to get James involved. I asked Jem, and as it turned out, Jem was only too pleased to come along and do something. He loved the idea.
We had been, of course, becoming aware of all these new Irish bands, Irish artists, so it made complete sense to ask some of these people. What they’re doing is just so extraordinary, and they’re all sort of, professing this kind love for The Pogues from Fontaine’s DC, right through to Lankum, and Junior Brother and Lisa O’Neill.
Yeah, there are great acts coming out of Ireland right now from groups like Kneecap and Inhaler to a whole slew of singer/songwriters.
So it was just like this could be brilliant. Then, for example, we had Tom Coll who made the initial call. So I was like, “Okay, I think we have a drummer,” and Tom is an absolutely fantastic drummer. And then we needed a bass player, and I suggested Holly Mullineaux, who plays in a band called Goat Girl, a really good band from South London. She’s an absolutely fantastic bass player, and as it turns out a real driving force at rehearsals. She’s kind of a boss, really. So the bass player’s role is to lock it all in and do it properly, curb the drummer’s excesses. Not that Tom has any excesses. And then I was thinking of “The Auld Triangle,” and I wanted to have a lot of women involved. I always feel that’s important. You don’t want too many men. The Pogues audience, although it’s generally been a fairly male crowd, we’ve always had a significant number of women fans.
There was never a question of cutting through any sort of toxic masculinity or anything like that. It’s just that women bring this really great energy and it really works on stage, and it really works in the context of these songs. That’s why we got Nadine Shah to sing “The Auld Triangle” at Hackney Empire, which was absolutely transcendent. On the UK tour, we had Lisa O’Neill. She does a version of “Rainy Night in Soho” that will melt you. We have this girl, Iona Zajac, who’s actually currently playing quite a lot with Lisa O’Neill, and has recorded with Lankuim. [She’s a] beautiful singer, but she also plays the Celtic harp. There’s this moment in the middle of “Rainy Night” where there’s a kind of breakdown around the “Sometimes I wake up in the morning” verse where it’s just really just Lisa’s vocal and this harp. And honestly, it’s like the first time that this happened at rehearsals. We were also, like, looking around, sort of like, “I’m not crying. You’re crying.” It was just really, really beautiful.
Honestly, this whole thing, I wouldn’t have ever wanted to have a situation where it was “Okay, this is The Pogues minus Shane, but they’ve got Spider standing in for Shane.” That wouldn’t have been the right way to do it. We have this opportunity to bring a real show, not something that looks like an attempt to sort of recreate The Pogues but without Shane because that would just simply be wrong. We wouldn’t have ever wanted to really do that. This, however, because we also have all these additional musicians, it’s not just the singers who are all fantastic.
God, I haven’t even mentioned John Francis Flynn. We’ve got all these fantastic musicians as well. We’ve got Jordan O’Leary who’s a brilliant banjo player. Flachra Meek who’s on pipes and whistles. Daragh Lynch on guitar. We’ve got James Walbourne, who was The Pogues’ guitarist when Philip [Chevron] became too ill to play. Then after Philip died, James took over from him full-time, but he’s also been playing with the Pretenders for over 15 years now, He’s a superb guitarist. We’ll have Jim Sclavounos from the Bad Seeds on drums. On the UK tour, we had John Dermody, who plays drums for Lankum, when they use a drummer, which they do increasingly these days, and also for another new Irish, well, new-ish Irish band called Poor Creature — check them out, they’re fantastic.
Whilst I’ve got your ear, I’ve got to mention Stick in the Wheel. We won’t have anyone from Stick in the Wheel with us, but they’re a two-piece, English folk band from East London. They are one of the best things that you will ever hear in your life, I swear to God. All I can say really is …I’m not actually going to attempt to describe them. They’re absolutely, absolutely superb. We had them along and they did their own sort of unique take on “Dark Streets of London,” and then “Gentleman Soldier.” Unfortunately, they’re not able to come to the States, they’ve got stuff of their own that they’re doing.
While you’re talking I can see how excited you’re getting talking about these musicians hitting the road with you all. This tour doesn’t feel like a celebration of The Pogues, but a celebration of music from Ireland and England. Almost like you’re setting the table for your fanbase to meet the new generation of music from Ireland England. That, to me, feels like the essence of what The Pogues have done over the years — turn people on to good music.
I hope so. I think it’s very much in keeping with what we are about. Honestly, I actually think Shane would be delighted at the way that we’re doing this. Actually, just simply the sight of an Irish harp on the stage would probably just be sufficient before he even listened, before he even heard a single note of music, single drum beat. He’d see the harp and be like, ‘Yeah, that’s fucking great.’
I wanted to ask about Shane if it’s okay. This is the first time in 13 years you’re coming back to North America. He was there the last time he played. This is a guy you played with forever. I know he wasn’t always with the band, and there were different singers and different iterations of the band. How do you feel about going back to the States without him there, playing the music that he helped make famous? As someone who grew up with him and played music and made music with him, how do you feel about that?
I feel really, really privileged to be able to do it. I’m very lucky to have known someone who was capable of producing such … such beauty. He just had such a fantastic mind, and was able to articulate things about ourselves. It’s not always easy to pin down quite what it is exactly that’s been spoken about, being sung about, but it’s something that’s very true and real. These songs, we poured everything into them. Shane poured everything of himself into them, and we all did. But without him, obviously it would have been nothing. So, to be able to do this like I said, it’s a privilege. It’s a testament to, again, to the strength of the work, and to the power of the band.
Shane is Shane, but there’s strength in the union, there is power in the union. We were always very much a collective. I’m not trying to assert ourselves, and push Shane’s contribution to one side. It’s great to be able to be part of a band that means enough that there are people who are willing to come out with us as we’re sort of approaching our dotage, and they bring new power and beauty to these songs. The shows that we’ve done have been fantastic. I think that the reviews speak for themselves. The press that we had in Ireland and in Britain was just brilliant. It’s always very nice to get a great review, but it’s when someone has come along and has actually seen it, seen what you’re doing and actually understood what it is that you’re attempting to do, and it means that what you’re attempting to do has worked. I hope people come out and see it work.
I have to ask, but there will never be any more original Pogue stuff, right?
Nope.
Good.
No, absent some sort of bridging of the great divide where get some more source material coming in from the other side.
You’ve dedicated so much of your life to this band. You’ve already alluded to this reason, but I want to know in your heart what it is that you love about this band that you’ve stuck with throughout your entire life. Now you’re proudly bringing new people into it, and you’re honoring your friend. What is it about The Pogues that you love, that you’re proud to call yourself a member of, and have stuck with it as long as you have?
I just love The Pogues. Years ago [we were] in the back of the van on the Elvis Costello tour. I was sitting next to, I think it was Jem, and I said, ‘Oh, you know what? I think we’re the best band in the world.’ This is after we’d done some show, I don’t know, somewhere like Leicester or somewhere, in front of a hall full of Elvis Costello fans. We didn’t get any hostile receptions on that tour at all [because] Costello fans weren’t really like that anyway. But mostly it was, generally speaking, indifference … they’re waiting for the main band. So, and I think Leicester hadn’t been any exception, but something had clicked inside me, and I just said, ‘Yeah, I think we’re the best band in the world.’ And, and I meant it.
We really pissed off Elvis Costello’s road crew, who actually, they kind of liked us, because we’ve cut didn’t really know what we were doing, and didn’t really give a fuck. And also, we were a bit disrespectful towards The attractions, and towards Elvis. We always used to go and rob their beer every night. Yeah, they’d get pissed off with that. But on the last night of the tour, they brought all this beer into our dressing room in a big sort of wheelie bin, and so we drank it after the show. I remember Jem was in this toilet cubicle in the room, and Jem sort of grabbed me, and we’d crawl across the floor into the toilet cubicle, and he shut the door. He said, ‘Do you still think we’re the best band in the world?’ I said, yeah, I do. I’ve always felt that. I’ve always felt there’s something about The Pogues that’s just extraordinary. Those songs … they’re fantastic.
