Rory Gallagher – “Much Too Shy” to Be a Popstar

By Ron De Groot, ROTTERDAM / TEGELEN

Rory Gallagher, shy by nature, on stage in Telegen: “If I give a bad performance, I suffer for a week”

After more than 25 years, he’s still not tired of music. Not at all. Rory Gallagher, now 41 years old, prepares for a big attack, which should take place by the end of this year. “I am working on my dream now. This time it’s serious.

This dream is the new album that the Irish musician hopes to bring to the market in November. It will be his fourteenth album since the beginning of his solo career in 1971 and is sure to be a hit album. “No pop music, but rock solid music.”

A second childhood? A catch-up race to make up for all that was missed in previous years? Who knows? Apparently, all pop musicians need that worldwide recognition at some point in their careers

Rory Gallagher, an extremely shy and above all friendly man, is still there to the surprise of many. The kind multi-instrumentalist (perhaps an exaggerated description from the single song on mandolin and some harmonica playing) gave a blistering performance last weekend during the Blues Rock festival in Tegelen, Limburg. No over-the-top spectacles, no technical effects, just, a straightforward hard rock concert with a calm, acoustic interlude.

“For me, every performance is still special,”says the old hand before walking onto the stage in Tegelen. “Of course it’s different from when you’re 21. Then every concert is an experience. But I never think of a performance as just something. It’s not a problem for me, but it’s also not like: ‘oh, a little festival, I’ll do that for a while.’ I’m always very nervous. I am very critical of myself. If I give a bad performance, I’ll suffer for a week.

Extremely Quiet

It has certainly been extremely quiet around Rory Gallagher in our country lately. Here and there his name suddenly popped up when he gave another performance in a hall somewhere in the polder. Especially in the north and east of our country, where the hard rock supporters are the largest, a performance was sporadically booked. The good years when the Irishman visited large venues in Amsterdam and Rotterdam are far behind us. But the Gallagher of today predicts that he will definitely start bigger work again next year. That new album, the Irishman knows, just has to do it.

“No, I don’t need to be as famous as Prince or Bowie,” he says. “Those people are playing a game. It is more determined by image, appearance and publicity than by music. I am not a saint. I just want a really good record to come out that grabs people’s attention. That would be wonderful. I couldn’t be a pop star. I am much too shy for that. Even performing is very hard for me. I am not public property. I am a folk musician by nature.”

Rory Gallagher started his musical career as a teenager in a show band. At the end of the sixties, he became the front man of the illustrious trio Taste, a rather inscrutable kind of hard rock. In 1971 Gallagher started “for himself”. He established himself in 1972 with the album Live in Europe. Since then, his career has continued. Gallagher was a household name, especially in the 1970s. At that time, he belonged to the “guitar heroes”, the people who went completely crazy in long solos.

Concrete

Later came the real hard concrete rockers. Under pressure from the commercial hitmakers with stars such as David Bowie, Prince and so on, hard rock also had to go in a different direction. And that direction was mainly determined by the volume. Gallagher did not miss this change either. The melodic in his music was pushed to the background. The Irishman also cranked up the volume knob, but that has been dampened a bit now.

“It wasn’t really meant to be, but it just happened,” he says now. “But I don’t think we were completely metallic. Now it’s hard too, but open in a different way. It’s hard to keep things going with a group of three or four people. I don’t mind hard rock. I like hard rock with a heavy blues feel. The blues fans say we play too much rock and the rock fans say we play too much blues.

Gallagher is now working on the permanent establishment of his name at Various Studios in London. However, times have changed. Gallagher has a hard time: “I’ll tell you: making a record is much more difficult than performing. You’re stuck in a room, downstairs in the basement, in the studio. It’s often very unhealthy. You don’t eat, you just work. Very hard work. I produce my own music and that means you have to be in control of everything. I don’t go home after playing like other musicians. I wish I had a good producer, but I can’t find one.

“You used to be able to make a record in three to six weeks. Now it’s quite an ordeal,” he says. “Today it takes half a year or more. And when you hear the result… Even to record the simplest songs, you have to pull off the most intricate tricks. All the techs I liked are retired or something. The young people today don’t like the songs that I like. They want to use techniques. I try to sound like the nineties, but I play songs from the twenties and thirties. I want to find authentic sounds. It’s not easy but it’s worth it.

Video

That “sounding like the nineties” will soon be translated into a real video clip. The latter should at least sound surprising to seasoned Gallagher fans. The Irishman sees the song King of Zydeco, which will be on his new album, as a possible hit. “I’d love to make a video, but not with all that nonsense. Jumping in pools or with a row of Rolls Royce. I’m still working on it. Maybe I should find a nice bar where I can record something. Do like Willie Nelson, who plays in his own theatre, studio and apartment. That’s perfect.”

“That video won’t be anything earth-shattering,” he continues. “I have some ideas, but I’m definitely not going to be by the record company. If we don’t like it, we won’t use it. I don’t see why a simple song can’t be captured in a simple video. Something in black and white. No American stuff.”