Facing the Troubles: Mickey Stephens and Poor Blue on Wasteground

To see Mickey Stephens, he was by all appearances, was living the good life. Like so many other immigrants, Stephens came to America – Bowling Green to be exact -- to study. During that time he got married, and eventually laid down roots in the music mecca of Charlotte. Over time, he also led a well-received Celtic-flavored country/rock band, the Mighty Shamrocks.

He came to this country back in 1985 from Northern Ireland and had left behind the strife of his native land, or so he thought. Over time, though, he realized that the past was not gone, that it was still a deep a part of him, like an ache to the body that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

This realization inspired his new album, Wasteground. Stephens grew up in Northern Ireland during the era of “The Troubles.” Many of the gruesome episodes of that time have been well-chronicled by rock artists, most notably by U2. But where the legendary Dublin band told the story in stadium-friendly bombast, Stephens’ album is deeply introspective and personal – but no less compelling.

The album contrasts Stephens childhood, spent in quiet, more natural environs of places like the Antrim Coast. Then, it shifts to a more turbulent stage of life, adolescence, one spent against the backdrop of bloody political violence.

Musically the album  doesn’t stray all that far from the Mighty Shamrocks, albeit in more reserved manner. The music lies mostly in a jazzy, folksy space with noticeable traces of traditional Celt. The band, Poor Blue, also includes bassist Otis Hughes, drummer Jeff Kephart and Tom Williams on lead guitar.

The project was kicked off after Stephens heard the poetry readings of a Vietnam veteran. Those verses, recounting the horror of that war, brought back to the surface feelings in Stephens that he had thought long-repressed.

“I became aware of certain things that bothered me during The Troubles after going to a poetry reading by Stefan Lovasik, who was writing a lot about the Vietnam War,” explained Stephens, who talked to Garagerocktopia by both phone and email. “The way he spoke resonated with me. He writes about the trauma of his war experiences in a raw way. Hearing him -- his voice and the emotion as much as the words -- got to me.  I talked to him and we became friends.”

“We emailed back and forth and I sent him some lyrics. Our conversations helped me realize I had long-term PTSD from living through the Troubles. That was why his reading hit me in the gut. I felt like he was my brother and he treated me that way.”

In the late ‘60s through the early ‘90s, “the Troubles” racked Northern Ireland in a long-term a clash between pro-Independence and pro-Union factions, as well as between Catholics and Protestants. It was one of the ongoing and defining struggles of the last 50 years. While it may pale in comparison to some of the other areas before and since that have been gripped in civil wars, such as Syria, the scale of horror still scars those who have had to live through it.

“Of course, I am not comparing my experiences to Stefan, who killed people in war,” cautioned Stephens. “But I did see some of the violence of The Troubles, and my PTSD was a different kind, one more associated with the long-term effects of living day to day in a society where uncertainty and fear become your new normal.”

“I wasn’t threatened all the time, but there was always the possibility of something terrible happening. A car you walked by could have a bomb. Or, if you were in the bar you had to really watch what you said, because someone from one of the paramilitaries might overhear you. You had to constantly be careful. Everyone who lived through that time was affected, and many far worse than me. When you live with that for 10, 12 years it changes you.”

“When I came over here to go to college and get a graduate degree in Ohio, it was a huge relief to be here, where nobody cared whether you were Protestant or Catholic.”

As painful and personal as it is, Wasteground is an amazing collection. We hasten to add that most of the album is not doom-and-gloom. Songs like “Mr. In-Between” and “Generosity” are quite enjoyable listening. Stephens acknowledges, though, that the album was difficult, emotionally, to write.

 “I dug into that deeper and deeper as I wrote the songs on Wasteground, Stephens explained. “I didn't have a plan -- the songs came by themselves.

“Writing the songs was at times unpleasant but also very freeing. I was coming from a much more emotional place than with the Shamrocks, where I wasn’t writing from my experiences or from my heart. Writing these songs, I was excited to get in touch with something a little more genuine. I got back in touch with myself and my childhood. I really felt like I had reconnected with something I had lost.”

While Stephens said he didn’t have a specific sequence in mind as he wrote the songs, there is a very deliberate theme to the album

“I made the album like an old-fashioned vinyl record, divided on two sides,” said Stephens. “One side represents peace, and the other war. The first five songs are about my childhood before the Troubles. The second side represents the troubles of adolescence, but with the added impact of the political situation. I didn’t have a master plan for the song sequence. That all came at the very end.”

The songs were not directly written about the Troubles. For some lyrics, Stephens reached back Ireland’s very beginnings.

“The lyrics of “Genorosity” come from the ancient lyrics of Celtic poet Oisin,” Stephens revealed. “Most of the songs on the first side refer to growing up in nature. The North was very peaceful compared to the urban grit and the troubles down south.”

The most jagged cut on the album, quite logically, is the song “The Troubles,” which departs the folksy feel for something much more raw and harder-edged, in keeping with the album’s central theme.

“The Troubles” is the most punk song on the album,” Stephens confirmed. “It started as an acoustic thing – a Billy Bragg type of song – but I ended up wanting a heavier, grungier, more emotional sound.”

Straddling a fine line between two worlds is a premise that, both on the album and the interview, pops up over and over again, and “Mr. In-Between” expertly catches that feel.

“It’s about being 13 or 14 years old and being caught in that odd place between childhood and adulthood,” said Stephens. “It’s also about the Catholic or Protestant situation, about being at a stage where you’re not one thing or the other.”

Hailing from Northern Ireland, it’s inevitable that Stephens will be compared to another singer-songwriter of some note from that neck of the woods, Van Morrison. Partly, it’s because Morrisons’ trademark stew of country, folk, rock and jazz are also components that Stephens has adopted. But it’s also because if you’re a musician from there, it’s pretty much impossible to escape Morrison’s impact.

“Anybody who comes out of Northern Ireland has listened to a lot of Van Morrison,” explained Stephens, “and probably a lot of Gary Moore and Rory Gallagher. They were all a little previous of my generation, though. I more came up during the punk scene of the early ‘80s, so really I was more into bands like the Undertones.”

“But there is another connection to Van Morrison, too. Astral Weeks was about a guy living in the United States who was looking back at Northern Ireland. I guess Wasteground is sort of my Astral Weeks.”