Michael McDermott grew up in the Chicago area of the United States. He released his debut album back in 1991 and was immediately catapulted into the kind of media hype that could only eventually spiral out of control. Feted as the ‘new star’ in music industry circles, Michael gradually found his life unravelling as the early promise of career success faded into years of battling personal demons and perceived obscurity.
Remarkably, the quality of the work output never suffered, only the popularity as a poster boy, and Michael continued to release music of impressive consistency and real gravitas over the next two decades. In 2014 he became clean and sober from his addictions and found new ways to calm his personal demons. During the Covid lockdown he produced more excellent music, wrote a nakedly honest autobiography, and has since released another four albums of the highest quality. We asked Michael to take time out from his current European tour and consider our many questions. As always, he is very generous and giving in nature and did not hold back anything when catching up and reflecting upon his rollercoaster life experience.
Just as the Covid-19 Pandemic hit in 2020 you had released a self-produced album titled What In the World… and it was somewhat prophetic, looking back. You sang of a new World order. How is this playing out for you now?
Well unfortunately things have only gotten exponentially worse. I remember the day that Joe Biden was finally declared the winner of the Presidential Election in 2021 and what a moving day it was. In retrospect, it may have been the worst thing to happen. It gave Trump and his ghouls a “timeout’ to go rethink, regroup and refocus. Had Trump won, we’d be done with him and I don’t think he would have been this efficient in dismantling our institutions. I remember saying after Biden won…Won’t need to play “What In The World” anymore…. how wrong I was.
We find you, post Covid, releasing albums with your usual consistency and quality. There has been St Paul's Boulevard in 2022, followed by the dual release Lighthouse On the Shore/East Jesus in 2024. Each one a real gem, and prolific is a word that sits well with your impressive output. Do you try to write every day?
I do. I have a very Chicago Southside mentality about it. Get up and go to work. Lunch pail type guy. I don’t wait for the inspiration to arrive from an Oracle on High… I go out and try and confront it. I’m on the road now in Varese, Italy and was awoken at 4am and jotted a stream of lyrics into my Notes on my iPhone in a dark room.
You also released an album that was created during the Covid lockdown, the brilliantly named House Arrest (The Live Quarantine Sessions). How did this recording come together during lockdown?
The Shows were a lifeline, and it became like a TV show for me, showing video’s, inspirations, speeches from Alan Watts or James Baldwin or whomever, and the shows, unbeknownst to me, were being recorded. So, we just took the best stuff from many months of shows and compiled a bit of a time capsule to release as an album.
Over the lockdown you seemed to find a new freedom in being home with family and working from your studio. Online concerts provided a means to earn some money at the time, but did you ever see it as a viable alternative to the touring model?
I wasn’t sure what would happen. I am a total recluse by nature. So, for me, it was a dream scenario; I found using video’s very powerful in delivering a show of impact. So, switching back to live shows took a minute to get my legs. I still do the online shows because besides them being an avenue to sustain myself, I find them very fulfilling artistically.
What is the key driver behind your strong desire to keep moving forward?
I think there are a couple reasons. Shame and Death. Shame because of what a mess I made of my life. The years I squandered in crack houses and being a stumbling bumbling drunken lunatic. Nothing grew in my garden, It was one that was meant for chaos, destruction, and to ultimately accomplish my complete demise. It was miraculous that I made it out alive. I still made albums all through that somehow, and somehow some of them are really good. However, I can’t help but feel what a tragedy that I didn’t have all my tools at my disposal because of my sickness. So that has lit a fire to make up for lost time. For so long I didn’t want to live and now I do. That brings with it a fear. That check may have got lost in the mail but it’s still on its way. I’d like to contribute as much to this world as I can before it arrives.
Congratulations on the new album, Flowers From the Graveyard. It’s a firm favourite at Lonesome Highway and I wanted to ask how long the entire recording process took this time around?
I’m always working, so there is no real official start date. Thinking about it now, This was one of the more simple albums for me. If I had to guess it was over the course of 6 months?
Empathy and compassion fuel your lyrics and I wanted to ask whether a part of this has been learning to forgive yourself and past mistakes made?
Wow, what a question. The guy who writes those songs is a lot smarter than me. He tries to talk sense to me, but I got generations of Irish guilt and decades of terrible behaviour I’m trying to wade through. Seriously though, I hope so. That part is hard. The songs help. I hope they are inspirational to people. For me, they are aspirational.
The new album title has an interesting juxtaposition - the spectre of inevitable death, balanced by the fragile and temporary beauty of cut flowers. It's a perfect metaphor for life.
It was inspired by a bike ride past a graveyard and the beautiful aroma coming from a place of such sadness. And yet, the flowers themselves are laid there, dying themselves. It was such a collision of ideas at one simple moment.
Once again you co-produce with Steven Gillis. You have worked together on a few previous albums and I wanted to ask what he brings to the recording process for you?
He brings a lot. He’s my drummer and been like a brother for the last ten years. He is one of the best mixers in the world for starters. One of the best drummers and he is from a different school of music than I am. He was in a very successful band called Filter in the nineties and the 2000’s. He is really brilliant at making things sound powerful, but always has a way of putting the song first, with a great sense of melody and harmony. I give him these sessions with a bunch of ideas and he puts the puzzle together.
There is a very positive message running through the songs; one of fortitude and resilience, the desire to get back up after disappointment. Was this your intention?
It isn’t a conscious thing but I guess those songs were always the ones that moved me as a listener. I also have a 16-year-old daughter trying to find her way through the world and she and I are as close as two people can get. It feels like a lot of these songs come out of conversations with her.
You have always had an optimistic default button, no matter how dark your life was getting. As you sing on the new album “The struggle makes you stronger.”
I think of that Woody Guthrie quote a lot. “I hate a song that makes you think that you aren’t any good. I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and your work.”
There is also a strong theme of gratitude and thankfulness running through the new album. Living in the moment and taking each day as it arrives. Do you put this sense of contentment down to your meditation practice which is a discipline you have been pursuing since 2020?
TM, which is the kind of meditation I do, doesn’t have intentions per se. The practice has instilled a stillness. I was doing a show in Minneapolis one night and after the show a guy asked if I read the Stoics. I didn’t even know what he was talking about, which surprised him. So, I went into a deep dive. It’s a practice of only focusing on what is in your control. The song The Best We Get also mentions Marcus Aurelius. Marcus said ‘The obstacle is the way’ For so much of my life I’ve been in search of these very intangible things. I have come to a place of acceptance. Playing the O2 arena doesn’t await me. I need to come to terms with that and if I don’t, it’s gonna be brutal from here on out.
Does the act of meditation help you to live in the moment and not waste energy on either the past or future?
100% I am not the same person I was before meditation. I can only attribute this radical change to that.
The realisation that the answers lie within has been a big sea-change from the hedonistic days of seeking answers via external stimulants. It’s like you have turned self-sabotage into opening the door to enlightenment.
Wow, thanks Paul, that’s beautiful. I sure hope so. It has become a kind of place where it does seem that everything I’m doing creatively is being nurtured. What has also been amazingly enlightening to me is that through all those years I had this idea that “No one understands my struggle. No one understands what I’m going through. No one understands what I have had to endure. What you learn in recovery is when you listen to other people share and what they’ve been through. Man, you realize you’re not so special. You’re not unique. That was an eye opener. I think that helped me as a writer. Instead of writing from above, I was writing from ground level. I wasn’t above it; I was in it.
You have recently finished a short European tour which included dates in Italy. You first played there back in 2008, supporting the superb Eileen Rose. In the following year you were married there to Heather Lynne Horton, your inspiring wife and band/soul mate. Is it your favourite European destination to tour as a result?
It is for sure. Someone said to me last night after the show, that even if they don’t get every word I’m singing, they feel ever word I’m singing. There’s something very raw about that and the shared life experience. When I scream at the end of Shadow In The Window the song for my Father…. I love you, I love you, I love you…. it’s a room that becomes a kind of communion that transcends, nation and culture.
Has the writing process changed for you over time?
It has, I’m slower with it. I’m more earnest with it. I’m more selective with it. I think I edit on the fly which may or may not be a good thing. This year for the first time ever, I didn’t write any songs from January 1st until July some time. All I did was read books. I wanted to refuel. I needed a new language. I needed a new voice. Time will tell if that was helpful of not, but I’m hoping this next batch of songs will be radically different.
How do you stop repetition of themes in the song content, given your volume of songwriting output?
It’s an old adage, “Write what you know” I certainly have thought I had something good on the line only to realize I’d already written that song. I don’t think about it consciously. I just let the moment take me. It’s Darwinian, the good songs are attention whores, they’ll tell before they walk into the room.
In 2022 you published your memoir titled Scars From Another Life. It’s a remarkable book, extremely brave in its honesty and a powerful memoir. When you visited those past years, did you come to realise the pattern of self-harm was manifest from childhood anxieties and abuse issues that you spoke about so openly?
I did. It wasn’t easy writing that memoir. Heather even said one day “I think this book is killing you.” It’s all patterns. Recently I found an old journal from 1996. I read it and it was like it was written yesterday. Same issues, same themes. Money problems, Career worries, Relationship issues, Imposter syndrome, Feelings of inadequacy. Artistic frustrations. What didn’t happen last week was the drug and alcohol abuse or having a gun taped beneath a bed. But what was revelatory and a little depressing was……STILL???? These are still my issues 30 years later. Jesus wept.
You spoke of a pivotal moment when you were 8 years old, about half-way through the memoir. Without naming the abuser, you speak candidly of the “self-loathing” subsequently felt. Carrying around that confusion cannot have been easy, and have you been able to resolve the fact that you were an innocent victim in a horrible set of events that you had no control over?
Yes, kind of. On an intellectual level, yes. 100%. But it has changed me in a profound way and all the therapy in the world won’t change it. Once you’re a pickle, you’ll never be a cucumber again. It’s back to the idea of acceptance. I’ve accepted these things. Accepting the idea of being a victim is hard. I don’t know why that is.
Was chasing all those artificial highs a way of blocking out the pain?
I think so. I also got very caught up in the idea of Rimbaud and a rational disordering of the sense. I thought maybe it was part of my responsibility to push things are far as I could.
No doubt therapy has unlocked a number of these closed doors for you since you became clean and sober in 2014.
Following up on the last question. Therapy has taught me that being fucked up for 20 years gave me a perfect “out” …. meaning…. If I’m not successful or I’m rejected artistically I always have the excuse of “Well I was a drunk and a drug addict. That’s why people didn’t love me or why I was a failure. “So really it was a parachute of sorts. The idea that if you tried your best and gave it your all and were rejected, that may have been too much for me to take, so I created a kind of escape hatch or a REALLY good excuse as to why it didn’t ‘happen.”
Looking back, do you believe that your quality of work was compromised during your years of serious addiction issues?
It had to have been. I have a few times gone and listened to some of those albums and I’m quite surprised they were even that good, given what I knew what was happening. I was pretty serious about my work days though. All the madness happened when the sessions were over. Of course, sometimes they overlapped but, by and large, the studio was a sacred space.
Drug addiction and alcoholism over 20 years have taken a toll, no doubt in financial, physical and psychological ways. It’s to your eternal credit that you have moved beyond those times of self-harm to find the inner strength to fight those demons. What advice would you give to a younger generation seeking to dabble in stimulants, perhaps bowing to peer pressure?
Thank you for that. Yeah, it’s a real concern. I’ve told my daughter “Things were different when I was young. You can’t mess around with street drugs; they are way too dangerous now. Sorry but the store is closed. Fentanyl is in everything now. I think that sobriety is sexy now. We’ve come a long way from the days of Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, so I think and hope that younger people are more suspicious of those things.
It’s like your issues back then were captured by the lyric on the new album song Always A Ways Away “See I don’t have a problem with drinking, But my drinking’s got a problem with me.” Now that you have cleared that internal fog, the future looks full of positivity and light.
Despair is easy. It’s like a great old leather jacket that fits me great and I think still makes me look cool. The truth is, it doesn’t. The whole engine of social media is driven by fear, outrage, dystopia. So, we are spoon fed theses horrific images all day long. It’s so easy to let it drown you. Optimism is a challenge. Back to the Stoics; only focus on what is in your control. That is not to say you’re a sheep, but only focus on what is actually in your control.
Your political views are so well communicated on The Future, a song that states “Freedom of speech is no longer what it means, AI will eulogize the American Dream, Moses said, “I got it all right here in writing” - They sow division to keep everybody fighting, We’re turning in to a dystopian autocracy, The future sure ain’t what it used to be.” Such great words, and it’s so true in what you observe; it’s never just about the left against the right, it’s more about the top versus the bottom. Do you think that the creation of permanent wars, as a control mechanism, is the ultimate goal in the preservation of hierarchical power?
You’re absolutely right. I think everybody knows that the status quo is unsustainable. What is amazing to me is the numbers game. The top 1% versus the rest of us. The heroes ain’t coming. The cavalry ain’t here. The sooner we realize that the better. They let us live juuuuuusssst comfortable enough to not revolt. I think that checks in the mail too.
There was also the 2023 release of a Lost Album from 1992, titled Lost City Seattle. Was this from a time when your record label EMI, were unhappy with the original album and the tapes were archived?
Yeah, everything was changing then. 620 W. Surf came out a month before Nirvana’s Nevermind. So we went to Seattle to the Mecca of Grunge and made an album. Brian Koppelman by then had left the label and by the time the contracts were sorted, I’d written a whole new batch of tunes, so it was shelved. I think this is a great album though.
You have also released the hugely impressive album series Stories, Lies and Legends three volumes of non-recorded songs which stretch to close on 200 songs. It's quite staggering the level of output you continue to achieve.
I have two friends that do these for me Jim Cardillo (who worked at many labels and Warner Chappell Publishing, signed many big bands) and Eric Quatrrone (who is in charge of my merchandising) compile these. It’s amazing how they find these songs long forgotten, but I’m so grateful they have unearthed some gems.
Anyone who visits your website will also discover even more hidden treasure in the Vaults section. Again, my brain is dizzy from the scale of it all. How do you exercise quality control among all the blur of activity.
Jim and Eric always send me stuff to approve and yeah, some of it I just won’t allow. There was a song in 1986 called Big Business it was a terrible song BUT, I name dropped a man named Donald Trump. Can you believe that…. In 1986 I knew this guy was bad news.
The website is very comprehensive. Congratulations are due to the team who assist you in this challenging endeavour. Or perhaps it’s all your own work?
It’s a great team I have, Martha does the website, Eric handles merchandise and Jim is a kind of special products manager.
Your wife Heather Lynne Horton has been a very steady influence in your life. She has a few solo albums (three, to date) and plays in your band also. Can you tell me a little more about her inspiration for you?
I was talking about her last night about this very thing. I got the greatest bullshit detector ever. Sometimes I’ll play her a song or she’ll hear a vocal I did and she gives it to me straight. If she thinks a lyric is lazy or a vocal sounds more performative than honest. She tells me straight up. She’s an amazing songwriter and singer and has to sacrifice that for raising a child while I’m gone a lot. I know there is more coming from her and it’s always a thrill when she does.
Has your daughter been blessed with the same creative gene that her parents enjoy.
Blessed or Cursed..! She goes to a performance art school in Chicago for Musical Theatre. She had a role on a TV series called “The Emperor Of Ocean Park” and she is looking into Theatre School in Dublin for next summer. She’s a force, like her mama.
Have you any plans to tour more in Europe into next year or do you see the practicalities of touring costs restrict you to American shores?
I think there are some England Dates in April. Sweden and Italy in September and I’m working on Ireland.
Anything that you would like to leave us with before we say goodbye?
This has been like a great therapy session. I’m deeply grateful to you Paul.
Interview by Paul McGee Image taken from Shadow In The Window video