With their first appearance on Irish soil impending and an album, The Unutterable, that sees them revitalised by youthful new members and an increase in surreal bile from their leader Mark E. Smith, The Fall have returned to the pages of the music weeklies. Pat Mac Mellow shed all the Dublin colloquialisms from his vocabulary and spoke as one Northerner to another, minus the aye ops and (most of) the swearing.
Never meet your heroes. That is the message passed from one journalist to the next. Failing that, don't worship a God, let alone a false God. I've not made any of those mistakes yet, bar the time when I realised, one winter's afternoon as I walked home from school, that I would never meet, let alone snog Madonna, but my encounter with Mark E. Smith left me somewhat disappointed. He was the only one left standing amidst what remains of the rubble that represents the English working class punk movement, the only Englishman able to pursue his life's ambition over more than twenty years of rollicking good rock music, filled and possessed by his bent and twisted lyrics. And what a grumpy, unhelpful sod he was. We start as we mean to go on...
How's the year been for you so far? You've a new album and a new wife in your life.
Yeah.
Which is better?
None of your business!
Have you a large tour lined up?
Ermm, we're doing Ireland and we're doing Holland I think. All the places we've been neglecting in the last year.
When was the last time you came to Ireland?
About '98.
How was it?
Good.
What can we expect from a Fall gig at the moment? How many songs are from the new album and how far back do you go into the Fall's back catalogue?
You're not from Dublin are yer?
No. I'm from Burnley.
Right, right.
(Pause)
When you're touring nowadays what's in the set?
How are you finding Ireland?
I like it. I've been here four years now. When you're touring...
Don't go back too far, it's a new group, well relatively new, eighteen month you know.
So how far back do you go?
What, me?
In terms of songs.
Aah, right. (Pause again while I hear the sides of his mouth being sucked) Don't do too much old stuff. There's a lot of people touting that we should do a greatest hits album sort of thing. Well I'm not into it. (Quieter voice) I think this stuff, the new stuff, is great.
You must get constant requests from audiences to play a song or more from the past. I witnessed it at a gig you did over ten years ago in England, where the audience never stopped asking even though you were touring to support your 'Frenz Experiment' album, a good album.
They always have, I don't take any notice.
Is there anything special about the stage show at the moment? At the gig I saw, you used a lectern for your lyric sheets. Have you still got it?
No, no. Everybody started copying it so I stopped using that.
How's the 'Unutterable' album done since it was released (in November)?
It's done very well. I'm actually quite surprised.
I don't imagine you to be the kind of musician that counts how many units you've sold per album in each country.
No, not at all. I'd spend all me time doing that if... I'd never get any work done.
Are there any countries in particular that have fans that have always supported you?
Err, Scotland. In America we do all right. I've got a lot of friends over there.
Have you been over to the States recently?
Err, no.
Any plans to tour there soon with the new album?
Err, no.
How does the current line-up of The Fall compare musically with past incarnations?
It's a lot better. They're a lot better in all sorts of departments.
As people, are they easier to get along with?
Well...they're a different generation from me...which is good.
How old are you now Mark?
I'm forty t...(starts coughing)
Sounds like you were trying to obscure a digit there...
(Laughing) What's the matter with you!
I was only joking.
Ok, erm, half of 'em are based in London which is good. It used to be bit of a communal unit.
Do you often see any (of the many) past members of The Fall around Salford and Manchester?
No. I don't hang around in musicians' circles.
Where do you hang out? Have you joined any working men's clubs?
Nah. We started out there. They're the last place I wanna see.
The Fall appear at the Red Box, Harcourt St. on Saturday 24th February. Doors open at 7.30pm and tickets are £17 (incl. booking fee) from
