Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
Interviews
Published: Mongrel Magazine, August 2004HELLO. MY NAME IS MIK PYRO. AND I AM A MASSIVE CRY BABY*
“The show will be going out live so we’ll have to ask you not to swear…” Mik Pyro and Benjamin Loose exchange bemused glances. The Republic of Loose vocalist and bass-player (respectively) have ducked out from a soundcheck in Brixton to appear on BBC Radio 6. But with Mik unused to curbing his tongue, and with most of their songs riddled with profanities, it’s going to be a tricky half hour.
Already I’ve noticed his partiality for the word ‘bullshit’. He delivers it as though tasting a fine wine, rolling the first syllable around his sandpaper gullet before spitting out the second: booull-shi’. Just imagine you’re talking to your mother, I suggest. The singer looks confused. “This is how I talk to me fuckin’ mother!” Read the rest of this entry »
Published: Irish Times, October 31 2009“THEY’RE REHABILITATING THE SIN OF GLUTTONY IN LANGUAGE LIKE ‘SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT’ AND ‘CARBON FOOTPRINT’…”
BRENDAN O’NEILL: Editor of Spiked magazine and outspoken climate change sceptic
You’re not a climate change denier, but you believe the effects of climate change have been grossly exaggerated. Is that correct?
Yes, environmentalism has become the dominant ideology of our age. It is an ideology of limits, restraint and caution. Humans are having an impact on our climate, that’s pretty clear. But environmentalism has turned into an extremely illiberal moral crusade. Read the rest of this entry »
“IT’S 7.30AM. I’VE JUST FINISHED DEER STALKING…”
MARCO PIERRE WHITE: the original bad boy chef – kitchen colossus or glorified dinner lady?
Beyond sustaining us, and (hopefully) not poisoning us, why does food matter?
I believe that the heart of every house is the kitchen. We all grow up at the kitchen table, with our family and with our friends. And I think that’s where the importance of food is born. Read the rest of this entry »
“Mary Harney is a total Geebag!”
It’s two o’clock on a blustery afternoon in early March and I’ve just been shootin’ the shit with An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. We’re in his constituency office, St. Lukes, on the Lower Drumcondra Road. In a few moments, the Mercedes outside will whisk him off to a meeting of the British-Irish Inter Parliamentary Body, where he’ll deliver an address on prospects for power-sharing in the North. For my part, I’ll be taking the 16A back to town, where I’ll have to decide whether birthdays or Coco Pops top this month’s What’s Hot list. Before we go our separate ways though, I offer him two copies of Mongrel for his commute. Read the rest of this entry »
“WOULD IT BE FAIR TO CALL YOU IRELAND’S ANSWER TO FLAVOR FLAV?”
EOIN BUTLER talks to super-sized comic Karl Spain
Everyone remembers the ‘Karl Spain Wants a Woman’ programme. Would it be fair to describe you as Ireland’s answer to Flavor Flav?
No, I’m Ireland’s guy that everyone shouts “Hey, did you find yourself a woman yet?” at on the street. I actually met my girlfriend Rachel through that show and we’re still together after three and a half years. We were having dinner the other night and it came on Sky News that Katie Price and Peter Andre had broken up after three and a half years. So we were laughing – we’ve outlasted Peter and Jordan! What were the odds?
That’s amazing, so you did a show called ‘Karl Spain Wants a Woman’ and you actually got a woman out of it? Why didn’t you do a follow-up, like, ‘Karl Spain Wants a Bungalow and a Flat-Screen TV’?
Well, it’s funny you should mention bungalows, because there was some talk of doing a series in which I would try and buy a house. But nothing came of it. I still joke with Rachel that she cost me a second series of Karl Spain Wants a Woman . Read the rest of this entry »
“I WANT TO BE RIGHT UP THERE WITH THE GREATEST LEGENDS OF SHOWBIZ: THE JUDYS, THE SINATRAS, THE OLIVIERS, THE CLARK GABLES…”
He’s a prodigiously talented performer and composer who has battled addictions to drink and drugs. But for now the sun is all that’s frying Rufus Wainwright’s brain… Read the rest of this entry »
“I really admire any game that can go on for five days and not produce a winner”
EOIN BUTLER talks to Neil Hannon about cricket, Britpop and “Father Ted”.
What are you listening to these days?
I listen to far too much music that is not considered cool. I’m a lifelong fan of Cole Porter and Noel Coward. I also love Maurice Ravel. As far as pop music is concerned, it tends to be strangely commercial stuff. I’ll find I’m just mad about a Sugababes song or something. The new Jarvis Cocker album is brilliant too, much better than his first album. I was always a massive Pulp fan.
Do I recall that you and Jarvis once had an argument about an anorak?
That has a basis in truth. Jarvis and I once did a joint cover shoot for a French magazine. I turned up wearing an anorak, basically, because I had no clue. It got back to me afterwards that Jarvis had been outraged. The phrase he used was “You’ve got to live it” [referring to being a pop star, presumably]. Afterwards, I thought “Hmm . . . He was probably right.” But we never had a face-to-face argument. Read the rest of this entry »
“You’ve heard of the Loch Ness monster, right? The fact is that there are dozens of these lake creatures all over the world…”.
For the last year or so I’ve been doing a weekly Q&A interview at the front of the Irish Times Saturday Magazine. This is the only one they’ve ever refused to print. It was with a preacher who was about to address a creationism rally in Lucan. The Irish Times refused to publish it on the grounds that the guy was clearly insane. My position was that of course the guy was insane, that was why I interviewed him in the first place. Sanity prevailed, unfortunately… Read the rest of this entry »
OLLIE HIGGINS
The atmosphere in Whelans is so electric you could cut it with a knife. It’s Friday night and the place is heaving. Declan O’Rourke – enfant terrible of Irish song – has an American tourist in a headlock and is attempting to extract cash from her purse. In a quiet corner Gemma Hayes and Paddy Casey are huddled over a ludo board, lost in thought. It’s a heady scene. For now, though, the buzz is all about one man: Ollie Higgins.
The former drummer with ill-starred Dublin rockers The Kill City Snowmen is here to launch his debut solo album, Hope Street. (“It’s like a cross between Black Sabbath and The Andrews Sisters” he explains. “If that makes any sense!”) Read the rest of this entry »
Published: Irish Times, November 15th 2008KISSING IN THE WIND
As interviews go, it’s not your typical scenario. I’m seated on a barge on Dublin’s Grand Canal. In my hand is a list of handwritten questions. On the bench opposite are sitting the two young stars of Lance Daly’s highly acclaimed new feature film Kisses. My Dictaphone is lying on the table between us switched on. So far so good, you might think. Well yes, except that at some point in the last five seconds World War III has broken out. Read the rest of this entry »