A Concept Album About Dennis Hopper? The Waterboys Made One.
The latest addition to Mike Scott’s eclectic catalog features Fiona Apple, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle and more exploring the life of the actor and director.In 1977, several years before Mike Scott founded the Waterboys, the band he still leads today, he started Jungleland. At the time, he was an 18-year-old obsessed with music and literature, living in Ayr, a seaside town on the west coast of Scotland. Jungleland wasn’t a band — it was a fanzine named after a Bruce Springsteen song in which Scott wrote about the artists that enthralled him, including the Clash, Richard Hell and the Sex Pistols.Scott, 66, has always worn his enthusiasms on his sleeve, and as the singer, songwriter, guitarist and only consistent member of the Waterboys, he has used his songs to broadcast his passions. The band’s first single from 1983, “A Girl Called Johnny,” is a breathless, saxophone-drenched ode to Patti Smith. The Waterboys’ biggest hit, “The Whole of the Moon,” is an exuberant celebration of the power of inspiration itself.“I like to be absorbed in the things that fascinate me,” Scott said during a video call from his home in Dublin. “Then I go all the way.”This is certainly the case with the Waterboys’ new album, “Life, Death and Dennis Hopper,” due Friday. The record follows the arc of Hopper’s life, from growing up in Kansas through the peaks and valleys of his career in Hollywood to his death in 2010. “It’s not a tribute record,” Scott said. “It’s an exploration. It’s not just Dennis’s story. It’s a story of the times.”It’s also the kind of unconventional turn that has become a hallmark of Scott’s career. In the mid-1980s, “The Whole of the Moon” and the album that spawned it, “This Is the Sea,” showcased the Waterboys’ ability to synthesize Scott’s punk-rock influences and literary aspirations on an arena-sized scale, drawing comparisons with bands like U2 and Simple Minds, and kicking off a mini-movement named after a Waterboys song: big music. But rather than build on this success, Scott reinvented the band, decamping to Ireland, immersing himself in Celtic folk music and making an equally compelling but completely different follow-up album, “Fisherman’s Blues,” in 1988.“It’s just my character,” Scott said. “I want to keep finding new things I can do that I couldn’t do last year. That’s my No. 1 aim. I’m like Sherlock Holmes. If he doesn’t have a case to solve, he gets depressed.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More