Just off our recent interview with The Whipping Boy‘s Fearghal McKee, comes Flip-It TV, with a chatsky with the outspoken frontman backstage at Indiependence.

McKee certainly takes no prisoners (see what we did?) when discussing the state of everything, from music, to energy, to the festival buzz, and nothing is safe from McKee’s trademark vitriol!

For more from Flip-It TV, check out their Tumblr, as well as our new Flip-It TV channel in the header menu!.

Whipping Boy @ Indiependence 2011 – YouTube.

Whipping Boy was possibly one of the most influential bands of the 1990’s. They arguably released one of the greatest Irish albums of our time. Infamous for self-mutilation, nudity and off the wall comments, Fearghal McKee talks to Mark Roche about Whipping Boys past, present and future; an upcoming Heartworm Tour will surely set fans young and old alike on edge.

How was the tour during the summer?

We had a great time man; we weren’t expecting anything but were really thankful. Playing live is our bread and butter. It’s fantastic to see faces that range from age 16 to 66 in the audience.

Each time ye play is different? Is there much archival material left?

There is I guess, I mean…were always reinventing ourselves. Whipping Boy never play the same gig twice, each time we play we feel a different vibe from the audience. Arrangements change; I mean this isn’t the original line-up so things are always going to be different. We totally respect that the lads have other commitments but Colm [Hassett] and I just had an itch to get the fuck back out there.

What have you done aside from your musical endeavours?

I’ve had children, raised a family. I was a chef; I’m a damn good chef, but it’s impossible to get work. I cannot get work in this country, so what else am I supposed to do? Music is my expression of self.

Has family life calmed you?

Absolutely not, I’m sure I’ve changed. I want to protect them but they wind me up a hell of a lot too.

What do you say to those who say you’re in this for the money?

Look, we have 10 people to pay. We fight for everything, we fight to be heard, we fight to create; hopefully it leaves an impression, if not then so be it. We’re 15 years older, the commitment to this band is more evident than ever. We’re all broke, we need this in the current climate and everybody on our team from the soundman to the roadie deserves their cut. “It’s important to share the money around”.

What do you think of the current state of the country?

It’s a state of confusion. Nobody knows what’s happening. We don’t want to preach; we want to inspire and to fight back. Because if we don’t stand up, we’re finished! The future is going to be a cold place; if we wait around we’re going to get fucked.

Is Heartworm especially relevant today; it seems timeless?

We recreate Heartworm over and over again. Today, it is in ‘the now’; we feel ‘the now’. As a 7 piece band for this tour, Heartworm won’t sound the same. We could never re-record that album. We never set out to make a great record, we just wanted to make music man; it wouldn’t be the same today. If we were ever to experiment with Heartworm, I’d like to get the RTE Philharmonic Orchestra to fill everything in and make a massive sound, y’know? Kind of like what Elbow did.

Will the live gigs be just as wild? [My friend told me you once through a Hoover into an audience at Witness]

I hope so. (laughs) I remember one time, we hoovered up some baking powder on stage alright. We had just met someone like Lily Allen or somebody, and in honour of Lily Allen or Keith Allen or whoever it was, we staged this memorial to the big-business cokeheads that run and ruin the music business.

Would ye ever consider a big label again such as Columbia?

There’s big money in these labels; they’re almost like Pyramid Schemes. They know how to destroy bands and careers so I say fuck them. I think we should destroy every big label and every corporation in this country. If we don’t do something we have nothing, they’ve taken everything. We need to realise that life is not rosy. Whipping Boy are going to help the independent smaller labels as much as they will help us. We hope to release our new records on FIFA Records.

What will keep Whipping Boy busy until Christmas?

We release ‘No one takes prisoners anymore’ in early December; there will be a B-side ‘When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted’ [Originally a Rudyard Kipling poem circa 1892]. Hopefully, we might get to release an acoustic version as well but it is set down right now. I’m really excited about this new stuff, I’ve been really lazy this time though; I didn’t write any of it. An old friend of mine, Martin Egan basically handed me the tracks and said ‘Here, sing these will ya?’; and that’s exactly what I did. It’s fascinating to see how such old material can resonate so clearly in the present to me. Come the New Year, we’ll try travel to England and Eastern Europe, then who knows? Russia? China? Ha-ha!

How do you feel about Irish campaigns such as Occupy Dame St. or Occupy Cork?

I love it man. I just hope they stay there. This whole state is a test of time right now and those peoples commitments are what matters. The government have taken everything we have, what else is there to do but get in the way? “We need to occupy the stage, our minds, and our individuality, everything…” The more positive we are the more change will occur. Nobody is currently happy with all this doom and gloom but it’s as easy as changing that ‘No’ to ‘Yes’ that will take the first step to fixing this.

The Whipping Boy ‘Heartworm’ Tour will begin in Galway and follow to Cork. Fans can expect to hear one of the most influential Irish albums in its entirety at both gigs, while Dublin will be more varied. Ticket prices are listed below.  With only three live performances, and only two of Heartworm in its entirety these gigs will be a unique experience to witness Whipping Boy’s return.

Rosín Dúbh, Galway – 15^th December; €13 on the door, €15 online

The Pavilion, Cork – 17^th December; Same Prices Apply

The Button Factory, Dublin – 21^st December; Same Prices Apply

 Dead School will provide support on all dates.

Our imminent doom is due somewhere between September of this year and February of next, probably in the shape of some kind of celestial body having inordinate effects on the earth’s tides and seismic activity. the advice from the Whipping Boy’s frontman is find yourself a deep mine shaft on the eastern side of your nearest mountain and start saying your prayers.

This kind of forboding prediction is nothing new from Fearghal and to many will seem like the rantings of a paranoid maniac. There is a touch of lunacy to his rants and actions over the years, but he has been pretty insightful in the past.

Around the time of the release of their biggest-selling album, Heartworm, I recall reading an interview with Fearghal where he expounded on the parasitic nature of multi-national companies and their secretive control over government’s decision making. Without naming names, Fearghal identified some corporations and their increasing power, and was largely dismissed as the rantings of a mad man.

Now I’m not saying an as-yet-unidentified planet, the size of Jupiter, is almost entering the solar system and when it reaches a distance of 21 million miles from earth, the fat lady is gonna start a-hollerin’, but Fearghal McKee certainly has some interesting views on life and truly does believe mankind is heading for a series of large disasters that we need to be truly prepared for.

“It’s part of the reason for getting the band back out on the road,” he says. “There are some disturbing times on the way and people just can’t keep burying their head in the sand – they need to be told about it soon.

“All around the world, there is a powerful sense of change on the way. We need to start warning everybody. The Russians are building massive bunkers as we speak, you don’t hear much about it. The Americans just keep detaining people and putting them in prison. Most sensible countries are preparing for the worst.”

Fearg then goes on about man-made flying saucers which will be seen in the skies soon and to be honest, loses me for a bit as to their relevance. However, I rejoin the converstation around the point of his thoughts of self-sustainability and non-reliance on oil and transport and he has me again.

Whipping Boy were one of the most powerful live bands of their day, with Fearghal, for this writer’s money, the most enigmatic Irish frontman of his generation. There was a wonderful unpredictability about their gigs. It was worth the money just to see what Fearghal would do on stage. Combined the powerful white noise from Paul Page’s guitar and the excellent drumming of Colm Hasset, they set seemed to take off after Heartworm and toured Europe with Lou Reed.

The triteness of Britpop soon arrived, however, and gripping tunes about the horror and toil of everyday life were jettisoned by the UK music scene for vacuous indie-pop, which, although it did spawn a few decent tunes, lacked in the kind of gravitas that Whipping Boy were moving towards.

Music eventually rears its head, and it’s good to hear Whipping Boy will be releasing some new music over the summer, co-written and performed by a friend of the band, songwriter C O’Neill. The start of a long-awaited, fresh material comeback?

“Well we’re not just going to gig and rest on our laurels,” he says. “We’ve gotta come up with new music. We’ve lots of bits and pieces from over the years that never got recorded so we’ll do some of that. I don’t know about an album yet – I think I’d like to put out a new song every month or six weeks and see how it goes.

“It’s a strange country though, Ireland. You can’t do anything new without people going back to that original thing that made you. We’ve done lots of different musical things in the meanwhile, with varying degrees of success or failure, but once you throw the Whipping Boy name back out there, people get excited.

“There’s no money to be made from music in Ireland anymore really and it must be very hard for original artists. But yeah, while we’re here and before the shit hits the fan, we’ll throw out some new music and see what happens.” New words of poetry from Fearghal (below) express this sentiment:

‘Sometimes you gotta be bold
do the wrong thing at the right time
‘n trust yer gut
like a swimmer caught in a rip tide
not sure whether to call a lifeguard
…or just enjoy it
sometimes ya gotta be,when ya gotta be’

Whipping Boy play the Indiependence Festival, Mitchelstown on Saturday, July 30.