Ten years have passed, and Michael McKeegan, co-founder and bassist of the Dublin-based hard rock quartet Therapy?, finds himself on the road yet again to present his band's latest vision to the masses. Neither his greased-back jet black hair and his lean, wiry physique suggest a person who's mellowed with age, nor does the raw and uncompromising sound on the group's fifth and latest LP, Suicide Pact -You First.The scaled-down show they're presenting to their audience indicates their return to the straight-ahead aggression and independent decision-making that distinguished the band early on.
This did not come without change--the replacement of drummer Fyfe Ewing with Graham Hopkins and their return to the independent music scene coincided with the ravages of time. But McKeegan's calm demeanor and soft-spokenness belies the turbulent nature of the band's history and music, and this stability comes from a keen awareness of the group's enduring strengths. "We never really had a master plan as such, but we were quite prolific. And we had a few really good, lucky breaks where we got signed pretty quickly, then we got signed by a major label.And everything happened pretty quick, so it was pretty good in that respect," McKeegan says of the group's beginnings. "We had only been together maybe six months or so. It's been a pretty mad ten years or so, a good learning experience and all the rest of it. I'm glad that we're still reasonably sane and we're still pretty good friends after all these years."
Signed to A&M in 1991 during the height of the grunge phenomenon, Therapy? developed an international following with a blistering, yet expansive, sonic attack that occasionally embraced technology(1999's Nurse) and orchestral pop touches (1995's Infernal Love). Speaking of Therapy?'s days with A&M, McKeegan holds no rancor towards the group's former label. But Therapy? is doing just fine with indie label Ark21 these days, thank you very much. "I think one of the main things about Ark, because it's such a small operation, you have to do things yourself. For a band like us it's great, because we have ideas about how things should look and sound. They pretty much let us get on with it," he says."We did have a good relationship with A&M, but it had run its course at the time. It was time for something new. It also enabled us to work out what we liked about being in a band and what we didn't."
The group's new-found liberation is reflected in many of the songs on the latest album. The wild-eyed, long-haired wraith that is lead vocalist Andy Cairns invokes a Captain Beefheart-inspired growl on growlers like "He's Not That Kind of Girl," and a hidden track entitled "Whilst I Pursue My Way Unharmed" shows the group moving into a variety of unpredictable directions. "[We went to] this really weird place called Milton Keyne. It was meant to be the city of the future, but it was the city of the future in their eyes 20 or 30 years ago. So it's just a weird, soulless, surreal environment, so we went in there with a DAT player and recorded the ambience of it, people's voices and walking through the shop and babies crying and came up with a multi-track. Me and Graham just played some bass and drums just straight over it with just one repeating bassline. And Andy went in and played guitar and played the keyboards, and Andy basically lost his mind," McKeegan recalls.
Elsewhere on the album, the band shows its versatility with spare ballads like "Six Mile Water" which showcases Cairns's deeply personal lyrical style. Teaming up with Head, the producer behind PJ Harvey's Dry, Therapy? found a perfect accomplice for their sonic shenanigans. "He came in and said, 'look, you're the band, you write the songs, I'm not here to be blamed for your mistakes. You're going to go in, I'm going to put mikes in front. I'II get you cued up and I'm going to record it,'" McKeegan asserts. "He didn't do anything on the arranging or things like that. He actually pushed us to make things more extreme."
Considering the enviable position Therapy? now enjoys at this point in their career, it sounds as if the group has come to comfortable terms with their place in modern music. After all, those terms are set by Therapy? themselves now more than ever, and he sounds quite pleased with the results. "As we've gotten a wee bit older, we've definitely mellowed as people. We're not as full-on, but I think the music's definitely gotten more full-on," he summarizes. "As we get older, we've seen a lot of our contemporaries we've come up along the same time as, they've gone down a very, very safe, clean conservative sounding rock music. And we're belligerent bastards. We're not going to turn nice for nobody, and we don't want to, so we think just to keep doing what we're doing and keep it fun."
Story by Justin Hampton
