Brendan “Brush” Shiels, 79, grew up in Phibsboro, Dublin. In 1967, he formed Skid Row, Ireland’s seminal rock group, which briefly included Phil Lynott on vocals, and Gary Moore on guitar.
The band released two acclaimed records, Skid and 34 Hours, before disbanding. He fronted a show, Off Yer Brush, on RTÉ television for two seasons, 1986-87, and he has released several solo albums. He will perform at Connolly’s of Leap, Co Cork, 6pm, Saturday, June 14. See: www.connollysofleap.com
We lived in one room on the Phibsboro Road. Beside us was a pub, across the road was another pub. We had no radio. Seven nights a week, people came out of the pub and would sing for another two hours. Some fella used to sing, “If I can help somebody as I pass along … Then my living shall not be in vain” again and again. Right at the railings, about a yard away. That’s how I learned and all these songs – from people singing them outside.
After that, we got a radio. I started listening to Saturday Club with Brian Matthew on BBC. I remember hearing the very first Beatles live programme, Too Much Monkey Business. It must have been ’63. The Beatles had harmonies and a sound I’d never heard before. I loved them for that.
I couldn’t believe Bob Dylan when I first heard him. To this day when I hear it has the same effect on me. I’ve learned hundreds of Bob Dylan songs. I love and
I still have the same fascination for his use of lyrics and symbolism. Until he arrived, it was Elvis, Cliff Richard, songs like and The Beatles were all kiss me quick numbers and meeting girls.
When Dylan came along, it was a different way with words. I never looked back from that. He was my biggest inspiration.
We Gotta Get Out of This Place Funny enough, I started off on the guitar because of The Shadows and that sort of stuff. Then around 1965, I started to hear other things. There was a baseline in The Animals’ something about it influenced me. It spiked my interest – what you could do with the bass.
There was a bookshop up the road. It had a box of music magazines, all the same, called I got them for next to nothing. They were about jazz in America, like Duke Ellington, Count Basie.
My mind went back then to this film I saw when I was about 12 called Jazz on a Summer’s Day. It was about the Newport Jazz Festival. This film had a big effect on me. It had all the greatest jazz musicians in America at that time in it.
In the middle of it all, this guy Chuck Berry came on, and he does When I saw Chuck Berry I realised that’s the only way to do it.
The jazz thing was always in the back of my head. I was interested in why the jazz scene was so big in America. A lot of it was hard to follow. I could follow them singing the melody, but once the solo came in and went off on a tangent, I didn’t really understand it. Then I read in one of these magazines – I became an expert after reading 72 magazines [laughs] – that Ray Brown, the bass player with the Oscar Peterson Trio, was the man to listen to, and the album to listen to was That record changed my life. That’s where I went next.
magazines also said, “There’s a great bass player called Vinnie Burke. Have a listen to him.” He had a track called which is the origin of the Skid Row way of doing things. A lot of the ideas about playing, I got from Vinnie Burke, his bass lines stood out.
The sax, the bass and the piano playing the same line in unison gave it a particular sound, which, ultimately, I could hear in Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Lucky enough I came across Gary Moore when he was only 15 and he knew exactly what I was talking about.
The first time I got in touch with Phillo, I got the bus out to his house. I knocked on his door. I went in to say hello to him. He told me he was listening to The Velvet Underground. I said, “Forget about that.” Then he said, “Paul Simon’s ”. I said, “No, if you want to come along, we’ll try this Jimi Hendrix thing, which is going to be the next big thing.” A couple of days later, he sang and that was the start of it.
Phillo had film-star appeal. Back in the 1960s, he lacked a bit of confidence, but the potential was unbelievable because he had everything else you needed. But life being the way it is, now he’s gone. Somebody said to me once, “How well did you know him?” I said, “Well, he came on my honeymoon with me.” That’s how close we were.
Skid Row loved Led Zeppelin. We were playing in the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles in 1970. Who turns up only John Bonham, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood. We’re playing away and John Bonham wants to get up to sing, and Robert Plant says, “I’ll play drums.” So, the two boys got up. These lads from a band called Slammer – I knew them – took photographs and bootlegged the gig. You can still get it on YouTube. You can’t buy it. The sound was just noise, but it’s up there.
John Bonham had a particular way of drumming that we hadn’t heard before. It was thunderous. It sounded like an elephant stampede, like a wildebeest with an outboard motor on its back. Carmine Appice from Vanilla Fudge had a similar style. It was the start of all these great drummers like Ginger Baker, the way of doing it with the two bass drums, even though it had been done years before in jazz. It got lost along the way, but very fast playing made a comeback.
Charlie Parker – one of the great saxophonists, one of my biggest influences solo-wise – was in this café once, and Hank Williams’ was playing. Somebody asked Charlie Parker, “Why do you keep putting that on?” He says, “It’s the words, man.” Like he’s soloing all night. He’s no problem soloing. So, when somebody is singing something like that, and he has felt that bad himself, and put it into words, he wants to listen. A lot of sad songs are about when somebody puts into words what we’re all feeling. There’s beauty in it.
