Former Walking on Cars front man Pa Sheehy has released his debut solo album, Maybe It Was All For This. He talks to Alan Corr about his past, the future and his hometown of Dingle
Pa Sheehy was drinking whiskey the night the school burnt down.
"I was, I was," says the former Walking on Cars front man turned solo artist. "My buddy robbed a bottle from his father's cabinet and that was our drink for the night.
"It was something I always wanted to write about because I knew there was magic in that night and I never got round to writing about it. A song like that has to land in your lap, you can’t just figure it out but then it just all happened very easily and very quickly."
So, how did the school burn down, Pa? "Ahhh, eh, hahahaha. Well, let’s just say we all have a fair idea of what happened . . . "
The Night the School Burnt Down is one of 14 new songs that Sheehy has forged since the break-up of Breaking on Cars in 2000 for his - by turns - desolate, powerful and evocative solo album, Maybe It Was All For This.
Speaking from the home he shares with his wife and two kids in Ventry just outside Dingle in Kerry, he says, "Our hands are full down here. The kids are at a lovely age - six and 11 so they’re not in nappies and they’re not teenagers so we’re enjoying this stage in life. My wife is unbelievable. We’re very lucky."
Sheehy is opening a new chapter after the break-up of his former band with his debut solo album and that scene of domestic and marital bliss comes after his, well, wild years.
Recorded in Cork, Dundalk’s Black Mountain Studio, London and the singer’s home studio in Ventry, he calls Maybe It Was All For This "my little introvert diary" and it recalls his tearaway teenage years and early twenties but it also rings the changes wrought on his hometown of Dingle.
"I was lucky because my mother knew how to deal with me so once I went too far she stopped enabling my ways and something that could have taken ten or fifteen years, took me three of four. I was lucky that I had people around me that knew how to deal with me back then."
It has traces of the widescreen arena rock of Walking in Cars on the cruising heartland rock of opening track Towards The Water, but there are also moments of desperate sadness on songs like My Old Friend John.
"I did a lot of experimenting on this record and when I listen to it, I don’t feel like it’s a hugely cohesive body of work because all the songs have their own little bit of attitude or energy," Sheehy says.
"The songs leant themselves to different styles. It’s been a huge experiment to be honest and I’m just so happy with how it’s sounding."
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After ten years as front man of Walking on Cars, who released two albums and were signed to a major label, Sheehy is all about looking to the future these days but a good part of his solo album is spent reevaluating his past.
"This is album is about acceptance," he says. "I do look back at my earlier years and I don’t have regret and I do have acceptance because I did all those things when I had to and then I snapped out of it and got serious.
"I was lucky because my mother knew how to deal with me so once I went too far she stopped enabling my ways and something that could have taken ten or fifteen years, took me three of four. I was lucky that I had people around me that knew how to deal with me back then."
Thematically, the songs are united by the theme of the changes - for good and bad - in Dingle.
"A lot of this album is about how Dingle has changed and the people and the dreams you have when you’re growing up in a town like that," he says. "Dingle is really at the core of this album.
"The world has changed so much. I look at teenagers now - when we were growing up we didn’t have phones until we were fifteen and there was no social media, we missed that whole thing which, in hindsight, is unbelievable.
"The generation now wouldn’t even try half the things we tried because they’d be on social media and people would be laughing at them. It’s just a different place now. The places we used to hang out as teenagers and now all built-up and concreted over.
"I’m just grateful that we grew up in a simpler time and then I listen to my dad’s stories and his generation seem even more magical. More freedom, probably safer, no cameras so you could get away with anything!"
By his own late teens, Sheehy was fronting Walking on Cars and he has previously said he was "a mess" when they broke up (and down) four years ago.
"I guess looking back, yeah," he says. "I think when I first left the group I knew it was the right thing to do and then after that it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do artistically. I had a bit of an existential crisis on my hands so I just fell in love with different kinds of music and found what I loved and started to make that kind of music.
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"That took a while. Just to figure out what I wanted to do. The first couple of years after Walking on Cars was so different because I was so used to that way of life for ten years so I was a bit lost."
"I love what we did and I’m really proud of it. I think for a small band to come of Dingle and do what we did, I don’t think anybody expected that. In hindsight I listen back to some of the songs we did and we were a radio hit band. That was our thing and we were really good at it but I think there comes a time in your life when you grow out of it.
"The group slowly lost the magic we once had and it was very evident really. I’m sure we could have gone on and recorded another album or two but I just wanted to do something completely new and fresh."
Maybe It Was All For This is unapologetically big sounding but the stop you in your tracks moment arrives early with My Old Friend John, a tale of addiction and loss that hangs in the air long after you listen to it.
It’s the best thing Sheehy has ever done.
"When I wrote the song I sent it to my buddy and I said look have a listen to this, can I release it?" he says. "I met up with him and he was happy for me to release it. Obviously, it’s a very personal song for me and for him so for him to give me the nod to release it was huge.
"So many people have connected with that song since it came out because it touches on addiction, it touches on depression, that cycle of addiction when you’re coming out of it and then you get back into it. I lived through it myself in my early twenties.
"It’s one of those heartbreaking tunes that never gets easier to sing live. It is a beautiful moment for me and him and the people who have fallen in love with the song."
Maybe It Was All For This? is a fine opening solo statement from the softly spoken Kerryman but is he tempting faith fate with that album title?
"My life has been up and down and has had highs and lows and peaks, funny times . . . ," Sheehy says. "This album is a result of that and everything I’ve learnt along the way creatively and professionally."
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