Tag: Michael McDermott

LISTEN: Michael McDermott, “Until I Found You”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Michael McDermott
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Until I Found You”
Album: What in the World
Release Date: June 5, 2020
Label: Pauper Sky Records

In Their Words: “I have always been cautious about writing flat-out love songs. I’ve never written one without some type of conflict, criminality, nefarious undertones, or felonious elements. Rare is the song that is void of conflict, self-doubt, or questioning. I wanted to write a song about my wife. About the kind of love that can save you from yourself. In the process of writing it, I kept waiting for the conflict to arise, I could have steered it that way, but I followed the song instead of trying to control it, I let it happen. I wanted to celebrate her and what she has done for me, and how without her, I never would have known me.” — Michael McDermott

Photo credit: Sandro

LISTEN: Michael McDermott, “Ne’er Do Well”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Michael McDermott
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Ne’er Do Well”
Album: Orphans
Release Date: February 8, 2019
Label: Pauper Sky Records

In Their Words: “The first time I heard the term ‘ne’er do well’ I must have been 8 or 9 years old. I heard it from my father describing his uncle who ended up dying on skid row in Chicago… That kind of stuck with me I guess. I became a sort of ne’er do well of my own, afflicted with drug and drink, who let his career go to hell and lived for the next fix and drink. Those are just external solutions for internal problems, and what they really need is love, faith, connection. I was always amazed that there was more real discussion about God and Jesus in crack houses than there was in the church I went to. One time in Wayne, New Jersey, I was checking into a hotel and they asked for my name, and I said ‘Ne’er Do Well.’ They asked me, ‘Can you spell that?’ and I just said, ‘Ne’er Do Well, it’s French.’ — Michael McDermott

Photo credit: Tony Piccirillo

BGS 5+5: Michael McDermott

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Michael McDermott
Hometown: Chicago, IL
Latest Album: Out From Under
Personal Nicknames: Mickey, Murph, Big Dog

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Bob Dylan. It all starts and ends with Zimmy. He’s the greatest.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 1996. The building was moving from people jumping when we opened with “Bells.”

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I meditate. It centers me, and focuses me.

As you travel around the world, what is the overriding sense you get of the people?

I’m in Oslo as I type this, so I think besides language and clothing, it’s that there are beautiful people everywhere; that we have cultivated that beauty in different ways and some people were never allowed to cultivate it, but it’s there; that the land we come from is only the window dressing of that which lies beneath; and that the loudest people in any airport in the world are undoubtedly American.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

No matter what befalls you, no matter how many times they knock you down, in the words of Jimmy V, “Never ever give up.”