Leo Moran told David Hennessy about almost 40 years of The Saw Doctors ahead of their forthcoming tour.
The Saw Doctors are playing several UK dates on their November/ December tour.
One of Ireland’s best known bands The Saw Doctors will play Nottingham, London, Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester as well as Dublin and Belfast.
Formed in 1986 in Tuam, Co. Galway, The Saw Doctors rose to prominence when they supported popular bands like The Hothouse Flowers and The Stunning.
However, it was when Mike Scott of The Waterboys saw them playing at the Quays Bar in Galway in 1988 that he decided he had to have the band tour with them.
Scott would produce the now iconic anthem N17: A song about an Irish emigrant longing to be driving on the N17 national route.
The band have achieved eighteen Top 30 singles in Ireland including three number ones with I Useta Lover topping the Irish charts for nine consecutive weeks in 1990.
It still holds the record for the country’s all-time biggest-selling single.
Known for their live performances, the Saw Doctors have a cult following especially here in the UK where songs like N17 get especially poignant renditions.
But it could all have been different. Although now iconic, N17 made little impression when it was first released.
Had their second single I Useta Lover Her not been such a success, that could have been the end of their record deal.
However the band are now just a year off being on the road for four whole decades.
The Saw Doctors’ 2023 comeback tour, following a five-year hiatus, was a resounding success, marked by sold-out shows in Dublin, London, Manchester, and a powerful performance at Electric Picnic festival.
The Saw Doctors recently released the single Same Oul’ Town.
It was recorded with the 45-person RTE Concert Orchestra under conductor Gavin Murphy who arranged the track.
The Irish World chatted to Leo Moran ahead of the upcoming shows.
Are you looking forward to the upcoming gigs?
“Yeah, we’re getting to play in beautiful places. We’re very lucky.
“They’re all places where you can get a great connection with people so we’re very privileged really.”
It has been said that you are marking 35 years on the road but you founded the band in 1986 is it not more like 40?
“That would be more correct.
“We find the records are not exact but that seems to be what happened. Around ‘86 we might have done something.”
Despite all the years of success, you started off with no grand plan, isn’t that right?
“Oh no: Just to do a gig and then try and record a record and try and get it out, all that kind of thing.”
It was Mike Scott happening to discover you that really put you on the map, wasn’t it?
“Absolutely, he was over with The Waterboys recording The Fisherman’s Blues album.
“We were doing a residency in The Quays.
“I think it was in the spring of 1988. He came and he saw us and he thought we were a bit of craic, I suppose.
“We were a small outfit.
“We were tidy which is always important if you’re looking for a support act, it’s good to be efficient and tidy.
“So we did one tour and then we did another bit of a tour around Ireland.
“Then he asked us to do the British tour in 1989 and that was very exciting because we were getting to play in venues we were reading about in the music press since we were teenagers.
“To get to visit them is one thing but to play in them was incredible.”
Must have been very exciting..
“Absolutely, yeah: Here we are.
“And The Waterboys were such an exciting act.
“It was new.
“It was innovative.
“It had all the exciting elements to it that just made it very special, a special time for everyone.”
Mike Scott took you on tour but he also produced N17 which has gone on to be such a beloved song of yours..
“He did.
“He told us, ‘When you’re recording your first single, I’ll produce it and we’ll do N17’.
“N17 has kind of almost overtaken I Useta Lover now as the best known song of the repertoire.
“He drove us hard.
“We spent two nights at it in Dublin in Windmill Studio.
“We recorded 15 different versions of it which people mightn’t understand.
“The recording of it is easy in a way, it’s listening back to it and analysing. That’s what really takes the time and energy.
“You’re talking about a very, very intense two or three hours trying to decide which was the better version and you’ll always have swings and roundabouts.
“In different versions of songs, you’ll have a really good tempo maybe but then there might be a mistake in it.
“There’s all these bargaining elements going on and then you choose your favourite for whatever reason and then you start to work over dubbing it.
“It’s a lot of work.
“It’s a lot of fun.
“I mean it’s great fun, a creative process that’s very enjoyable but it’s intense.”
The funny thing about N17 is as well known as it is now, it wasn’t an immediate success for you, isn’t that right?
“Oh no, it came out and It got a couple of plays on the radio. Not much.
“It was okay.
“We got a few gigs out of it.
“The name got out there a little bit, not much.
“And we had a two single deal with Solid Records and they said we had got to put out something.
“It was kind of like, ‘We’ll get this over with’ kind of thing.
“And we chose I Useta Lover and I Useta Lover had a different trajectory.
“It made us famous all of a sudden.”
Whatever about the success of these early tracks, did you know just what you had when you wrote them?
“No, we were only having a bit of fun and amusing ourselves but you get a sense when you play them at gigs.
“We knew we had songs that people liked.
“I remember the first few gigs.
“We weren’t very well rehearsed.
“It was kind of ramshackle effort but you could sense people coming up closer to you and they wanted to hear it.
“They enjoyed it and they were smiling and dancing.
“You kind of knew at that stage, even in small little gigs, that we had something that worked because they’re generally the most difficult places- Well maybe not the most difficult places but they’re a real acid test for a song: If it works in a small situation, they generally work in a big situation.
“And we just realised, ‘God, this is working’.
“But we still didn’t know where we were going, I suppose, until Mike Scott saw us do it.”
You recently released Same Oul’ Town. It was the title track of your third album, was it nice to revisit it?
“Oh, absolutely.
“It was such a privilege to play with the orchestra and the arrangement was fabulous.
“Gavin Murphy made a great job of it, he was so easy to work with.
“When you think of going from playing in The Quays and Mike Scott seeing us to playing with an orchestra, it’s a long road and we could never have envisaged that of all the things that happened us along the way.
“We had never have imagined playing with an orchestra.
“It was such a privilege and it’s such a brilliant version of it.
“I love it.”
Is the song written about a particular town? Is it Tuam or could it be anywhere?
“Well it’s Tuam but I think it’s anywhere.
“I think it’s the universal thing.
“Even if you’re living in New York or Berlin, if you’re somewhere for a while, there’s a certain discontent that builds up in any human.
“Maybe they’re fed up of being here or they’re here too long, they need a change.
“Maybe they don’t really. Maybe they just need to readjust their attitude.
“I don’t know but it seems to work for any town.
“I suppose it’s more indicative of a small town.”
You recently played it on the Tommy Tiernan show. Tommy has been a supporter of yours for many years..
“Tommy has been a supporter of the band.
“We know him since he started his comedy days in The Flying Pig theatre in The King’s Head in Galway.
“They had a wonderful little theatre group.
“Tommy was one of the actors in it and he used to forget an awful lot of lines and improvise.
“He realised he was very good at that so you’d nearly always be hoping Tommy would forget something to see where the show would go.
“We know him from way back then, that’s back in the early ‘90s.
“And, like you said, he’s been a supporter of ours ever since.”
In recent years Pearse Doherty has rejoined the band after years away. Over the years members have come and gone but you and singer Davy Carton have remained constant, what is it about the way you two work together?
“Yeah, we stuck with it for some reason, maybe we had nothing else to be doing,” Leo laughs.
“But yeah, we’ve been there since the start.
“It just works for us.
“It suits us so we’ll try to come up with a few more bits now for the future and hopefully refresh it again for another while.”
You recently played the Pairc festival in Birmingham, how did you enjoy that?
“Yeah, we had a great night at the Pairc festival.
“They put on a great show there and it was a fantastic audience.
“And we had The Undertones playing there as well.
“We’ve done a few gigs with them lately.
“They’re heroes of ours from our youth and it’s unbelievable to be shoulder to shoulder with them at this stage, it’s another dream come true or an undream-able unimaginable dream come true so we’re just so lucky.”
You also did Electric Picnic this year as well..
“Yeah, the Electric Picnic festival is brilliant for us because there’s so many young Irish people at it.
“Some of them might have seen us before but a lot of them mightn’t so it’s an amazing shop window for us to keep in contact with younger people.
“We have an incredibly young audience in Ireland and it’s not something we planned or engineered.
“It’s just something that has happened and it brings an extra bit of energy to the gigs when you have young people there.
“It’s one of those things that came about and we’re very lucky and delighted for it.”
Speaking of highlights, I bet your appearances on Top of the Pops leap out..
“Yeah, it’s mad.
“Imagine being on Top of the Pops.
“Just being there and being in the BBC on a television programme that you watched as a child and a teenager growing up and got so excited when it came on. And then we’re on it.
“It was daft.
“We were on it three times.
“It was mad.”
You had a five year hiatus before you returned in 2023, did you feel rejuvenated from going away for those years?
“Yes, I think we had a huge appetite for it and a greater appreciation of the joy of making a loud noise in a cohesive fashion, because it’s something you miss.
“It’s a powerful thing when a band is playing well and you’re getting things right and it’s tight and the audience are coming with you.
“I had a grand five years, it was very enjoyable but I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed playing the loud music until we got back at it and we really tore through it.
“It was very exciting.
“And, like I said, we had a greater appreciation for it, I think, then on the second round.”
Did you find the crowd were especially excited on your return also?
“Yeah, we got a huge boost out of that.
“And when we did show our faces again people thought, ‘Oh I’d like to see them again’.
“People probably thought, ‘I’d better go and see them now or they might be gone, this might be my last chance’.
“It definitely gave us a great boost and we came in at the top of a curve on the return of The Saw Doctors which was a great buzz.
“It was a great feeling that people were so interested in seeing us again. It was lovely.”
You’re a Galway band and been central to Galway GAA celebrations, haven’t you?
“That was the special one actually: The Royal Albert Hall in October ‘98 a couple of weeks after Galway won the All-Ireland for the first time in 32 years.
“That was a brilliant thing.
“Our great friend Dympa Burke, who passed away, was very involved in the GAA and she managed to get the loan of the Sam Maguire to bring it over to London for the gig in the Albert Hall.
“John O’Mahony (RIP), the manager of Galway, God bless him, came over and four of the players came over: Damien Mitchell, Kevin Fallon, Derek Savage and John Divilly.
“And John O’Mahony and his family came over and they paraded the cup.
“We did our Maroon and White song.
“A lot of people mightn’t have known what it (the Sam Maguire) was but a lot of people did as well.
“People knew it was important and there was super excitement.”
Maybe that was the one and only time the Sam Maguire was paraded in the Royal Albert Hall…
“It wouldn’t be every year anyway.”
We spoke about songs like N17 earlier, do you find they’re especially when you play them in the UK to a diaspora audience?
“Yeah, absolutely.
“Especially in London or Manchester or Liverpool where the big Irish populations are, there’s always that.
“But again, Tolu Makay did a version of it and that brought us back into the spotlight.
“She did a more slowed down version of it.
“She’s an Irish woman with her family from Nigeria so it kind of took on another meaning then as well.
“It doesn’t have to be Irish people kind of thing.
“Another thing people don’t realise about the N17 in these times is it was written about a bunch of illegal aliens in America.
“I don’t know if everybody celebrating their plight is on their side,” Leo laughs.
We interviewed Chantelle Padden a while ago who, with Sina Theil, did a version of The Green and Red of Mayo, were you aware of that also?
“I saw it.
“There’s so many songs out there so when somebody chooses one of ours, I think that’s an amazing privilege and then especially if people do it a bit different, it makes it very interesting indeed.”
This interview took place before Catherine Connolly being elected as President but we asked Leo his thoughts on his former teacher Michael D Higgins being outgoing President.
He’s given someone a hard act to follow, hasn’t he?
“Yeah, he has such an in-depth knowledge of world issues and he always had even when he was teaching way back in the early ‘80s.
“He has such an eloquent way of speaking and he stands up for the people who often can’t stand up for themselves.
“He’s been a special president, I think, and they’re going to be hard shoes to fill but we’ll see what happens.
“Of course he expressed opinions.
“He wasn’t supposed to be expressing any opinions at all but it’s hard to suppress his opinion because he believes in things, and he thinks he has to say them, and I think he’s right too.”
The Saw Doctors play Nottingham’s Rock City on Friday 7 November, London’s Eventim Apollo on Saturday 8 November, Glasgow’s Barrowlands on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 November, Dublin’s 3 Arena on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 November, Newcastle’s O2 City Hall on Friday 5 December, Manchester O2 Apollo on Saturday 6 December and Belfast’s Ulster Hall on Friday 12 December.
For more information and to book, click here.