Cover Story: Michael McDermot• Making Up for Lost Time
Michael McDermott
Michael McDermott is without question one of his generation’s most prolific and consistent songwriters, and Chicago should be proud to call him our own. Fans who have been along for the whole ride could track their own timelines by his records (the ones they know about), which now span three and a half decades. Between LPs of fresh music are enough outtakes, demos, bonus tracks, and revived records to fill a parallel life (and that’s not including his other project, The Westies). A search of McDermott’s name and discography online will 1) make your head spin, and 2) result in the discovery of amazing music of his that you’ve probably never heard. But whether you’re a devotee or a curious fan of great songwriting and American rock ‘n’ roll, his new record Flowers From The Graveyard is a good place to start.
Our conversations, tacked at about every five to eight years, have become chapter markers on the timeline of his career and personal life and events – high and low, lots of lessons, lots of growth both personal and spiritual – and how the songs on this record were conceived from it all. He’s been clean and sober since January of 2014, which means he sees and experiences life more through reading glasses than beer goggles (literally – he read 31 books already this year). But since the better part of a decade has passed, before we dive into the inspiration for Flowers From The Graveyard, we must catch up. Since our last conversation in 2018, in which we talked about his record Out From Under and his continued wading into that rocky sea of sobriety, McDermott released seven records, including a live recording and a collection of 66 outtakes. What In The World, which he released at the top of the pandemic, gained him some airplay with the political, blistering, Dylan-esque title track. His last LP of new music in 2024 was a double album, Lighthouse On The Shore/East Jesus: the former a stripped-down acoustic guitar/piano/stand-up bass record, the other a more traditional rock album. Then earlier this year he released a bootleg/limited edition, Lost City Seattle, his literally lost-then-found “grunge” record.
“After 620 W. Surf I was still with Giant Records, and grunge and Nirvana and Pearl Jam had exploded,” McDermott recalled. “So we went to Washington to work with Rick Parashar, who produced Pearl Jam’s Ten, Temple Of The Dog, Alice in Chains, Dinosaur Jr. We went out there and did this whole record, and Dave Navarro from Jane’s Addiction was on it. Then when that was over, I went down to L.A., and there were riots, and everything was just weird in the world. And I knew that Giant didn’t want to put out this record because it was very different than 620 W. Surf. I was kind of categorized as this ‘old folky’ although we were a band and we were out on the road and we were rockin’! But I don’t think Giant knew what to do with the [Parashar-produced] record. So they let it go. I don’t know what happened to those tapes. But somebody had a cassette of rough mixes, so we put it out. It’s a great record, but it’s very young and energetic and of that time.” (He shares entertaining details about making this record in his memoir.)
While the world was trying to shake off a pandemic and the fog of isolation it forced upon us, McDermott stayed as productive (compulsive?) as ever. He published a memoir in 2022 called Scars From Another Life, in which he shares candid stories of his colorful life and career thus far, including his addiction struggles, financial woes, road stories, and other ponderances. That same year he was awarded the Tenco Prize (Premio Tenco), which is an Italian music award created to honor great career achievements in songwriting (among his winning peers are Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Sting, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, and David Crosby, to name a few).
Cut to August of this year, when he officially released Flowers From The Graveyard. “For me it’s more clear-eyed,” he reflected on this batch of songs. “It kind of feels harkened back… For 620 W. Surf I was on the cover of IE, and this feels very much like that record, very story-driven, no pomp really, just straight-ahead… It feels like full-circle really, this album to 1991. Because when Surf came out, that was already a little passé – acoustic guitar, harmonica. Because not a month later Smells Like Teen Spirit came out and that changed everything. Now Americana is like the new pop music or something, yet I’ve been here all along. So it’s funny to come back here and talk with you; it feels like home in a lot of ways.”
Like fashion, popular music styles come back around to be (re-)discovered by younger generations. Obviously, the internet plays a major part in this. Younger artists draw influence from their predecessors, and their new music leads fans to similar older music and artists; that music becomes new again to those fans, and the circle goes around. If any McDermott record is accessible to a wide swath of tastes, it’s Flowers From The Graveyard. Sonically, it’s crisp, clean, and purposeful, with a perfect balance of rockers and ballads, and some of McDermott’s best hooks since “A Wall I Must Climb.” It opens with the strong pop-rock “The Best We Get,” which, as McDermott mused, brings you back to his earlier stuff with echoes of early Springsteen. “Always A Ways Away” continues the momentum with slick Keith Urban/Santana-style lead guitar courtesy of Grant Tye. “Nobody” continues the rock momentum while slipping in the dichotomy of McDermott’s self-deprecating lyric, “I’m just a nobody, nobody knows – I’m just a nobody, maybe, someday I’ll be somebody – Mama, it’s alright by me.”
“But For The Little Moments” is a touching midtempo ballad with poignant sentimental lyrics in which McDermott examines life’s lessons and discovering what is ultimately important: “I was always searching for glory – To be the hero in someone’s story – Now it’s all the little moments that turn things around – But for the little moments that I live for now.”
“Johnny Sparrow And The Sunset Girl” is one of McDermott’s many fictional stories set to music. “I love that song,” he said. “I had written an 88-verse song about Johnny Sparrow and the Sunset Girl – 88 verses! And it was terrible! Because no one should have an 88-verse song. But it was two characters I had very alive in my mind that I knew I had to write about, and I didn’t know why. There were many different iterations of the story – of tragedy, thievery, and all that. So when that one finally landed, I was so relieved and kind of sad too. It fucked me up for a few days. I didn’t want them to die!”
“Old Feelings” is a midtempo powerhouse that starts quiet and builds, again featuring Grant Tye’s impressive, soaring lead guitar. “The Struggle Makes You Stronger” is another Jersey-style piano-led midtempo tune featuring McDermott’s signature harmonica licks and sweet harmonies courtesy of wife Heather Horton. On “The Lords Of Lincoln Park,” he waxes nostalgic. “Nostalgia’s weird,” he mused. “All the ghosts that still haunt you, the mistakes that we all made, it’s hard to put those away, you know? Not that I’d do anything different. I’d take it all, the 17 years I wasted being a madman… Well, maybe if I could have seven of those back (laughs)… I don’t have a lot of regrets, but things that still gnaw at me. I think everyone is like that.”
“The Future” is his political statement for the moment: “It’s pretty clear the cavalry ain’t here – It’s up to you and me – Because the future sure ain’t what it used to be – Because here, we don’t bow to any king – So let the motherfuckin’ freedom ring.”
The title track “Flowers From The Graveyard” is a tempered, Wallflowers-esque track with a heartfelt, hooky chorus: “When you’re looking around, and you don’t feel you belong – When it feels like there’s something missing in your heart – I’ll bring you flowers from the graveyard.” The inspo for the track came about in a peculiar yet beautiful way:
“I was on a bicycle going to my weekly basketball game, and I was like, ‘What is that smell?'” He recalled. “It was the most beautiful – alive – thing I had ever smelled. I looked around – left, right, behind me, thinking, ‘What did I just drive into?’ It was this tiny, street-corner suburban graveyard, maybe 50 graves. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, ‘ there were these flowers placed at headstones. And it struck me; I thought there are two ways of looking at it: even those flowers are dying, and we all die, and are you scared about it? But also that there are these beautiful, aromatic things around this place where all these bones are… It was this weird collision of ideas. But I thought, ‘Well, there’s somethin’!’ What an interesting thing – in the midst of death there is life; it’s all going in one direction; no one gets out of here alive… And I went and played my basketball game.”
The record ends with a wispy, dichotomous ballad “Ain’t Life Beautiful” with lyrics that deserve reading as much as listening, as is true for most of McDermott’s songs, presenting more like poetry than song lyrics. “I don’t have a ton of interest in writing poetry, I’m a stay-in-your-lane boy,” he said when asked if he’d ever write a book of poetry. “It’s hard enough to write songs. Like on ‘Ain’t Life Beautiful’, I’m still in awe of this place, as much as fucking Trump drives me fucking crazy, I’m still in awe of it all. And seeing it again through my 16-year-old daughter’s eyes has really been moving. Because it’s a different world, and I feel these things intensely. On this song, I knew I wanted to write something about that, but I kept thinking about how fucking easy it would be to ruin it, and how cheesy it could be. Even just sitting at the piano singing ‘Life is beautiful and mystical’… I thought, ‘Oh Christ, where’s this going?’ ‘But sometimes it could be a bit miserable’… I had to anchor it cuz I’m not THAT guy… ‘Life is beautiful and terrible, and sometimes it’s really unbearable’… Those are the lyrics. So I had to keep it steady, but it wasn’t easy. You can get way out over your skis on a song like that.
“My dad always said when he’d look in the mirror, ‘Who’s that old guy?’ And I feel that way too sometimes, like, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Because I don’t feel old. The years of [substance] abuse, those were scars from another life. I’m ready to make up for lost time. When you say I put out a lot of songs, I feel like I have a lot to say about what a fool I was, and how I squandered a life, and life is not to be squandered! Those are scars I’ll carry, but I’m not going to dwell on that. I’m moving forward.”
You can purchase Flowers From The Graveyard and at least some of McDermott’s other records on his website: www.michael-mcdermott.com. You can also purchase his memoir, Scars From Another Life, on Amazon.
Appearing: 9/24– Halloweensteen: Michael McDermott & The Duke Street Kings, Park West, Chicago.
-Penelope Biver
https://www.axs.com/events/1542184/halloweensteen-tickets
Category: Cover Story, Featured, Monthly
