Remember me
Paul Linehan of The Frank and Walters told David Hennessy about 30 years of their Grand Parade album, playing Top of the Pops with After All and featuring on The Young Offenders.
The Frank and Walters play a special acoustic show at London’s The Lexington this weekend.
Originally formed in 1989, the Cork band became known for their hits like After All which would see them play Top of the Pops and reach number 11 in the UK charts.
This year the band celebrate 30 years since their second album, The Grand Parade.
In recent years the band have been featured in BBC’s The Young Offenders. The comedy that celebrates all things Cork has featured the band more than once leading to a resurgence in their popularity.
Vocalist and bassist Paul Linehan took time to chat to The Irish World about the band’s long career.
Are you looking forward to coming to the UK dates you have coming up?
“Yeah, I love coming over.
“They are always great gigs in England.
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“We spent a lot of time in the early 90s playing around the UK.
“We made it in England before we made it in Ireland and we played all over the country in England, Scotland and Wales and some of the fans just keep coming back to the gigs.
“We just built up a fan base and it’s good craic.
“We played Manchester there recently, a couple of weeks ago and it was brilliant.”
Of course you are a Cork band but, as you say, it was the UK where things took off for you, wasn’t it?
“What happened was we got a record deal in 1991 and part of that record deal, the record company, Setanta Records, asked us to move over to London and base ourselves there.
“So we did all the work then touring around England and didn’t do as much in Ireland.
“That’s why we became famous in the UK first and then came back to Ireland after that.”
What was it like finding yourself on Top of the Pops, did it get crazy?
“Yeah.
“When we started, we went over to release an EP.
“It was our first EP and we thought that was it, that we wouldn’t progress any further than that. That we’d do the EP and probably fail and go back, and it just took off.
“It’s almost like at that time everything we touched turned to gold.
“We just started getting very good reviews in the newspapers and we started building a fan base and we got some good tours supporting other artists.
“Everything just seemed to flow so well for us.
“We just couldn’t put a foot wrong.
“And at the end of it, we ended up having the hit with After All and ended up on Top of the Pops.
“That was the highlight of it.”
Did you know what you had in After All when you wrote it?
“No, not at all. Not at all.
“It’s like all the songs that I write are kind of the same to me in a sense.
“I knew it was catchy.
“When we recorded it Ian Broudie (The Lightning Seeds) produced it and Cenzo Townshend was the engineer.
“I think he (Broudie) just put the magic dust on it and when I heard it then in the studio, when it was complete, I thought, ‘Yeah, this is good’.
“I just thought, ‘Yeah, this has a chance of being successful’.
“Because when you write it, you’re just writing with your guitar.
“I think then in the studio after when I heard it on the speakers I thought, ‘Yeah, this sounds good. This is really good’.
“And to be honest with you, a lot of that credit goes to Ian Broudie and Cenzo Townshend for being so good at their jobs, so good.”
Ian Broudie and The Lightning Seeds had several hits in the 90s including of course the football anthem, Three Lions so you were in good hands with Ian..
“He’s just brilliant.
“He’s just got the pop technique.
“He just knows exactly what a song needs and he contributes very well to it.
“He was just brilliant.”
You are celebrating 30 years since the release of your second album The Grand Parade, does that feel strange to say?
“Time flies, doesn’t it?
“You just wake up and suddenly you’re 58.
“It’s mad.
“I kind of feel that if you asked me, I’d say that that was about 10 years ago.
“That’s how it feels to me.
“It’s an album that we’re really proud of.
“After we did our first album Trains, Boats and Planes, we came home to Ireland and we decided to write our second album.
“We just said we wouldn’t do it until we felt that it was better than our first, and I still think that it’s better than our first so I’m just really happy with it.
“I’m really happy with the production.
“I’m really happy with everything in it, so it’s a pleasure.
“It’s a pleasure to play the songs from it and it will be when we tour later this year.”
Top of the Pops was special, wasn’t it? What were the other highlights?
“Top of the Pops would be a big highlight because we met Paul McCartney on that as well.
“Meeting him was more important to us than playing on Top of the Pops because he’s such a hero to us, because we were massive Beatle fans but I think the other highlights, there’s been a good few.
“I loved playing abroad.
“We played a festival in in Spain called Benicassim and we played St Malo Festival in France and these things are amazing.
“They were just great.
“I love touring Spain actually and France, they were great places to play.
“And then we went to Japan as well.
“And America.
“I really enjoyed touring around the world because we didn’t do massive tours like some bands.
“They go out and they tour for a year non-stop, we didn’t.
“We might do a couple of weeks and take it easy and enjoy ourselves because those big tours kind of kill bands.
“They take their toll.”
After Top of the Pops, did it all get a bit crazy with the magazines, fans and ‘fame’?
“Well, we wanted to be on Top of the Pops.
“That was one of our ambitions and we got that but we didn’t realise that fame was, probably, a bit too much for us.
“It did overwhelm us a bit.
“We didn’t mind doing the press and all that but I suppose being recognised by the public just made me feel a bit too self-conscious and I just kind of preferred my freedom.
“I love to be more anonymous but I had shaken hands with the beast so I had to take everything that came with it.
“I was a bit overwhelmed by fame because fame is a funny old thing.
“It’s a strange thing because before you’re famous, no one wants to know your opinion on anything but when you become famous, suddenly you become intelligent overnight and you have opinions on world politics and stuff like that that no one cared about maybe six months previous.
“It’s just strange and I sort think that some people, when they become famous, don’t realise that they’re not that intelligent, you are still a gobshite, and me inclusive.
“You don’t become intelligent overnight because you’re famous.
“It kind of gives you a bit of confidence but confidence isn’t necessarily clever.
“You can say things with confidence but what you’re saying might not be too clever or too intelligent.”
We were talking before about 30 years of the Grand Parade album and the band formed in 1989 so you’re actually also just three years off 40 years as a band..
“Yeah, that’s a lot,” Paul laughs.
“Time goes by.
“It catches up on you but it’s great that we’re together.
“I suppose especially myself and Ashley (Keating), the drummer, we’re the original members and we stuck together through thick and thin and we’re still able to kind of enjoy it and go out and tour and record.
“It’s great that we never really broke up, it’s fantastic.”
You probably were not thinking of such a long career but what was the plan when you started?
“At the very start, our plan was to get a record deal and beyond that, I suppose we didn’t really think.
“Obviously we wanted to be on Top of the Pops.
“That was one of our dreams.
“But I suppose it was to get a record deal and when we got the record deal, we were over the moon.
“I think that was one of the most dynamic jumps for us in our whole career, getting the record deal.
“It was fantastic. We were delighted.”
How did the record deal come about for you?
“Well we got the record deal before we went to London because we had demo tapes that we sent over and Keith Cullen from Setanta kind of said, ‘Look, we’ll put out the first EP and we’ll see where it goes from there’.
“If the first EP wasn’t successful, then I suppose we would have been heading back to Ireland fairly fast but it did take off.
“It got single of the week in both Melody Maker and NME and it just got a lot of attention and just things started happening for us.
“That’s how it happened.”
Has it always been special playing the UK because, as you say, the fans have been with you from the start?
“Yeah, to be honest with you our London show in particular is probably one of my favourite gigs that that we do every year.
“We’ve been playing London every year now since ‘92 practically- apart from that the pandemic when we couldn’t play- but we love the London show because the fans are fantastic.
“They’re amazing and what makes a good gig is a good audience in my opinion.
“It’s not about us in a sense.
“When you get a good audience, they can kind of instil confidence into you and just make you feel welcome and kind of just help you to feel good and to play better and to perform better so I fully believe good audiences are vital for a good gig because that helps you get into it.”
Do you enjoy the gigs now as much as you ever did?
“I enjoy the gigs more now than I ever did.
“Back in the 90s I think I was a little bit more nervous, I think but I’m not as nervous now.
“I don’t be worried about trying to be cool or anything like that because I’m too old to be cool.
“I think that when you’re younger, you’re afraid to make a mistake but now I just do it and if I make a mistake, so what?
“I was a bit more precious about mistakes before and a bit too worried before gigs but now I just really enjoy gigs.
“I think I’ve finally found the knack of how to play a gig.
“It takes a long time to be able to learn the art of performance.
“I’m still learning but I think I’ve learned a lot since the early days of performing and I enjoy the challenge as well of playing and enjoy the whole psychology of it.
“It’s very interesting.”
Do you have a favourite gig going back over the years?
“Yeah, I do.
“My favourite gig was when I played as an acoustic duo in Newcastle about two years ago in the Cumberland Arms.
“That was my favourite gig of all time because it was just one of those ones where the audience were phenomenal and we just connected.
“They got me going and I got them going.
“There was just something and it was sensational.
“It was sensational, unbelievable.
“It was just such joy to play that gig and that definitely I’ll always remember as being my favourite gig of all time.”
You have been featured on The Young Offenders. A big show on both BBC and RTE, what has that show done for you? Has it brought you to a younger audience perhaps?
“You know what? It’s brought a younger audience but it’s just put our profile back up there.
“It’s really kind of helped us.
“A lot more people now are coming to our shows and it’s just like a shot in the arm for us.
“It’s done wonders for us.
“It’s absolutely done wonders for us because I suppose we’re a band from the 90s and I suppose people might have been just maybe losing touch with who we were and just kind of almost forgetting about us but then that came on the scene.
“Now since The Young Offenders I think we’re nearly now more popular than we were in 1993.
“We’re more popular now than in ’93 when we played Top of the Pops and that’s all down to The Young Offenders.
“It was just a springboard for us.”
It has ben a great show for you, probably just great for Cork as well?
“Yeah, it’s a showcase for the city and people come over here now and they do tours visiting the places where some of the scenes were shot in the city.
“It’s being recorded in the summertime and it kind of shows Cork in a really good light, on really beautiful summer days and I think the Cork accent now has almost become kind of acceptable.
“For years we’ve been kind of mocked about our accent but now it’s almost like our accent has become cool or something since The Young Offenders.
“It’s kind of strange because I have a strong Cork accent, I have a city accent and it would be similar, I suppose, to the accent of The Young Offenders so when people hear me talking, they probably think of The Young Offenders.”
What’s next? Are you working on new music?
“I’m working on an album now for the last few years.
“I have it nearly recorded.
“I’m doing it myself this time.
“I’m doing the engineering and the production.
“It’s probably about 70% done, I just have to finish it off and I’m really happy with the way it’s going so I can’t wait to release it now because it’s been there a while.
“I liked the idea of having control of the music and making it the way that I want to make it.
“There’s so many things that I decide that I like and in the past, a lot of that would have been done by the engineer.
“This will be an album that I’ll be really happy with.
“It will be a very full expression of what I want.
“I now know what I want.
“I didn’t always know what I want.
“When I started, I didn’t have a clue about engineering music and production and now I do.
“I’m really looking forward to it.
“It’s important because it shapes the whole song production and engineering really.
“It’s got a massive bearing on how the music turns out.”
The Frank and Walters play The Lexington in London on Saturday 11 April.
They also play Oran Mor in Glasgow on Saturday 2 May and the Grayston Unity in Halifax on Saturday 16 May.
They tour Ireland October- December.
For more information, click here.
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