Lymerick Smith: A History
Bassist and band historian Steve Kelly speaks out on the band's early years:
Introduction
Part I: Satellites and Acrobats
Part II: The Glory Years
Part III: The Wilderness Years
Part IV: Rebyrth
I suppose its because I'm the oldest that I get the thankless task of being band historian. Well, to tell you the truth, it's all a bit hazy really. I guess I'im getting a bit dodery and senile as I progress in years, but I shall try my best to recall the events that led to lymerick smith being unleashed upon the earth. Let me see, I was born in 1978 in a secret underground gimp experimantation laboratory. I was the first, and possibly the only one to survive. The first few years were harsh, chained to a small rusty radiator in the basement, no light, fed only once a week on liquidised rat spleens and the septic juice from the warden's boils. Ah...those were the days.
Then I was introduced to society and it all went terribly wrong..............
Part I: Satellites and Acrobats
If I remember correctly, and I'm not sure that Ii do, it was a beautiful post summer day. Autumn was in its infancy and the sky was a painful sparkling blue. Red and pink blossoms fell from the trees and danced in the light wind that swept the school yard. I watched the blossoms as a prisoner would watch the free world from his cell window. Some days, school seemed like such a cruel trap. Well, most days really. Except for holidays. Anywho..... I was in one of the plentiful music rooms held within the Inverness Royal Academy with a certain Mr Ryan Mckay. We were jamming a very early version of what is now a very old song called Daisy Chain Madness. We were talking, as young men do, about doing that bird off m.t.v and how cool grunge music was when it first came out, when the sugestion of a band was made. It was only a sugestion then. Sitting here, now, five years down the line I'm warmed by the memory, the innocence. It's true, there are no trumpets or fanfares to signify the moments when your life changes. No t.v. displays or newspaper adverts that say: Things Will Be Different From Now On. It's only years down the line when you find out you can remember one particular moment with absolute clarity, as if it has been burned into your brain, you realise "hey, lots of things started happening after that day". At the time it was just a suggestion and I, like the rest of the guys, was none the wiser.
The suggestion soon snowballed into full blown disscusions and meetings.As i was doing an extra year in school, i was not to familiar with the names we bandied around, searching for potential rock and roll animals. at the time i could easily picture ryan and rod filling the position as they had both played together in a dirty teenage metal band. Pedro however, was a different matter. Though i couldnt picture him with the head of a live chicken poking out his mouth whilst surrounded by a hareem of lively ladies, i could ( and still can) picture pete standing, or alternitavely, sitting crossed legged on a mouintain top, making his guitar sing for the stars. As for rory, i could not have been more adverse to the idea of him harbouring any tallent in the singing and songwriting department, never mind the wild-on-stage-frenzified, tortured performer with a hang up for self destruction and depresion we pictured for a rock and roll band. But fuck me if i aint eating humble pie now. Its really far to long and complicated to go in to how it all came about. The result was, from a simple sugestion some where around august, by december we were a full five piece band playing our own original material with a furious passion and all the energy of five teenage men, fat with dreaming.
ON TO PART II: THE GLORY YEARS >>
©2004 Lymerick Smith