ARTiST: Michael Mcdermott
TiTLE: Noise From Words
LABEL: One Little Indian
GENRE: Folk-Rock
TiME: 46:57 min
SiZE: 62,8 MB
BiTRATE: VBRkbps
RiP DATE: Aug-13-2007
RELEASE DATE: Aug-28-2007
WEBSiTE: n/a
Track List:
01. Mess Of Things 03:09
02. Still Ain't Over You Yet 05:34
03. Tread Lightly 03:27
04. The American In Me 03:27
05. A Kind Of Love Song 03:37
06. No Words 03:16
07. All My Love 03:41
08. Just A Little Blue 02:59
09. Broken 04:38
10. A Long Way From Heaven 04:00
11. My Father's Son 04:44
12. I Shall Be Healed 04:25
Release Notes:
Noise From Words, the new album from
singer/songwriter Michael McDermott, is a candid
song cycle of addiction and redemptionùor more
accurately, the struggle for redemption. The
Chicago-based artist holds nothing back on this
boldly autobiographical work, motivated by the same
impulse that led him to the lecture circuit, where
he speaks to troubled individuals who are battling
the same demons McDermott has at long last managed
to subdueùthough he would assert that this battle is
never over. ôI do it not because IÆm æfixedÆ or
healed,ö he says of this impulse to lend a helping
hand, ôbut because IÆm broken.ö
The album (Aug. 28, One Little Indian), primarily
performed live in the studio using sparse
instrumentationùat times paring things down to just
his vocal and acoustic guitarùcaptures McDermott at
his most intimate and most searingly honest,
duplicating the cathartic experience of his solo
live performances. ôItÆs fun to have your buds
onstage and jump around in front of a band,ö he
says. ôBut when it comes down to the solo stuff,
itÆs very naked and much more difficult to pull off
on an emotional level. After a solo set, IÆm just
drained, not because IÆve been jumping around, but
because IÆve just turned myself inside out.ö
ItÆs precisely this acute degree of psychological
self-exposure that makes Noise From Words so
powerful. McDermott retraces the path that led him
to the very brink of the abyss and back again on
such unforgettable songs as ôLong Way From Heaven,ö
ôMy FatherÆs Son,ö ôBroken,ö ôJust a Little Blueö
and ôI Shall Be Healed.ö These understated but
urgent songs form the chapters in a sort of aural
autobiography whose thematic range also encompasses
relationships (ôStill AinÆt Over You Yet,ö ôA Kind
of Love Song,ö ôTread Lightly,ö ôNo Words,ö ôAll My
Loveö) and belonging (ôThe American in Meö), forming
a comprehensive view of contemporary existence at
its extremes.
McDermott describes the cinematic opener ôMess of
Things,ö with its evocative tableau of acoustic,
dobro, piano and pedal steel, as ôthe thematic
cornerstone of the record. The genesis of this song
came from a collage of images of how my past seems
to follow me around. The line, æIÆm on 23rd waitinÆ
on a friendÆ is from my memory of living on 23rd
Street in Manhattan and waiting on my dealer. It was
one of those moments when you get the feeling that,
no matter how bad a decision youÆre about to make,
there are forces at work beyond your control, like
loving the wrong things and the wrong peopleùand
when you reach the crossroads, which direction you
ultimately go in.ö
At the tender age of 20, McDermott broke out of the
Irish Catholic neighborhood that had formed the
boundaries of his world, signing a big-time record
deal with Giant/Warner Bros. ôMy ship had come in,
or so I thought,ö he says with a rueful laugh. His
debut album, 1991Æs 620 W. Surf, introduced the
artistÆs spiritually inclined songs and expansive,
rootsy soundùexemplified by the rock hit ôA Wall I
Must Climböùgenerating critical hosannas and drawing
the requisite Springsteen comparisons, as did his
Æ94 follow-up, Gethsemane. But McDermottÆs ascending
career brought with it an equal and opposite
reaction, as the newcomer quickly got his
introduction to temptation.
ôOn my first tour,ö he recalls, ôevery night there
was a bottle of Jack DanielÆs in the dressing room,
and pretty ladies waiting at my door. In high
school, I had read William Blake, who wrote that
æThe road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,Æ
and Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote that æIn order to be a
seer, you must have a rational disordering of the
senses.Æ Those two quotes became my mantras. I
wanted to experience all that was in
lifeùeverything, the good and the bad. On my first
trip out to L.A., as I was driving down Sunset, I
said to a friend, Show me the gutter,Æ because I
really wanted to experience it. Years later, that
same friend said to me, æI wish I had never shown
you the gutter. I never knew youÆd take it down this
far.Æö
Even while he was plumbing his personal depths,
McDermott was writing and singing uplifting songs,
and those who were listening closely found them
inspiringùa situation he found wrenchingly ironic:
ôI had grown men come up to me and tell me that they
had been atheists before hearing my music and
through it found Godöùto which I replied, æTell him
I said hi; he stopped returning my calls a long time
ago.Æ Throughout the years, I had continued to feel
like I was on a mission of sorts singing spiritual
songs but never really feeling good about the other
elements of my life. I had become self-consumed,
alcoholic and a drug addict, and still had the
arrogance to think that God had enough time to worry
about my record sales and to think he was hanging me
out to dry. That how delusional I had become.ö
After years of self-destructive behavior, McDermott
had his moment of truth in November 2004, when he
was arrested for possession of cocaine and was
locked up in the Cook County Jail, which ôis
generally considered the toughest jail in all of
Chicago, and maybe in the country,ö he says. ôI was
in there with the lowest of the low, the worst of
the worst.
ôThough I considered myself a man of faith,ö
McDermott continues, ôthat first night in jail
inspired some of my most fervent prayers, but in
retrospect, I think they were æfoxhole prayers,Æ
which was coined to describe what happens to
atheists or agnostics in the heat of battle, when
life and death are on the lineùthe kind of prayers
that go, æLord, outta this jam and I swear IÆll
neveràÆ fill in the blank. It felt like I had found
my bottom, like I had dug my hole as deep as it
could go. ItÆs a funny thing to have your freedom
taken from you, and as I sat there on the floor of
the jail cell, I realized there was only one way to
goùor at least thatÆs how it seemed at that moment.
After much legal wrangling, I was able to avoid
going to prison by attending a drug school. I was a
free man.ö
There was an ironic twist to McDermottÆs
incarceration. ôMy father had actually spent time in
the same jail cell, a few years before me,ö he
explains. ôItÆs what inspired me to write æMy
FatherÆs Son.Æ His bust was for a gun, mine was for
drugs. The idea of my pop in there still kills me,
and in some ways I think I almost felt compelled to
do it because he did. I love the guy, and quite
frankly, IÆd be proud to be him when I grow upùif I
grow up.ö
The experience provided just the jolt of reality
McDermott needed, enabling him to see how far heÆd
fallen, and he began to climb upward out of the deep
hole heÆd dug for himself. Noise From Words marks
his first writing and recording since the dramatic
turnaround in his life.
ôItÆs been amazingùa really interesting time in my
life,ö he marvels. ôThe fact that I got a record
deal with One Little Indian is like a miracle in
itself. These things do affect me and give me hope.
I think this is almost like God is putting me in as
a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth; weÆll see
what happens.ö