MICHAEL McDERMOTT OPENING A WINDOW
By Penelope Biver
20 illinoisentertainer. com may 2018
I
t ' s been nearly three decades since Michael McDermott ' s debut album 620 W. Surf came out on Giant Records. It was 1990, and McDermott was riding the crest of a wave of acclaimed Chicago artists beginning to roll out across the country and globe, thanks to a robust record industry and its growing army of talent scouts. The modicum of attention he garnered then came mostly for the catchy single " A Wall I Must Climb," its companion video, and Chicagoland ' s embrace of their version of a Springsteenesque bluecollar troubadour. But after his second LP Gethsemane failed to meet sales expectations, his " team ' s " dreams of stardom fizzled. What wasn ' t diminished was the continued devotion of his core following, and McDermott ' s need to find solace through both song and stage.
Fast forward 28 years, a million stories, a friendship with Stephen King, a wife [ singer / songwriter Heather Horn ], a child, and a four-year sobriety chip later- and his 11th studio album, Out From Under, is riding a new wave of success, buoyed by 2016 ' s Willow Springs, which reached # 1 on the EuroAmericana Chart.
The last time we spoke was in October of 2012 for the release of Hit Me Back. That conversation was dominated by stories of eating his way across Europe as part of a " foodie " reality show, fist fights, getting lost and being found, taking his two-yearold daughter, Rain, to church, and the unmentioned character- copious amounts of alcohol- always along for the ride. But this time he ' s four years sober. And while I bet we could all name a handful of rock stars we ' d guess killed their careers by jumping on the wagon, McDermott seems to have hit a new stride." I went through a few bouts of sobriety [ before ], but I never took it that seriously," he admits. " I think I was trying to convince myself of things that weren ' t true. There ' s a line between what we want and what reality is, and in there is a lot of fucking shit. I lived in that space. I got very confused. I thought I always had a handle on things."
The last straw was one of those stereotypical scenes: " I said, ' I ' ll be right back, I have to make a phone call.' I left, I went to a bar, and came back many hours later. I guess I passed out at the kitchen table where Heather had dinner waiting for me. It got to the point at the end where she ' d stay awake all night because my breathing was so shallow, and I was yellow … It was really sad. My daughter and I had a strained relationship … It was funny because when I was single and would come home messed up, my dog always knew. My dog would always act weird towards me, and I ' d be like, ' What are you looking at?' Kids are very intuitive even though they can ' t articulate those feelings. [ My daughter ] looked at me as if I had three heads! Those were the things that finally made me realize I had to stop."
Although he stopped drinking for a while, he wasn ' t quite ready to give it up. " For a little while, I was even planning my relapse!" he admits. " I was thinking of how I could get away with drinking, like, ' I have a tour of Germany; I don ' t know anybody in Germany …!' I even started to write a song called " Relapse " but I didn ' t even finish it, it was just too gross. That was a light bulb moment for me. It ' s not about fooling anybody; it ' s not about trying to make them think you ' ve got it under control. You know you don ' t. And I never looked back." explains McDermott.
" Stephen King wrote me this letter I would look at from time to time. He had written me a ways back; He was an alcoholic. He wrote me this beautiful, like, eight pages typed on the typewriter [ letter ] with all these pearls of wisdom. And even when I was a mess, every once in a while in various stages of fuckedupedness, I would read it and cry. I don ' t know if I was a year sober, but, I read it again, and I was like, ' Man, everything he said was totally spot on.' I looked at the date- it was 1996 or something. I was like, ' Holy shit- 18 years ago … 18 years I ' ve been a mess … 18 years when everyone was worried about me …' He even said once, like, ' You ' re a musician, and you ' re Irish! I ' d be surprised if you weren ' t an alky!' And he had this saying, ' Once you ' re a pickle, you ' ll never continues Continued on on page page 48 48