Ask singer/songwriter Mike Scott if he's a restless spirit, and he'll deny it straight up. Nevermind that for twelve years the Edinburgh-born former punk navigated his group the Waterboys all over the musical ocean, from the horn-powered, "big music" mysticism of songs like "Whole of the Moon" and "A Girl Called Johnny" to the traditional Celtic folk of Fisherman's Blues to the literate and polished anthemic rock of 1993's Dream Harder. |

Nevermind that he chased Dream Harder with a stripped-down, deeply personal solo album, 1995's Bring 'em All In, or that his new solo effort, Still Burning is bigger, bolder and louder than the biggest "big music" of the Waterboys' heyday. And take no account of the fact that in the last decade, Scott's moved from London to Ireland to New York to a spiritual community in Findhorn, Scotland, and finally back to London again.

It's all relative, really, because wherever Scott goes, there he is; you don't call a gypsy restless when it's in his blood to move and his home is the world at large. And always with Scott is his music -- dancing like a shadow mirroring his every change of direction, but constantly melodic, spiritual, and soulful.

"It refers to me," says Scott of the title Still Burning. "After all the twists and turns I've taken, to find that my rock & roll instinct is still burning away in there. I'm very lucky in that I've always been driven through my whole life in music. And I think the day that I stop being driven, I should lay down and die -- or go off and become a shepherd in the west of Scotland or something." Perhaps, but it's a sure bet that he'd whittle himself some pipes by the end of the first day of tending his flock.

So after moving about so much in the last ten years, how did you find your way back to London?

I wanted to be back in the thick of it, back in the center of everything. I've been in London for three years now, and I'll be here for quite a while, I should think. I wanted to be where all the studios and musicians were. I kind of need to know what the competition is, you know? (Laughs)

Who do you see as your competition these days?

Everyone.

Bring 'Em All In came out of your time getting in tune with God at the spiritual community of Findhorn, Scotland. Where were you coming from with Still Burning? It seems to be a much darker record.

Well, I think a lot of it comes from exactly the same place. Many of the songs were written at Findhorn or directly after I moved down to London. So I think it's like the same inspiration but with a band behind it.

Bring 'Em All In is a record about a kind of awakening time that I had, and I find that once I go through an awakening, or a spiritual opening, then of course I find out about my shadow side, which is beyond the open door. So then I have to walk with that for awhile, and that's why there are songs like "My Dark Side" and "Dark Man of My Dreams."

How dark is your dark side?

(Laughs) I don't have a particularly dark side. I have things that I'm very angry about -- I mean, my father left home when I was ten, and I have a lot of baggage to do with that, and I'm hurt over it and I'm vulnerable and I'm angry. And everybody has these kind of things in the background, and I didn't think about it very much until once I'd had a big spiritual opening, like I did in about '92 or '93, then I had to get real with something that was in my past.

For all the soul-searching that continues on this album, there's still a bit of fun there. What's the story behind "Strawberry Man"?

He was this guy I met once on this hill in England, and he was what's called a "New Age traveler," or a "crusty." You know what a crusty is? And I was on a hill in the south of England filming a rock video, and this guy and his mates wouldn't get out of the way, and they kept getting in front of the cameras, and he would only say one word, which was "Strawberries." Nobody could reason with the guy, he just kept saying "Strawberries." So I thought that was worth a song.

Considering you recorded Dream Harder with an entirely new Waterboys line-up, couldn't that album have marked your solo debut?

Oh, absolutely. I had never considered going solo at that time, but I certainly could have done it. I could have taken a leaf from George Michael's book -- he started his solo career with Careless Whisper, his most commercial record. I started my solo career with an acoustic album recorded in a spiritual community. If I had started it with Dream Harder and maybe had "Glastonbury Song" as a single, that might have been a good starting place. But, hindsight is an amazing thing -- it's the only exact science. (Laughs)

Still Burning so far has met with some very positive reviews in the English press. Did you see that as much with the Waterboys?

I've always had a very polarized reaction with the Waterboys, and with the first solo album, Bring 'Em All In. Some places really loved it and some places couldn't take it all. NME and Melody Maker -- oh God no, they couldn't deal with it at all -- "Spiritual and vulnerable and intimate." I don't think they could deal with that.

Have you started work on a new album yet?

Well, I've got the songs written. Very, very different. The subject matter is how life in London and the city has appeared to me since I've come back. It hasn't changed as much as me. When I made Still Burning, I was working in a vacuum -- I wasn't listening to any popular music at all. I lost interest in contemporary rock in about 1986 when I went to Ireland, and apart from listening to Nevermind by Nirvana in 1991, I've really missed everything between then and now. And just about a year ago I started listening to stuff again. Belatedly I've started to hear people like Radiohead, Beck, Cornershop, Mercury Rev and the Beta Band. I'm getting a lot hipper to what's happening now, and I think that's affecting the way I'm writing and it will definitely affect the way I record.

You reckon that might make your music more palatable to NME ears?

(Laughs) Well, believe that when you see it.

RICHARD SKANSE(October 15, 1998)