Five years after the release of New Dawn Breaking, The Walls are back with a new strut to their step. Andrew Hamilton chats to Steve Wall about protest songs, fresh plans to conquer America and the problem of being your own worst enemy.
Somewhere over the Indian Ocean, a book caught hold of Joe Wall. When he had finished, he passed it to his brother Steve and before they touched down in Australia, both had walked The Road with Cormac McCarthy. That book, like every great piece of art, has a way of lingering. Three years later and the shards of The Road began to resurface. Mingled with thought of recession, and the generations of Irish who carried their fire to every corner of the world, an idea sparked at 30,000 feet became the hopeful, up-temp song of the summer. “We went to Australia three years ago to do some support for Crowded House and it was on that long flight that we all read The Road. Joe read it first and then passed it to me and I remember not moving out of my seat until I closed the last page. Joe took that line from the book - the idea of carrying the fire. He must have made a mental note of it and it came over into the song. One thing which is interesting about it is that he has taken the phrase and brought it into the Irish context. The lyrics are about the Irish diaspora post-famine. I don’t know of many other Irish pop songs that namecheck Oliver Cromwell or the people in the coffin ships. So it’s
a bit like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road meets Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea but in a pop song - that’s the best way I can describe it," said Steve.
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