SEVENTIES’ stars Horslips are back playing gigs in Belfast and Dublin this week, with Shannon’s Johnny Fean rejoining the bandmates that he toured Ireland, Europe and the US with.

Speaking to The Clare Champion, Johnny said he looks back on the glory days with a certain amount of nostalgia. “There were great times. The music scene in the UK and America was a bit wilder in those days and Ireland was rocking too, it was catching up.  We went around Europe and the States and we broke new ground. Without us, I don’t know if the rest would have happened,; if the likes of U2 and other bands would have emerged from Ireland.”
During the ’70s, the Troubles were at their height and Horslips were one of a relatively small number of groups who were happy to go North.
“We would have gone there, mostly to Belfast and Derry. At that stage, there weren’t many going from the South or from Britain. They were hard times there, it wasn’t a nice time to be playing. We had a few incidents with security checks, the situation was pretty grave.”
In 1980, Horslips split and Johnny felt the band had enough done at that point. “We had been touring a lot and musically, I think it had run its course. The punk thing had a bit of a bearing on it. Punk was big at the time and there were a lot of changes in music, in some ways, members of the band were going in different directions. It was for musical rather than personal reasons and the state of the industry at the time had a bearing.”
Horslips became known for marrying traditional music with rock and Johnny says the reaction to their early work was hugely positive and encouraging. “It was fantastic. Happy to meet, sorry to part came out before Christmas in 1972 and it got a great reaction from the young in Ireland. It was very new. We started touring for the first time in the UK and the following year we had the Táin album. That had Dearg Doom on it and from there, it really took off.”
A lot of work went into breaking the American market and according to Johnny, they almost entered the stratosphere there. “We got close enough to it. We had three albums that entered the Billboard charts but it just didn’t quite happen.”
Since 2004, Horslips have been involved in occasional projects together prior to this week’s two concerts.
These days, he plays with the Johnny Fean Band and they will be playing in Shannon on December 17 and in Crusheen on December 27. “It’s a mixture,” says Johnny of what people can expect at these shows. “It will be mainly blues and rock and there will be one or two Horslips songs thrown in.”