HUGH CORNWELL, former lead singer of The Stranglers, and voice of the band's finest songs - 'Golden Brown', 'Strange Little Girl,' 'Always The Sun', 'Peaches', 'No More Heroes', (Get A ) Grip (On Yourself ) - is coming to Galway.
Making his first appearance in the city since his performance at the 2005 Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Cornwell will play the Róisín Dubh on Sunday November 25. The show will be a mixture of new and classic songs, as Cornwell, joined by his band, will perform songs from his new solo album, Monster, along with a second half dedicated to Stranglers hits.
While The Stranglers may have declared 'No More Heroes' in 1977, Monster was inspired by one of Cornwell's personal heroines - his mother Winifred, who lived to be 98 and who swam every day at the outdoor bathing ponds in Hampstead Heath, north London. "My mother was a legend, if only in our little world,” he told journalist Pat Gilbert. “She was a celebrity among the swimmers because she would swim five or six times a day, even in winter. She was also the villain of the family and kept us all in line. So that’s where it all started, with the song 'La Grande Dame'.”
Monster finds Cornwell pondering a range of heroes and villains, with songs about Lou Reed ('Mr Leather' ) and Mose Allison ('Mosin’' ), Evel Knievel ('Pure Evel' ), Hedy Lamarr ('The Most Beautiful Girl In Hollywood' ), Sgt Bilko star Phil Silvers (Bilko ), Benito Mussolini ('Duce Coochie Man' ) and Zimbabwean ex-president Robert Mugabe ('Robert' ).
“These are people who have defied categorisation,” says Cornwell. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to defy categorisation. If someone wants to put me into some sort of a box, I'll do my best to defy it. You could call it being obstreperous, but it’s also got something to do with being drawn to people who are dichotomous.”
Tickets go on sale on Friday [August 31] from www.roisindubh.net; the Ticket Desk at OMG Zhivago, Shop Street; and The Róisín Dubh.
