Pete Briquette: ‘My DNA test said I’m 99% from a particular part of Ireland’
How agreeable are you?I can be a chronic people pleaser, and sometimes that can be a weakness. However, when people cross me, I can be a little bit cruel, which I instantly regret, of course. But, yes, I’m mainly an agreeable person.What is your middle name and what do you think of it?My real name is Patrick Cusack, and my middle name is Martin, which is really boring. I’ve always been envious of people having exotic middle names, like Zenon or Tarquin. A couple of years ago, for my birthday, my son bought me a DNA test, which I was delighted about because I was excited to see what my bloodline was. I fancied being multicultural and having a little bit of Polynesian or Egyptian in me, that sort of thing, but I was disappointed when the results came back. It said that I was 99 per cent Irish, and not only that, but also 99 per cent from a particular part of Ireland – Cavan!Where is your favourite place in Ireland?When I left Ireland, I left it in many ways – culturally, psychologically and emotionally. I think I always wanted to live somewhere else, but saying that, I love Ireland and I love to go back there. If you forced me to pick a place, it would be Rosslare, the beach by Kelly’s Hotel. Walking there on a summer’s day, or even on a winter’s day, are some of my happiest times.Describe yourself in three words.I feel you’re not qualified to make decisions about what you are, so I asked my kids. My daughter said, silly, musical, a scuttler, and my son said selfless, funny and kind. Between those, I think I would pick funny, musical and a scuttler, which means I have to run everywhere even when I don’t need to.READ MORERyan Tubridy: ‘I’m a different person now to who I was a couple of years ago. I’ve evolved’‘There was blood everywhere’: Senator Pauline Tully on being brutally attacked by her husband in 2014Brianna Parkins: I hate the Dublin Bushman and his scaring of young women for moneyWhen did you last get angry?On a day-to-day basis, I rarely get angry. Most recently, I’ve been really pissed off with political leaders in Europe and how they don’t have the balls to stand up to Trump. They try social diplomacy with him, but he doesn’t give a sh*t about that. We don’t have a special relationship with the USA any more. That marriage is over.What have you lost that you would like to have back?I miss that naive confidence you have when you’re young. Without that, I don’t think I would have taken any of the risks I took in my 20s. Another loss? My guitars. I used to feel guilty about having so many bass guitars, and now I wish I had kept them all. I currently have about 12 or 13. I’ve always kept it down to that number, but if I go to a guitar shop, I’m forever tempted.What’s your strongest childhood memory?Music and more music. My brothers played, my parents played. My earliest memory is being very young, standing in the middle of the road in Ballyjamesduff on a dark, wet winter’s afternoon. I recall being acutely aware of how far away America was, and England, Europe and countries that were mostly colourful and culturally exciting. I knew then that when I grew up, I would be in these other places.Where do you come in your family’s birth order?I’m the youngest of seven children, and I arrived when my parents were almost retired. I think with parents, when you have your first child, you go by the book, but by the time you come to the seventh child, the book is gone. In some ways, they just let me do what I liked. I think the sense of freedom I had came from that.What do you expect to happen when you die?Sadly, nothing. I hope I’m wrong, because I think I’ve had a reasonably good life. For my 70th birthday, my children commissioned a portrait of me; it was of me sitting in a very formal way with a bass guitar. I think the painting has given me a form of temporary immortality, and I like the idea of that. I’m kind of like the minor official several hundred years ago who used to have his portrait taken, even though I might well be destined to have people look at it and say, ‘Who the hell is the guy with the guitar?’When were you happiest?Well, this sounds corny, but it’s sitting around a dinner table, with your family, with my wife Francesca and the kids, being in the moment, realising it as such, and loving it. The alternative to that is being in the middle of an amazing creative process, with people you’re in synchronicity with. In the early 1980s, The Boomtown Rats made our albums Mondo Bongo and V Deep in Ibiza, and when we arrived there for one of them, I remember I put my watch on the locker at the side of the bed. We were on the island for about six weeks, and I never put the watch back on because I never needed to know what time it was.Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?I don’t really care, but maybe someone like Colin Farrell or Stephen Rea. They’re consummate actors, and I think they might get me.Have you any psychological quirks?I have a speech impediment that can be quite bad. I get stuck on some words, and I can suddenly seize up in the middle of a sentence. Sometimes, I avoid conversations where I know I’m going to mess it up by not being able to finish the sentence. Also, particular people that I speak to make me stammer. I’ve had it all my life, and because of it, it has made me less assertive, I think. Another quirk? I avoid walking on the cracks in pavements.In conversation with Tony Clayton-LeaThe Boomtown Rats play The Hub, Kilkenny, on Saturday, January 31st, and at the 50th Anniversary concert for Hot Press, 3Arena, Dublin, on Friday, February 6th
