By
Ty Young
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Fresh off tour with the Wallflowers, Michael McDermott brings Irish folk-rock to UA Mall
When Michael McDermott put out his first record nine years ago, he had stars in his eyes and a smile on his face.
Touted by critics as a powerful lyricist with the voice of Bruce Springsteen and the flavor of Bob Dylan, McDermott looked up at a mountain of expectations and prepared to climb.
McDermott, however, was not prepared for the treacherous path that lay before him. Although featured on "Entertainment Tonight" and MTV, his first album went nowhere, and with it, the public acclaim that he said he so badly desired.
The shock steered this young man, once full of potential, onto a path that has claimed the careers and lives of many musicians before him.
"I got really fucked up in the drugs and drinking," he said. "That was a bitter pill to swallow, you know - 'I'm only 23 years old and I'm already washed up.' I certainly lived up to my Irish heritage."
Years of torment followed, as McDermott struggled with unrealized dreams and numbing depression.
"I remember (MTV) telling my manager 'we gave McDermott a shot, and it didn't happen, we can't go for it again,'" he said "I had been such a rock 'n' roll cliche, so to speak, and then it was a question of whether or not
I wanted to live or die."
Now 31, McDermott has divorced himself from the high expectations, the woeful self-image and most importantly, the dependency on drugs.
"I've spent the last couple years just trying to straighten my own life out because it really got the best of me," he said. "I asked myself 'are you going to let these douche bags in the music industry get the best of you?'"
With the release of his fifth album, appropriately named Last Chance Lounge, it is obvious that McDermott has changed his expectations, but not the story-telling folk sound that he has always been known for. "I've been up-and-coming for about a decade," he said. "Yes, I'm optimistic but you know, I've been around so long, I'm not holding my breath for anything."
Although he claims Springsteen and Dylan as major musical influences, McDermott said the direction of his music and narrative lyrics come solely from his life and the many relationships he forged throughout. Songs
like "Junkie Girl," "Unemployed" and "Broken Down Fence" take listeners into the world that McDermott has lived.
"They're just very humanistic stories," he said. "I realize what I do and where my strengths lie within a story or a phrase, so I put more into that, but the trick is to try to not make it too boring."
McDermott said he has learned one important lesson throughout his musical career - humility.
"I don't think I'm much of a musician really," he said. "I'm very limited, and I think one of the things you need to do in any aspect of your life is realize your shortcomings. I know that I'm not some transcendent kind of
music man."
