Playing a first-ever acoustic tour is like going back to where it all started for Jimme O’Neill.
Ahead of a visit to Beat Generator in Dundee tomorrow, The Silencers frontman explains the rationale behind the novel sojourn – and how he’s keeping it in the family in every sense.
“I started in folk and acoustic music, playing with my mother and father,” says Glasgow-born Jimme.
“They were singing Scottish and Irish songs and I was kind of playing badly on guitar.
“That was the very first thing I did when I was about 14 or 15, and now there’s four of us playing acoustic songs as a family.”
The sixty-something’s being joined in a trimmed line-up by his guitarist son James and vocalist daughter Aura, with other close relatives guesting.
Best known for anthemic singles Painted Moon and I Can Feel It, The Silencers were bracketed with Big Country and U2 as part of the 80s’ Big Music scene but enjoyed fewer hits.
Love for them persists in Scotland, while their upbeat Celtic stylings have ensured sizeable fan bases in France, where O’Neill lives, and Spain.
Jimme ‘felt like Rod Stewart’ in PJ Molloys
“We haven’t toured the UK for years, but we’ve done things in Scotland,” the singer adds.
“When we get together as a full band it’s usually for festivals. We’re doing this tour because we’ve got an album coming out soon and there’s a few new songs in the set.
“Also, certain places got in touch to ask us to come and play. We realised we could do smaller venues, but not with the same set-up that we usually have, so the idea of putting on an acoustic tour came around.
“If a song can work acoustically it’ll work electrically, it’s just a case of getting the arrangement right.”
Fans in Fife got a taste of the band’s new material at PJ Molloys last Friday – an “absolutely fantastic” gig in O’Neill’s view.
“As soon as we started an oldie the punters just all sang along with it – I felt a bit like Rod Stewart,” he laughs.
“I hadn’t played in Dunfermline, I think, since my first band was on the same bill as The Skids and Lene Lovich in the ’80s at the Alhambra, but it was a fantastic audience – and we appreciated that they listened to the new songs.”
Jimme started out with Fingerprintz in the late ’70s before forming The Silencers in 1986 with late guitarist Cha Burns.
Their debut album A Letter From St Paul appeared the following year.
Six further studio LPs followed up to 2004’s Come, and the band have continued to play live sporadically since then.
Now, 19 years on, their Silent Highway opus is due in October.
New songs written using chalk drawings
One new track, eco-protest 67 Overdrive, is classic Silencers with an added twist in the form of a Farfisa organ melody that recalls Jimme’s boyhood heroes, early 60s chart-toppers The Tornados.
“First and foremost I try to follow my instincts and just write a good song,” he declares.
“They’re usually all written on an acoustic guitar and then when I make my demos I play with a little drum machine and I get the rhythm from that, and then I put a bassline on it.
“And of course, the subject matter always is about something I feel needs to be said.”
The singer deployed a novel method of developing ideas for the album.
“I decided for each title to create a picture in chalk on a blackboard, so I designed a drawing for each song,” he says.
“I had to rub it out before I did the next one, so it’s sort of ephemeral but it created an image in my head.
“For the song Silent Highway I drew a road in a kind of psychedelic landscape with a car in the distance, and at the front there’s a little hedgehog crossing the road.
“That actually happened. I was in France going to get the bus, and there was a hedgehog on the road rolled up as it was approaching.
“I couldn’t think what to do – this is a bit dark – but I’ve always played football and I just gently chipped the hedgehog onto the pavement then ran to get my bus.
“That incident was kind of like a metaphor for where mankind is going.”
The Silencers will play Beat Generator in Dundee tomorrow and The Lemon Tree in Aberdeen on June 25. Tickets are available at gigantic.com
