A deluxe reissue of the album was released last week _ …If I Die, I Die _fromthe Virgin Prunes from 1982. Singer Gavin Friday’s band originated from thesame group of friends as U2, but as an avant-garde opposite.
Gijsbert RoomNovember 18, 202205:00
In his autobiography, published earlier this month Surrender – 40 Songs, OneStory Bono tells extensively about the club of friends that formed in Dublinabout fifty years ago. They invented the city of Lypton Village themselves, inwhich they spoke their own language. The imaginary town would spawn two bands:Bono’s rock group U2 and its more avant-garde counterpart Virgin Prunes(1977-1986), whose lead singer was Gavin Friday before going solo.
Friday (63) is not only still friends with Bono, but has also been involvedwith U2 for more than forty years as an advisor or ‘midwife’, as Bono callshim.
“That qualification is for him,” says Friday laughing in a New York hotel roomwhere he talks via Zoom about the re-release of … If I Die, I Die , VirginPrunes’ 1982 album. An event that coincides nicely with the publication ofBono’s memoirs. The book and the poster give a nice picture of Dublin in theearly eighties.
The Virgin Prunes around the appearance of ‘…If I Die, I Die’Sculpture UrsulaSteiger
‘Ireland was really under the spell of Catholicism at the time. It was apolitical and religious one fucked up country. I lived on the same street asBono and Guggi, my later partner in Virgin Prunes. In a nutshell: Bono startedwith guitarist The Edge U2 and I formed the band Virgin Prunes with Edge’sbrother Dik and Guggi. U2 was more of a real rock band, we wanted theatre, artand music to come together in an anarchic way. Everything was born out ofanger at the religious oppression, which I had really felt as a boy. We wantedto bring pagan and Celtic elements back to theater and music, and made adelicious mess of it. Dressing up and painting on stage, in dresses or runningnaked across the stage. It was a mess, but around 1980 we made a name forourselves, thanks to performances with Nick Cave’s Birthday Party, who werejust as eager to disrupt.’
Virgin Prunes got a record deal and a producer, Colin Newman, who knew Fridayfrom the post-punk band Wire he admired. ‘We were anti-everything, so alsoanti-producer, but I’m glad that we went with Newman at the insistence of therecord company. He disciplined us and brought out the best in us with thesimplest instructions.’
Sculpture Ursula Steiger
…If I Die, I Die had a brown, mystical record side and a blue, more rocksong oriented half. Friday: ‘I was pleasantly surprised when I listened toeverything before remastering. Okay, that song side has those typical echoingeighties drums. But the first half influenced by Celtic folk and dark gothicmusic is really beautiful. Such a title as Ulakanakulot came straight out ofthe language we spoke in Lypton Village.”
There was not much contact between Bono and Friday in those years. ‘Between1980 and 1985 Virgin Prunes and U2 followed their own path. I saw U2 becomereally famous and I was proud too. I didn’t have such great ambitions myself.I was mostly angry and I wanted to turn that anger into something beautiful. ANew Form of Beauty, as we called it. Expression came out of regression, andwhen I now hear what we sang about in songs like Baby Turns Blue, self-harm,suicide among young people and gender fluidity, those topics are stilltopical.’
Bono wanted to go in a completely different direction with U2. ‘He liked toembrace his audience, we preferred to disrupt. But the club of friends inLypton Village has always existed. Bono still calls me regularly when he, Ican hardly pronounce it but come on, needs his midwife. I’m here for U2 ifthey don’t come up with a song. Then I say: do this or that, or I’ll just singsomething, and then hop, then that song is suddenly finished. It has been thisway for more than forty years. Most of the time they don’t need me, butsometimes I say, Bono, where’s the chorus?’
For tours like the one accompanying the album Achung Baby (1991) Friday wasemployed as a visual consultant, and together with Anton Corbijn, Fridaydesigned the photo section in Bono’s book.
“Bono likes to have me everywhere. Also yesterday, when he presented his bookhere in New York at the Beacon Theater. That’s so obvious, as it goes infriendships. But I’m not going to run after him for an entire tour. I’m goingto wrap up my new album here, which should be out in the middle of next year.I notice that I have a lot of anger in me again, just like in the time of theVirgin Prunes. No more about Ireland, which is now a well-liberalized country.But the encroachment of the ultra-right everywhere, including you, worries me.We are entering the same dark age as the late 1970s and early 1980s. To escapethat, we made forty years ago … If I Die, I Die. That album actually fitsvery well with this time.