(This podcast contains explicit content.) “The musical equivalent of a pub crawl” (Rolling Stone), the Pogues’s raucous melding of traditional Irish music with the incendiary energy of punk catapulted the London-based band to international prominence in the 1980s and 90s. Founding Pogues member and accordion player James Fearnley tells the band’s story in Here Comes Everybody, “a warts-and-all tale…about the band and the bond formed across 30 fractious years” (Irish Times), including the group’s troubles with Shane McGowan, its brilliant but drug-addicted frontman and songwriter. A multi-instrumentalist across a variety of musical genres, Fearnley has played on albums with Talking Heads, Steve Earle, and Melissa Etheridge, among others. 

In conversation with Wesley Stace