HI BILLY, how have the 40th anniversary tour dates been going so far?
We had an absolutely brilliant one last night (in Gateshead) – full house and a great show.
All the shows have been very very good, and most of them have been sold out as well.
The Millennium Forum is the final date – are you looking forward to it?
Definitely, it's always great to be playing back in Derry. We've been playing really well recently, really tight, so hopefully that'll come over when we play the Forum and we'll put on a good show.
Is there extra pressure when you're playing in Derry?
Well, the guestlist is always definitely massive! There's family, relatives and friends who all want to come and you can't let anyone down.
But we always just try to do a good show regardless of where we play. So, even though this is at home, we'll just get in there and do our bit – and hopefully everyone enjoys it. I'm definitely looking forward to it.
Although the band was founded in 1974, the current tour is celebrating the 40th anniversary of your first live gig in February 1976, in the Scout hall at St Mary's in the Creggan. How does it feel to be marking such a milestone, and what has been the secret to The Undertones' longevity?
The 40th anniversary is really staggering – that 40 years on we're still playing together and we still get on.
We've always got on. I think that's probably been the thread going through the band which kept us together. Initially, it was the love of music and we were all friends and we all got on exceptionally well. We never kind of rose above our station, for us the priority was always the love of the music.
Last night we played in Gateshead and there were kids who looked about 14 who were singing all the songs – and everyone else was singing the songs too. Sometimes, the crowds are singing so loud they almost drown us out. We definitely feed off the audiences and when they really engage with us and the songs, it's great – it creates such a good atmosphere for everybody.
We've stuck to what we believe in, which is the music and getting enjoyment out of it. Everyone still gets that same kick out of playing live – and if we do a bad show, we're our own worst critics. We keep ourselves on our toes and we don't take anything for granted.
You're playing a lot of songs from in and around the first album, released by Sire in 1979 less than a year after your debut EP Teenage Kicks on Good Vibrations and recently re-issued as a deluxe edition. Does it take you back to your youth when you play those tunes today?
Not really – but we still definitely have the same hang-ups when we're playing even 40 years on.
Sometimes we can play them really well, very tight, and sometimes we make mistakes. It's still a challenge every time we go on stage to play, because the songs are really fast.
As a matter of fact, at one point we were playing the songs so fast that we had to introduce a click track to try and keep us at a constant tempo – but it didn't really work for us. So we're actually playing faster now than we did back in the day!
You appeared on Top of The Pops for the first time with the re-release of Teenage Kicks in October 1978. That used to be a major milestone for any band – how did it change things for you?
We got a lot of stick back home. Some people thought, "aye, who do you think you are?". You were never allowed to get above your station in Derry, otherwise they would chuck ye in the Foyle.
But that's now changed. I don't want to sound boastful, but now the relationship between The Undertones and Derry and Teenage Kicks has taken on a whole new dimension. Over the years a bit of folklore has been created around the whole thing, and I think people are now proud of what we've done.
John Peel famously loved Teenage Kicks and was a big champion of The Undertones early on. What was it like to spend some time with him in Derry during the filming of the documentary Teenage Kicks in 2001?
The way John Peel was on the radio was the way he was in real life. He was just a genuinely good person. We were actually worried about him coming to Derry because we hadn't seen him in such a long time. We were thinking, 'My God, how are we going to talk to this person, how are we going to engage with him?'.
We thought it was going to be really awkward, but it was the complete opposite: he never shut up talking, from the minute he arrived until he went back.
It was great for us, because we were hanging on every word he was saying, talking about The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix – he had a story about everything.
Also, the warmth and affection he got from people everywhere he went in Derry was just incredible. He was treated so well. We'd go into a local bar for a bit of lunch and people would just be buying him drinks constantly – the table would be covered with pints of Guinness.
He was really overwhelmed by it, I think – especially when he was presented with a vintage Liverpool football shirt by a friend of the family who lived in Derry. He was nearly moved to tears by that. So our last memories of John were very happy ones.
The Undertones split in 1983 before reforming in 1999 with Paul McLoone as frontman. He's now been your singer for more than twice as long as Feargal Sharkey, yet you've only done two LPs with him – any chance of a third?
I'd really love to get back in and record again. For me, when we broke up the first time we should have just taken some time off to get things together again, but that never really happened.
I genuinely love recording with the band, even though at the start I wasn't too keen on it. Now, I love the creative process of writing songs and going into the studio.
There's always a lot of positive input and I thrive on it, it gives me a real buzz when you can feel the songs starting to come together. So I'd love us to make another record, definitely.
:: The Undertones, with Touts, tonight, Millennium Forum, Derry. Tickets via Millenniumforum.co.uk.
