Ireland’s Thomas Walsh makes original music that rivals the best work by two of his heroes: Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne and Andy Partridge of XTC. Echoes of the Beatles and the Kinks’ Ray Davies crop up in his distinctive songs as well.
And while the Dublin-based musician is nowhere as well known as those artists, on his own and with his group Pugwash, Walsh has released a string of superb albums featuring an impossibly high tunefulness quotient; ear candy melodies seem to come out of him effortlessly.
Of course that’s not the case; Walsh says that for him, the process of songwriting is real work. “I fight every aspect,” he says, only half-joking. “There’s always a better option than spending the next hour going through pain and anguish over a rhyme or a chord. And the older I get, the less I want to do of that.” He describes himself as lazy, a characterization reinforced by the fact that during our Zoom interview, he’s lying prone on a couch, the camera positioned directly above him.
Walsh rhapsodizes about all the wonderful programming on Netflix, and the distractions of social media. “And then I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I should be writing a song!’ But that’s the last thing my creative body wants to do.” But happily for him and his dedicated fans, the song usually wins.
Even tossing aside those unsatisfactory tunes, Walsh consistently comes up with a bounty of supremely fetching songs. As Pugwash—the name used for solo and band releases for nearly 20 years—Walsh released nearly a dozen albums. 2012’s The Olympus Sound was nominated for the Meteor Choice Awards’ Irish Album of the Year.
Retiring the Pugwash name last year, Walsh began releasing music under his own name with The Rest Is History. The name may have changed but the story’s the same: Walsh’s trademark hook-filled music continues to strike a perfect balance between melancholia, wistfulness, power pop energy and heartfelt, intelligent lyricism.
On The Rest is History, Walsh does nearly everything: writing, singing, guitar, keyboards, production. But he brings in pals to help at key points. Neil Hannon is his band mate in another project, the Duckworth Lewis Method; Walsh and Hannon co-wrote “A Good Day for Me,” the infectious album opener. Indie auteur Michael Penn co-wrote “Take Your Time,” another standout track on the new record. Other guests on The Rest Is History include pals Joe Elliott (Def Leppard) and former XTC guitarist Dave Gregory; the latter contributes a sublime string arrangement on “We Knew.”
Part of Walsh’ motive for retiring Pugwash was the impracticality of keeping a touring band together, especially when attempting to mount tours to North America. What concertgoers on his October run of West Coast dates will encounter, instead, is “a very oddly-shaped man sitting on a chair playing an acoustic guitar for a couple of hours,” Walsh says with a chuckle.
For the tour, Walsh has put together something very special, an item that will be available only to those who attend his current U.S. dates. “I’m doing up 50 copies of a CD,” he says. “A lot of people who’ve never heard of me turn up at shows, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I just put all my singles on a CD, do a funny cover and bring those?’”
The playfully titled Pugwash Singles Club features 14 studio tracks plus a live cut featuring the full-band lineup from a 2015 gig in Austin, Texas. Walsh concedes that while interested parties can always go listen on Spotify, a physical CD is “a nice, cool thing. And I love doing the artwork.”
An Irishman through and through, Walsh nonetheless demonstrates a deep and abiding love for America and its people. He sums up the differences between the two nations in his customarily droll manner, one that applies equally well to the music he makes: “America’s so big, it’s hard to control the madness,” he says. “Ireland is mad, too, but it’s very small…and a controlled madness.”
Thomas Walsh plays at 6pm on Tue., Oct. 22 at Sante Adairius Santa Cruz Portal, 1315 Water St., Santa Cruz. Facebook.com
