Gavin Friday - Virgin Prunes - Ecce Homo

Our chat with Gavin Friday took place during the “Il Rumore del Lutto” festival, during the same hours as the live show you can read about in our report. And it seems to belong to another world. A world in which Dave Ball was still with us, and which will never be the same without him.  The “noise of grief” in this case resounds for Dave. And it takes the form of a friend's words.

Welcome back, Gavin. This is the first time you've come back to play in Italy in 30 years: what's your relationship with our country?
I love Italy. There's something wrong with a human being if they don't appreciate Italian food and wine! The cities are gorgeous: Rome, Naples, Bologna; I adore Milan. Bari is beautiful. I've spent time in Italy more as a tourist and a lover of culture than as a musician. Just last week I did a livestream with Red Ronnie on my birthday: he showed my “Caruso” from thirty years ago on TV… and I thought to myself: “Jesus, it really has been 30 years.” That said, I've never really been on the classic “carousel”: an album every two or three years and a tour. After “Shag Tobacco” I worked a lot on soundtracks, did some interesting collaborations, I've always worked, but in my own way. With this new album I decided: I want to play live. We don't live forever, and the stage is my natural habitat.

You're here for the “Il Rumore del Lutto” festival. Do you feel close to its inspiration?

There are two sides to it. The “sound of grief” in the countryside is wonder: taking the dog to the beach at dawn, the birds, the sea against the rocks, no phone: it's pure awareness, even within sorrow. In the city, though, the “sound of grief” is that of bad news everywhere, political madness. So I see both its beauty and its shadow. There's personal grief too, but owning your own pain is a positive act.

I went to Kosovo during the war, I was completely shaken, and it was the start of a journey that has brought me to where I am today

Inner war and inner peace

You change with age – some people grow wiser, if you're lucky. It took me time, maybe because for most of my life I reacted against authority, especially against the Catholic Church. It was a long journey, one that began right after I separated, in the late '90s. I went to Kosovo, during the war. I left with two female friends to work with Concern, a humanitarian organization. Seeing that reality completely shook me. After three months there, I decided it was time to look inward, and that was the start of a journey that continues to this day. I rarely talk about personal things in my records, except in the last two. “Catholic” was marked by my father's death; “Ecce Homo” came after the death of my mother and of Hal Willner. The losses I've had to go through opened inner doors.

Do you feel like telling me about your relationship with your parents?

With my father the relationship was difficult: he was always out, rarely present, a man who had never really accepted family life. So as a boy I found myself having to “defend” my mother, and that should never happen to a child. It was a harsh world, dominated by Catholicism. When my father died, though, we managed to make peace. He'd had a heart attack, he called me and wanted to speak only to me. I stayed with him for eighteen hours before the operation. He apologized for not having understood me, for having been harsh. The surgery went well, but three weeks later he died. It was a surprisingly beautiful ending to a troubled relationship. And over time I've come to understand it was a story common to many men of my generation, raised in a repressive culture, where men didn't show affection to their children: “cuddles are for women.” But boys need them just as much as girls. I was an introverted child, I hated sport, I loved music, painting, theatre. My father didn't understand, it was hard for him.

And with your mother?

With her I always had a wonderful relationship. Whenever I was in Dublin I'd go visit her. When I was away, I'd call her a couple of times. She wasn't just my mother, she was a friend. She gave me nothing but love, understanding and support, even in the Catholic Ireland of the Seventies. When I was 16 or 17 and formed Virgin Prunes, she sewed my stage clothes. She was my ally. We usually saw each other twice a week: a coffee, a lunch, a chat. You know how it is: even at fifty you're still “the child” to your mother. She'd still hand you a bag with a pair of socks and underwear, as if you'd just left home. When my father died, I saw her change right away. They were very close, and I don't think she was ever able to fully face that loss. Alzheimer's creeps in through exactly that invisible crack, and slowly takes you away: the person is still there, but the gaze is empty. The body remains, the soul departs. You become a child again, roles get confused. She'd mistake me for anyone: her husband, her brothers, the neighbours, the butcher… “Who am I, mum?”, I'd ask. And she couldn't answer. Those were very hard years. Some say there's a kind of “sweetness” in the return to childhood, but for us it wasn't like that. She was restless, she wanted to “go home”, she'd pack and unpack suitcases, go out, disappear. “Amaranthus” is for her: a tribute and a farewell. She truly loved what grew in her garden. It became her symbol.

There's peace in your words, but the new album is harsh. How do you balance inner calm and aesthetic fury?

There's a lot of peace and a lot of anger. The peace is in tracks like “When The World Was Young”: it's about looking toward a future that's harsh and pure, even though today everything is difficult for young people and for those who make music. The anger began in 2018, when I really started working on the record: I was watching the rise of political and religious fundamentalism, the backlash against rights and humanity. In 2020 I stopped everything because of Covid. I detest every kind of fundamentalism, and I believe an artist's job is to write about what's wrong in the world.

As a child I was treated with cruelty. Music saved me: it was the glam era: Bolan opened the door, Bowie threw the skies wide open, thanks to him I could go to Mars, escape from Dublin. Then punk came along and changed everything: it meant freedom 

Ecce Homo

After so much collective suffering, even “genocides live-streamed” on social media, are we still capable of compassion?
I'm a pessimistic optimist, but in the end I believe in the human spirit. We can't repeat the horrors of a hundred years ago. As an Irishman who grew up during the Dublin bombings, I learned that the only way is to lay down arms and talk, to accept one another. Maybe that's also why the Irish feel the Palestinian cause so deeply — it reminds us of our own history of death, famine, emigration. Despite everything, I still have faith in human beings, even though we're distracted by a sea of nonsense. And I pray.

Yet your experience with Catholic institutions is still, to this day, a source of rebellion for you…

You're right, but spirituality and religious institutions are different things. My entire education took place in Catholic Dublin, among nuns and Christian Brothers. As a child I was treated with cruelty. I stayed silent, closed off, until music came along. It was the era of glam: Bolan opened the door, Bowie threw open the skies. Thanks to him I could “go to Mars” and escape Dublin. Bowie was a mentor: he namechecked Burroughs, Genet, Ginsberg — names I didn't understand at 12, but later learned to love. Then punk arrived, and everything changed: “Two or three chords are enough. If you hate something, say it.” It was a revelation. Punk meant freedom. Thanks to punk I learned curiosity: never take anything for granted, travel, discover. It took me across Europe, to discover Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, Bertolt Brecht, jazz, classical music: it was pure hunger for knowledge. And even today, at 65, there's still that seventeen-year-old inside me who wants to “be himself.”

Let's talk about the queer iconography and the staging of the show: how do you work on the theatrical side of things?

I don't like “showing everything straight away.” These days a lot of people lift the skirt and show the underwear too soon; it's better to reveal the ankle, then the knee, and stop there. I “wear” songs like clothes and become the characters. My roots are in Bowie, punk, the avant-garde, but as a performer the key reference is Jacques Brel: he sweats out his songs, becomes the stories. Live, I treat sexuality as spiritual ecstasy. I use religious imagery because I was born and raised Catholic, but as human metaphors, like “Stations of the Cross,” which is actually about two lovers trapped in their own cycle. “Lady Esquire” tells the story of my first experience with a drug, but it's really an initiation rite into freedom through music. “Ecce Homo” expresses acceptance. I no longer wear the crown of thorns: I've taken it off. But the scars remain.

Live you play the whole album, but there are also nods to the past. How do you choose the songs for the setlist?

Based on the need to tell my own story, but also driven by the musical urge to change up arrangements. Songs shouldn't be carbon copies of the past — they need a new life, and I have to feel the need to give them that fresh guise. If I feel that impulse, then it's time to revisit an old song.

The song I wrote for Sinéad O'Connor on "In The Name Of The Father" is among the things I'm proudest of. I was very close friends with Sinéad. When she died, I cried. Then every radio, every pub, every home was playing her music: she was Ireland's Lady Diana

When The World Was Young

Have you ever thought about playing “In The Name Of The Father” live?
No, I've never played it live: it's too orchestral… and I don't think Bono would fly anywhere to sing it! I've performed “Thief Of Your Heart” a few times. “In The Name Of The Father” and the song I wrote for Sinéad O'Connor are among the things I'm proudest of. I was very close friends with Sinéad. When she died, I was having a cup of tea: I heard the news and I cried. Then every radio, every pub, every home in Ireland was playing her music: a collective mourning, as if Ireland's own “Lady Diana” had died. An artist like that never truly dies.

“When the World Was Young,” which you mentioned earlier, is one of the most poignant songs in your catalogue. Who is it dedicated to?

To me, to all of us when we were young. We all lived on the same street. Me, Guggi, Bono. We'd meet up carrying our vinyl records under our arms: Bowie, Roxy Music. I had long hair, earrings, while they had a confidence I didn't have. Maybe because they went to less brutal schools. But a friendship formed instantly. All three of us had difficult relationships with our fathers. That's what bonded us. Bono lost his mother at 14; Guggi came from a very strict family and suffered violence; I had an absent father. We all wanted just one thing: to get out of there. I wrote the song together with another great friend, a special person: Dave Ball, with whom I made the whole of “Ecce Homo.” In the 1980s Dave and I spent a lot of time together in London, especially in Soho, which was a completely different place back then. And it's Soho, the world of “Non Stop Erotic Cabaret,” that I wanted to pay tribute to in another song on “Ecce Homo”: “Cabarotica.” I was a huge fan of Soft Cell: Dave Ball and Marc Almond pushed boundaries further than most others at the time. With the Virgin Prunes we'd worked before with Colin Newman, but we wanted a musician more than a “label producer”: someone who understood our DIY urgency. So Dave came in for our second record. It was a turbulent time: the band was falling apart, Soft Cell were also splitting up, Thatcherism was tightening its grip on England, and Catholic Ireland remained suffocating. The 80s weren't the brilliant decade many remember — they were hard, tough, full of homophobia, sexism, racism. Of course, there were also signs of liberation: Bowie had opened a door, then Boy George, Marc Almond, Jimmy Somerville, artists who literally saved lives, giving queer kids someone to recognise themselves in.

Working with Dave Ball was fantastic. A direct, physical man. A big bear of a guy, with a powerful voice, but the music that comes out of him is minimal and gentle

Me & Dave Ball

What was it like making the album with Dave Ball?

I hadn't seen Dave since 1985. Then, about ten years ago, he wrote to me: “I know you love Suicide. Would you like to record a cover of ‘Ghost Rider‘ for Alan Vega's 70th birthday?” I listened to it and said yes right away. We worked remotely, and every so often he'd send me new rhythmic ideas: “Want to try something over this?” We traded files back and forth for two years. I'd record vocals and melody lines, then just leave them there, with no fixed plan in mind. Until, one day, I realised an album was taking shape. I got in touch with Dave and we worked on it a bit more. At a certain point I told him: “Come to Dublin. I want to give the sound more of my own identity, add strings, cellos, an orchestral dimension.” I wanted the album to be widescreen but with an electronic, Teutonic, disciplined heart. Dave was thrilled. It was 2019 when I decided to finish the lyrics and arrangements. Then, March 2020: we were in the studio mixing when the news about the pandemic started coming on TV. Ireland responded by shutting everything down. I put the record “in the fridge” for two years, then went back to the mixes. Dave is direct, physical, a big bear of a man, with a powerful voice, but the music that comes out of him is minimal and gentle. I wanted to add sopranos and layering, he kept things on an essential course. It was all very natural, no tension at all: not a duo album, but a Gavin Friday record, co-written and co-produced with him. It's a “cinematic” work: I love creating sound-worlds, like Kate Bush or Tom Waits, where you step in and live inside a story.

People who love your music step into it together with you, especially at a live show. When will you be back in Italy?

I'll be back in spring, including in Italy: I've started announcing dates in the Benelux countries and Ireland, then the UK, and I hope to add more Italian dates soon. I won't be disappearing for another thirty years!

(26 October 2025)

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Piergiorgio Pardo, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition