Mike’s back on track
Mike Paterson has shed his indie skin to reveal a rather surprising trad interior. Having announced himself on the music scene a decade ago as the front man of the much-loved Travis Oaks Mike moved to Berlin where he continued making music before returning to Ireland in 2018.
The Mountnugent man made an abrupt about turn just over a year ago towards raucous trad and Cruxty was born - a loose collection of collaborators orbiting around the one constant, Mike. His social media account spills over with faithful renditions of standard ballads such as Nancy Spain and Raglan Road, however, its when he ups the tempo that Cruxty comes into its foot-stomping best.
The Celt admits to being surprised by Mike’s trad turn, but he points out that, like many, his musical initiation was through Scór na nÓg as a youngster performing in the ballad group of the GAA cultural competition.
“I’ve always loved singing Irish ballads and I’ve kept doing that, but never really pursued it properly,” he says. “Somehow singing ballads and playing a guitar by yourself it never really had the exact feeling that I wanted.”
The trad stars aligned for Mike in autumn 2022 when his brothers bought him a modest bouzouki. It allowed him to continue strumming chords as an accompaniment but the shift in pitch just sounded better.
“I started banging away at that,” he recalls and next thing he knew he was recording arrangements. “No one is recording trad music that sounds exactly like what I had in minds, so I thought - I’ll give it a go!”
The project’s name is literally grounded in local heritage as it refers to a bog “down the road” between Mountnugent and Oldcastle.
“Whenever I was in secondary school I remember a lad saying that’d be a good name for a band. I was like: Yip, I’m having that - one day I’ll use it, and there it is.”
He didn’t work the Cruxty Bog, but he was acquainted with nearby Ross Bog.
“Enough to know I didn’t want to do it again,” he admits of his brief time footing turf.
The name also echoes that trad behemoth Planxty, and Mike points to their frontman as a major influence.
“A lot of the style is drawn from early Christy Moore - you know Prosperous and Planxty, even Sean O’Riorda big band stuff - that no one’s really doing at the minute, that’s what I was trying evoke.
He describes the Cruxty sound as “atmospheric”
“It’s ‘60s revival style but there is modern synth drones going on, I’m trying to meld those two things together to create epic scale music.”
The Celt notes Cruxty’s punk sensibility.
“I can’t help it, there’s going to be a bit of rock ‘n’ roll in whatever I do as well. The thing about trad is when you really hammer it out, it does rock - you can’t help but rock, which is why there’s all these rock punk fusion bands - The Pogues and even the Mary Wallopers to a large degree these days. I think it’s inherent in the music, or at least inherent in the way I play it.”
While Irish trad is the focus of his current work, possibly Cruxty’s stand out track is the magnificent ‘Wassail To Thee’.
“It’s an English medieval poem that I just happened to stumble upon last winter,” he says, explaining that Wassail is essentially the English equivalent of going on the Wren. The full-blooded tune that Mike composed gets a quality video to match.
“I wanted to make something of a certain standard - you know if someone looks me up, ‘oh this looks professional’. I put a fair bit of money into that music video.”
With the idea of a rambunctious medieval banquet he enlisted some pals - including some from Cavan band Jobseekerz - and employed professional filmmaker Tim Shearwood to make it a reality. With most of the cast kitted out in tracksuits, but drinking from goblets in candlelight, it somehow works. It’s great, think the Irish Olympic team invading Henry Tudor’s gaff.
“It was really necessity more than anything,” he recalls of the thought process behind the tracksuits. “I’ll put the money into making the banquet look real and I’ll get all my mates who I know have fancy tracksuits, and myself to dress up. It sort of works. Thematically it’s the old meets the new.”
Other Cruxty tunes worth a listen to are his renditions of Jacobite by Scottish poet Robbie Burns and the classic Raggle Taggle Gypsy.
Mike’s looking forward to showcasing his new sound at a Trad conference later this month with the brilliant title, ‘Your Roots Are Showing’. Since November he’s also been busy playing bass with the blisteringly good Cavan indie duo Dirty Marmalade.
“They’re two brilliant musicians - so I’m happy to play with great musicians all the time. We did a gig there on New Year’s night in McGinnity’s Downstairs and it was good fun.”
Despite keeping the indie door ajar with the Marmalade, he sees no return for Travis Oaks.
“One of those things unfortunately life got in the way and it’s not going to happen unfortunately. What can we do? Enjoy what we had.”
Instead, his mind is fixed on Cruxty. With a “metaphorical album” worth of tracks recorded, he plans to continue fledging individual songs on TikTok where you will find him @cruxtymusic.
“That has been my main focus. I just try to bash away at the algorithm.”