SXSW Interview: Feargal Sharkey
Austin Convention Center, Thursday, March 18What if Feargal Sharkey hadn’t sent the Undertones debut single “Teenage Kicks” to UK deejay godhead John Peel? For one thing, Peel would’ve played more of the Fall, itself a seeming impossibility. Fortunately, the late Peel’s golden ear failed no one, and the Undertones’ 1978 punk anthem to post-pubescent hormonal overdrive went on to become, as Peel noted, “the greatest single ever recorded.” Sharkey could well have retired after that, but as he pointed out to Rolling Stone Senior Editor David Fricke, once Peel spun the track on his BBC radio program – twice in a row – Sire’s Seymour Stein was hooked. “We figured if the Clash were worth $150,000, then we were worth at least $160,000,” the natty Sharkey explained. And they got it, too. More recently, Sharkey’s role as the head of UK Music (www.ukmusic.org), an umbrella organization representing virtually all aspects of the musical creative process in the UK, has proven to be a model of what “a stubborn, bloody-minded” Northern Irishman can accomplish. “Let me be very frank about this,” the passionate Sharkey summed up. “If I can give the same opportunity to a young person [that I had at age 18], I’ll do a deal with the devil. Technology is important, but it’s the music that matters.”
This article appears in March 19 • 2010.