GARTH Brooks may have spent his seven-hour flight home to the US from Ireland listening to an album by band Interference.
At least that was the hope of broadcaster Ray D’Arcy when he gifted the country legend a copy of The Sweet Spot at the end of an interview with him last week.
‘Have a listen to that, there’s a song on it called Something Right, your man has an incredible story,’ he said.
‘Your man,’ of course is the late Fergus O’ Farrell, from Schull, lead singer of Interference, generally regarded as one of the country’s greatest bands.
His story has been captured beautifully in the award winning documentary Breaking Out, by Michael McCormack.
It charts his life from his childhood in Schull, his diagnosis at eight with muscular dystrophy and the highs and lows of his musical career and personal life, until his death aged 48.
At different times it will have viewers crying with tears of laughter and also sadness.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan or not, made over 10 years by Michael, it’s powerful viewing and it won the George Morrison Feature Documentary Award at the 2021 Irish Film & Television Academy Awards and Best Irish Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh 2019, and is on general release in cinemas now including in Bantry.
Ray had Michael and Fergus’ father Vincent in the studio as guests on his radio show recently.
He said he was totally ‘blown away’ by the documentary which ‘wasn’t at all what you might typically expect from a music documentary.’
‘It’s really more about the human condition,’ he said. ‘That song, Something Right, comes on at the end of it, and it’s very moving, but of course that’s what happens at the end of a lot of films and documentaries, a song like that is picked on purpose. Often you find later on in the cold light of day it may not sound as good. But I shazamed it the next day, and I just thought it was a really good song.’
As part of his research ahead of his Garth interview he watched two documentaries on him: ‘He talks constantly about the sincerity of his songs. And something in my head connected what he said to Something Right.’
Ray said he imagined Garth must get sent thousands of songs every week: ‘But I said I’d give it to him and he might listen to it on the flight back. I could really hear him sing it so it’s not really a huge leap for him.’
Who knows? It may be part of his set when he plays Croke Park next year.
