Mike Scott (musician) - The Waterboys

The Waterboys

For the main article, see The Waterboys.

The Waterboys' membership has changed a great deal throughout the group's existence. Anthony Thistlethwaite, Karl Wallinger, Kevin Wilkinson and Steve Wickham all made major contributions, but Scott describes the band as his project. "o me there's no difference between Mike Scott and the Waterboys; they both mean the same thing. They mean myself and whoever are my current travelling musical companions." The Waterboys' first release was a single of "A Girl Called Johnny" in March 1983. The first album came out that June. Along with The Waterboys, the next two albums, A Pagan Place and This Is the Sea, released in 1984 and 1985, contained songs mostly written by Scott, and together formed the band's "Big Music" period. After the official addition of fiddler Steve Wickham and a move to Ireland, the next two albums Fisherman's Blues (1988) and Room to Roam (1990) were instead Celtic music-inspired folk music, a sound similar to that of We Free Kings, a band that Scott and Wickham performed with in 1986. Scott's musical style changed again when he, under the name The Waterboys but without any other members, recorded a hard rock album, Dream Harder, in 1993. It was the last album to come out under the band's name until 2000. The band had dissolved over personnel issues and Wickham's desire to remain with a folk-rock, or purely folk music, sound. After two Mike Scott solo albums, A Rock in the Weary Land was released under The Waterboys name, demonstrating yet another musical style, which Scott called "Sonic rock". 2002's Universal Hall was a return to a folk-rock sound. It was followed by Karma to Burn, released in 2005, which was the groups' first official live album, Book of Lightning, released in 2007, and An Appointment With Mr Yeats, released in 2011.