The Goo 1
Interview ADHAMH O’CAOIMH Trevor Knight is the ma
in constant in The Devil’s Spine Band, a musical/performance gathering featuring dancers, artists, actors and musicians who sporadically come together to create chaos in cowboy hats. Knight was born in England, moved to Ireland in the late 1950s and began his early musical education studying piano. During the 1970s, while a student, he formed the experimental jazz fusion band Naima, and in the late 70’s formed Auto da Fé, an avant-garde pop group that featured Gay Woods on vocals. The group recorded three albums and toured extensively during the 1980s with shows featuring a strong theatrical performance element. In addition to his work in experimental jazz and pop, Trevor Knight has composed music for theatre productions, much of it existing as compositions in their own right. With an album in the can, Trevor took time out to chew tobacco with our own gunslinger Adhamh O’Caoimh. Can you talk to me about the inspiration behind this behemoth of a record? If that’s the word! Well, it started life in 2011. I had been working with an artist named Alice Maher, on more interdisciplinary projects. We had made some films together and performed live, and we got together with Olwen Fouéré, an actor, and the three of us were just brainstorming around PAGE 38 what we might do next, and the cowboy thing came up among a series of coincidences. I went to America with a play called ‘Catalpa’ with Donal O’ Kelly, a one man show with live music. We were in Colorado, and I happened to go to Leadville to visit. I saw a plaque on the wall of the Tabor Theatre, saying that Oscar Wilde had performed there, and Charles Dickens, on their lecture tours of America. I started to read up about the history of how he got to this place, and this idea of a mix of the cowboy thing with that Victorian, gothic thing, mixed in together, it sparked my imagination. I had been working with butoh dancers who suggested maybe we do something around it, and everybody got on board with their inner cowboy, so to speak.