It’s been another busy year for The Undertones, a stack of shows between April and August in mainland Europe, back on these shores and in Ireland (including dates with Adam Ant, Die Toten Hosen, OMD, Sex Pistols and Stiff Little Fingers) to be followed by two in Scotland, a dozen in England and Wales, then a grand finish across the Irish Sea taking them to Christmas, those 50 dates marking their 50^th year as a live concern in style. Not too shabby for part-time punk rock legends with an average age of 65.

It all started to come together in early 1976 (admittedly when their replacement frontman had just turned nine), the first show in February at St Mary’s Scout Hall in their home city of Derry, Northern Ireland, where 17-year-old singer Feargal Sharkey was a scout leader, and the second in March at St Joseph’s Secondary School, the day UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigned. However, as ever-present bass player Mickey Bradley put it in his 2016 memoir, Teenage Kicks: My Life as an Undertone, ‘When I went to O’Neill’s house that afternoon the rest of the band didn’t seem to be too bothered about the political earthquake in Downing Street. They were more worried about getting the amps and guitars up the hill to the school gym.’

While they split in 1983 and Feargal never returned – a successful solo career followed by a record industry role before carving a new niche as an environmental campaigner – the rest of the band reconvened in 1999, fellow Derry lad Paul McLoone stepping up to take on Sharkey’s duties and join Mickey, brothers Damian and John O’Neill, and drummer Billy Doherty, quickly proving himself, convincing would-be doubters. And 27 years on they’re still loving it.

At the start, the live set featured covers of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, (Chuck Berry’s) ‘Carol’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, Doctor Feelgood’s ‘Back in the Night’, Cream’s ‘Badge’, and Fleetwood Mac’s take on Elmore James’ ‘Shake Your Moneymaker’. And it seems odd now to think that just one of those songs had been around more than a decade back then.

Buoyed by those shows, they continued, completing six live engagements that year, by the following February starting what proved a regular residency across town at the Casbah, later immortalised in run-out ditty ‘Casbah Rock’ on their May 1979 debut LP.

In time they scored top 40 hits with ‘Teenage Kicks’, ‘Jimmy Jimmy’, ‘Here Comes the Summer’, ‘’You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It!)’, ‘My Perfect Cousin’, ’Wednesday Week’ and ‘It’s Going to Happen’, and three UK top 20 LPs, these latest dates part of their 50^th anniversary victory lap, joined on various dates by The Beat (featuring Ranking Roger Jr.), The Men They Couldn’t Hang, Jim Bob (ex-Carter USM), Ruts DC, and Tom Robinson.

There’s also an LP, 16 Live Humdingers, exclusively available on green vinyl at those shows, recorded in 2023 in Glasgow, 45 years after the success of ‘Teenage Kicks’ led them to Sire Records, their first appearance on Top of the Pops, and much more.

Along the way we’ve been treated to six acclaimed studio albums, the last two with McLoone, as well as various compilations, remasters, remixes and reissues, with countless more live shows since those scout hall, school and youth club beginnings in five decades of The Undertones as a live act. How did that come to be, Mickey?

‘I’ve no idea. It was a breakage in the space time continuum. That’s obviously what happened there. I wonder sometimes how different it would be if it had been a continuous 50 years. Maybe then I wouldn’t have looked on it with the same kind of attitude. But I think it was absolutely great and I think it’s still good. We’ve worn it well, we haven’t made big money like other bands have, but I’m content with the way it turned out, definitely.’

Bands often struggle to remain fresh after seven years or so, and maybe that was the case with you if you count 1976/83. But that doesn’t explain 27 successful years of The Undertones Mk II.

‘No, but I’ll tell you what explains that – it’s taken on a year-to-year basis. That’s the way we’ve gone. And although we’ve made records in that time, we’re out of that business model. We didn’t give up our day jobs, and for me that’s a big thing.

‘I remember that horrible interlude after {the initial split}, when I still thought I could maybe do something. Was it a year? Maybe. That was a horrible experience for me, and Damian didn’t like it either. That idea of trying to make it from scratch. I’m not made for that. Not my kind of thing.

“Since 1999 I look at it almost one show at a time, don’t see it in terms of a career progression or any of that. Some people would maybe love that, but I’m happy just to do shows here and there.

“We are writing, we’re working on new songs at the minute. But even that’s just on the basis of John having written and us able to get together – in my front room, because there’s no big rehearsal studios in Derry. We only did it maybe three times of about maybe two or three days. And that’s enough.

‘You get a good feeling for it. You’re not worried about it. There’s no pressure. Whether the songs have longevity, I don’t know. I don’t care. I was saying to the rest of them, at least John, ‘You know, I’d be happy even to not record them’ – just happy with what we had there. I don’t think I’m going to get away with that, but that’s the way I am at the minute.’ 

Too right you’re not getting away with that. I saw a short clip online of one such new song and was way too excited… and that was barely 30 seconds of footage.

‘Maybe that’s all you need! That was at the behest of a guy called Stephen Mealy, who happens to be Billy’s nephew by marriage, very close with him. He works in a local music shop, a sound guy, completely and utterly, keen as well. I was talking to him about getting together to practise a couple of songs, and he says, ‘You need to film it.’ I said no, but he insisted and our manager, Barry Stewart, got him to film it. I was like, ‘Please, no!’ But when you see it, you go, ‘No, he’s right.’

I recall, having twisted John’s arm to do a rare interview a few years back, him telling me he was really enjoying The Undertones again, the camaraderie and everything, which was clearly not the case come 1983.

‘Yes, and it’s in short bursts. That’s the thing as well. You’re not living, as my mother used to say, in each other’s pockets. None of that’s happening. We do the shows, we play, do sound checks, blah blah blah… we haven’t reached the stage where we travel in separate…’

Limousines, I venture? But he doesn’t take me up on it.

‘I love the travelling, and once we’re finished, I go out front, see if anybody wants a photo and that, then I’m very happy to walk back to the hotel. I don’t sit around throwing drink in the air, waiting for the bus to go. I just like a stroll back to the hotel or the bus or train.’

That doesn’t seem to have changed much. I was flicking back through your memoir and you mention that final date in 1983 at Punchestown racetrack, getting a bus home with several fans heading back north. A face in the crowd, no pretensions.

‘Yeah, there is something good about that. I think it’s good for your head.’

It sounds like Damian’s making progress with his book (watch this space). I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the images, and they’re so evocative. Now, feel free to put me right, but in my head – as is perhaps the case with many bands – you’re the memory man and Dee’s the scrapbook guy, the young lad with the press cuttings, flyers, collected photos, documenting the whole story. Is that a generalisation?

‘No, I think that’s right. Damian will ask, and it’s a running joke – especially now he’s thinking about the book – ‘Mickey Bradley – Mr Memory, did we do this or not?’ And I’ll say yes or no. But I’m not infallible. I’m not like the Pope!

‘For the book, I was sure of all my facts, but you get the odd thing wrong, misremember things. Also, there are things John has a different memory of, but I’m not convinced about. And others I don’t remember happening at all, like – as I said in the book – the time he was talked to by Special Branch backstage in Southampton {Gaumont Theatre, 1980}. I had no memory of that until it came up in conversation.

‘Generally, I have a memory of things though… maybe because I keep telling the stories. But Damian definitely keeps everything!’

When you were doing your book, were you checking old diaries?

‘Not so much. But 30 years ago, at least, I did a shorter version on the radio.’

I still have a copy of that, taped by a friend back in the day.  

‘And I did check things with Andy Ferguson, our manager then and still the semi-retired keeper of the flame. He knows where the bodies are buried! I checked some things for a little bit of guidance, but the rest of it, especially pre- ‘Teenage Kicks’, I’d have that in my head. I remember dates and the order of things.’

This time around, back on the road, you have an impressive array of support acts, starting with Ranking Roger Jr’s version of The Beat. Ever catch the original band back in the day?

‘I never saw them. In fact, I never saw any of the 2 Tone bands. They came to Belfast, but for various reasons I didn’t go. Maybe just that I didn’t have transport. I saw very few bands live.’

I’m also happy to see WriteWyattUK favourites The Men They Couldn’t Hang and Jim Bob on board, and Tom Robinson – for the London show with Ruts DC – is back. We’ve had a couple of chats, and the first time we spoke about how The Clash came but never played Northern Ireland first time around, but the Tom Robinson Band did a couple of times, as he was keen to stress.

‘And I went to see him. I don’t know who else in the band did. In Portrush, around ’78, probably.’

That sounds about right. Power in the Darkness era?

‘Yeah, and he was out after, sat at the front of the stage, a bunch of us sitting around. I remember saying, ‘Would you ever play in Derry?’ and him saying, ‘I’d love to play in Derry.’ I enjoyed the records, although I didn’t much like the guitar playing of Danny Kustow – too much for my liking! But Tom was great and he’s very entertaining, tells great stories between songs.’

We’ve talked before – and you describe it well in your memoir – about the early days at the Casbah – your Hamburg era. In fact, you write so vividly about all those 1975/77 shows and the path towards that classic debut EP the following year. And seeing as it’s now five decades since those first shows, how about those Waterside Youth Club and Top of the Hill dates in ’76 – had you moved on, set-wise, in that period before you properly discovered punk rock via the pages of the NME and John Peel’s radio show?

‘Not so much. The set was longer. Those youth clubs were about 300/400 yards away {from each other} but very different. At the Waterside, Damian and John’s cousin – Aidan Barrett – was one of the members running it, 17 or 18, and the one that got us to play. It was a Sunday afternoon, just one of those things – people didn’t expect much… and they didn’t get much! But we went through our repertoire.

‘Later in the summer of ’76, the Top of the Hill, was a very different experience. First, it was like a sports hall, so the sound was terrible, the audience not in any way getting us, or interested. We kind of wrote that off in our heads, still doing the same songs – Them, the Rolling Stones, all that – but we may have done an extra couple of Rolling Stones songs. We hadn’t yet made that next step, hearing the first Ramones LP. We didn’t hear that until mid-September or October 1976.’

Ever considered an opening set featuring those covers, maybe finishing with (if I recall right) John’s first song, ‘I Don’t Want to See You Again’?

‘I had the idea last year we could mark the 50 years by doing those six songs… but it never really got anywhere. We did, practising here in February – by which stage I knew it wasn’t going to happen – ‘Back in the Night’. We played it live a couple of times, but last time it wasn’t very good, so it’s been dropped. We did it the style of something else, a little faster – it was very nearly ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’! It was good. I don’t know whether we’ll revisit it.

‘We also had a run through ‘Jumping Jack Flash’. It was okay, but we never gave it enough time to change it, because we had John’s {new} songs to do as well. And we tried ‘Badge’ by Cream, which I wanted to do on the lines of something The Jesus and Mary Chain would play. You know, just very simple. But I missed the deadline and whether we revisit it, I don’t know.’

It’s 35 years since I first caught you live, aged 13 and a half (he adds in an Adrian Mole style), in June 1981 at Guildford Civic Hall.

‘Ah, Guildford Civic Hall – we saw Echo and the Bunnymen there {4 May 1981, a few weeks earlier}. They had all the army camouflage on stage. We wanted to see them and our manager organised it. We never met them or anything. We were just there.’

Ah, to go back in time and catch that… but then I couldn’t have said Dolly Mixture were the second band I saw live, followed around an hour later by The Undertones, my third. In fact, I’ve recently spoken to Debsey Wykes, who wrote last year’s wonderful Teenage Daydream: We Are the Girls Who Play in a Band’ memoir about her Dolly Mixture days, and bandmate Rachel Love, now playing live and recording with Railcard (watching this apace, readers), another fine outfit you feature regularly on your weekly BBC Radio Ulster show.

‘Oh, yes! Were they supporting us then?’

Yes, and clearly left an impression on this young teen.

‘Ah, interesting. That’s one thing I’m a wee bit vague as to exactly when bands supported us. I know The Chords did in 1979.’

Yes, and it was at the Civic Hall on that occasion that the Sham Pistols – Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Jimmy Pursey – infamously turned up and unsuccessfully tried to (erm) jam with you.

‘Yeah, and there was Orange Juice in 1980. That was great.’

All these great bands caught from the wings. However, looking back to 1981 pop music was changing rapidly. You packed a lot into that year though – from a massive UK tour to a big European one, plus a couple of singles that didn’t quite fly so high (great as they were) and more Top of the Pops appearances. I don’t suppose you’d change any of it now, but as ’81 turned to ’82 I wonder if you could have seen out that era and carried on the chart success. Or was that just an inevitable end to your commercial shelf life?

‘We could have played it differently. As you know, EMI signed us in 1981, and we had Positive Touch already recorded so just gave that to them. I don’t know who it was, but somebody told me at the time EMI thought they were getting more ‘Jimmy Jimmy’, so if we’d decided to go back to our roots, possibly so.

‘But by 1981, Buzzcocks were over after a similar kind of career and some top 20s. They’d had a huge hit with ‘Ever Fallen in Love’, but I’m always interested in what happened from there. In 1980 they did those three singles, then… 2 Tone happened, and I think that knocked us out as well. Then of course, New Romantic, and as I mention in the book, we were on Top of the Pops and Duran Duran were there, I saw the future and thought, ‘We’re not competing here.’

‘So, purely in that context, it was probably natural for us. We’d already made the mistake of getting a bit stylised in terms of clothes. I kind of look at that now and go ‘no!’ If we’d held our nerve… but then everybody would have had to have the same opinion. Things change.’

It seems odd that it’s now a staggering 19 years since Dig Yourself Deep, the most recent studio LP. Will there be at least one last long playing hurrah, not least if John’s writing again?

‘I have no idea. I would like to do EPs, but it’s not my call. But I’ll tell the rest of them you think it’s a good idea! That may sway it… I know I certainly won’t sway it!’

Well, we live and hope. Meanwhile, it’s been 27 years with the boy McLoone out front. Is he still on course to successfully complete his apprenticeship?  

‘He’s still on probation. I’m still waiting to see if it’s going to work out.’

He’s put in some impressive shifts on the shop floor. Employee of the month awards aplenty.

‘Yes, he’s great. He re-energized it, you know.’

Definitely, and I can’t help but smile when I hear the banter on stage, not least between you two.

‘He is a showman. And you have to have that. You can’t be shy and retiring, trying to be cool. And it really works and makes it easier for us.’

As for you, has the radio career now spanned 40 years?

‘Yes, 1986… although I left {BBC Radio Foyle} in 2020. In 1986 I was doing a music show, then at the end of that year I started becoming more involved in production.Then in 2020 I left, but I’m still doing the music show {BBC Radio Ulster}, enjoying it – playing good music, picking records.’

Absolutely, and although I’m sometimes a bit behind as most of my listening takes place in the kitchen while making tea or washing up, it’s one of my weekly highlights.

‘They prefer somebody {accessing the show} on BBC Sounds – then they know what they’re getting. My bosses click on that and go, “Oh right, okay.’

So I’m doing you a favour by tuning in later. Splendid.

Having chanced upon – for the first time in a while – the wondrous Julien Temple promo video for ‘My Perfect Cousin’ the other day, seeing those young lads deputising, I wondered if there’s a new generation of Bradley/Doherty/O’Neill/O’Neill/Sharkey/McLoone in the wings – your children, nephews and nieces forming their own ‘Tones outfit.

‘I wouldn’t think so. But you do know our good friend Vinny Cunningham was in that video, later making our film.’

Indeed, and he was working on a follow-up film I understand, charting the second part of the story from ’99 onwards. So sad he didn’t get the chance to complete that.

‘He was doing interviews for that almost up until he passed. But you know the lot of the freelancer – he probably had five or six things going on. And yeah, he just ran out of road.’

Very sad, but he made a huge contribution to the band en route, and Vinny won’t be forgotten by the band and the proper fans.

This year’s live Undertones outings end with Christmas dates at The Limelight, Belfast (19 & 20 December), including a DJ set from Terri Hooley, the maverick Good Vibrations label founder who initially released the Teenage Kicks EP.  

And next year kicks off with a 50^th anniversary Derry Weekender double-date (19 & 20 February) at the Millennium Forum, also involving The Skids and another Terri Hooley DJ set, dates continuing to pile up from there, including a shared bill with The Bootleg Beatles and Band Pres Llareggub at Portmeirion (9 July).

‘Yes, and we’re doing Rebellion {Blackpool} next August, a couple of shows here and there… and I assume the diary will fill up. We don’t do that many, but we’re still doing shows and at this stage there’s no point in stopping. I don’t think it’s going to be up to us though!’

Is that your fresh twist on Pete Townshend’s maxim – worthy of a t-shirt on the merch desk – heading from ‘Do the Fast’ in 1978 to ‘There’s really no point in stopping’ 48 years on?

‘Yeah, absolutely no point at all. ‘Hope I get very old before I die!’’

Well, I hope to get to Southampton in late November, my first Undertones date since Exeter last May, and I’ve told a friend in Cardiff I’d see you there one day, so need more 2027 dates in the diary when you have time… even if these current dates still seem a way off.

‘Ah, so many! And November seems a long way away. Also, Paul McLoone is getting married, would you believe it, so we’ll all be going to that in Dublin, to give him the bumps.’

Sounds like a plan, and congratulations to your probationer. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you all soon.

‘I will wave!’

Keep listening in, with your ear to the ground, over the next week or so for a special announcement on this website about The Undertones.

Meanwhile, the UK leg of The Undertones’ 50th anniversary tour will call at: Norwich Epic Studios, 5 October *; Leeds Project House, 16 October *; Birmingham O2 Institute, 17 October *; Sunderland Fire Station, 22 October **; Sheffield Foundry, 23 October **; Manchester O2 Ritz, 24 October **; Torquay Arena, 12 November ***; Cardiff Tramshed, 13 November ***; Bristol Electric, 14 November ***; Southampton The 1865, 20 November ****; Brighton Chalk, 21 November ****; London Electric Ballroom, 22 November ***** (*with The Beat, feat. Ranking Roger Jr. ** with The Men They Couldn’t Hang *** with Jim Bob **** with Ruts DC ***** with Ruts DC & Tom Robinson). For tickets and more information head here. You can also keep up to date with Undertones happenings via Facebook and Instagram.