The appreciable and authentic name Michael McDermott alone conjures sounds and images of that as a pristine and accomplished singer-songwriter. It also evokes a listener to say they’ve heard McDermott before but can’t maybe quite remember the song, time, or place they did. Yet when the listener hears his fervently emotive vocals and force of songwriting, they damn want to know more about the voice coming at the, Yes, if talent was the underlying judge, surely Michel McDermott would be headlining amongst the likes of Ray Lamontage and David Gray.
With his 14th album What in the World out on June 5th, McDermott is proving he indeed keeps getting better at his born talent of being a rock and roll singer.
“I’m sure you know the story,” he says, “record deal early, some modicum of success, and then the long slow descent and destruction. Jail, rehab, fortunate enough to be alive, man. I’m from Chicago, like eight miles from where John Prine grew up, so this is how we do Americana in Chicago, mother——-rs!” he laughs, “I gave Nashville a little bit of a try, but decided why would I want to be around a bunch of people like me?”
McDermott still has received his due and share of new listeners in the past five years. 2016’s Willow Springs went to Number One on the European Americana chart, and the string of critically-acclaimed albums go back to that major label debut, 620 W. Surf, in 1991, and the semisuccessful single “A Wall I Must Climb” which boasts the brilliant and prescient lyric, “so quiet is my sickness.” “Yeah,” Michael muses, “that was the gamechanger. Critics were calling me the next Dylan, next Springsteen, I got into Rolling Stone, the New York Times, CNN, all that. And as soon as it came, it was gone. It’s a funny feeling to be 23 or 24 and washed up, you know? It kind of sent me sideways.”
Glide is thrilled to premiere “The Things You Want” from McDermott’s new LP (below), a soul searching and revelatory rocker that breeds with Springsteen intensity and Steve Earle’s boldness and broadness.
“I spent a long time chasing what I thought I wanted or needed,” says McDermott. “That kind of search can lead you down many a dark road. I traversed each and every one of those roads that lead me absolutely nowhere. Desire is a flame that ultimately ends up burning the holder of that torch. Happy is the man who wants what he has…took me a long time to learn that one. I heard a bunch of stories about my father that I didn’t know. One of them was in the 2nd verse of this song. I always learned more about my dad from eavesdropping on him talking to other people than I ever gleaned from him talking to me….we just didn’t work like that”
