Original Fun Lovin’ Criminal Huey Morgan looking forward to playing iconic Come Find Yourself record in Derry this Hallowe’en

Huey, who has been visiting Derry and Donegal in various guises for 30 years, is looking forward to unleashing ‘Come Find Yourself’ once again.

“I was up most recently doing a DJ gig and talking to a bunch of people about doing a ‘show show’,” he recalls of a well-received DJ set at the Stendhal festival in 2023.

"I said then that if I'm still alive during the 30th anniversary I'll come by. I guess this is it man.”

The affable New Yorker is bringing a brand new band to the Guildhall on Sunday, November 1, to perform tracks from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ iconic debut, which made the band a household name in the late 1990s.

Hits like ‘Scooby Snacks,’ ‘King of New York’ and ‘Fun Lovin’ Criminal’ received rotation radio play and earned the New York funk-rockers considerable chart success.

"I'm lucky enough to be playing this record 30 years after I made it. Who would have ‘thunk’ it bro'? I love being able to travel to places when they are anticipating something nice. When you go to Ireland, especially around October/November, we are anticipating Christmas, and there is always a good little vibe.”

Huey was speaking to the ‘Journal’ ahead of his forthcoming tour. The Criminals’ output, he remembers, really resonated with Irish audiences when it was dominating the airwaves in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

“When we first came out Oasis were leading this wave of Britpop. Then there was us coming in and talking about robbing a bank on valium.

"For whatever reason it connected to the same sensibilities people had, maybe not with the same musical tastes, but people realised I wasn't taking myself too seriously. We were having some fun with this and it was a way to enjoy ourselves.

“Of course, we were taking the music side seriously. The tunes and the musicians were really good. That formula, I think, really endeared ourselves with the Irish,” he reflects.

One of Huey’s guitar playing heroes, he divulges, was one of the greatest Irish musicians of all, the late, great Rory Gallagher.

"That dude was one of those guys that everybody thought was one of the best guitar players in the world but if you asked him he would be like 'I can barely make it through the tune'. Self-deprecation is one thing but being truly humble in the eyes of God – that is something you can't fake.

"I think a lot of people see music and musicians as all just this fake nonsense. I know I do. When something authentic comes around, something that is real, there is something that rings true, that's unique in this day and age,” he observes.

Rory famously spent his early years in his father Danny’s home town where he lived in the Bogside and attended the Christian Brothers’ at Brow-of-the-Hill.

His brother Dónal has acknowledged it was while listening to the American Forces Network being transmitted to the US navy based in Derry after WW2 that Rory first got into the Blues.

Ex-US Marine Huey says: “He was one of the first guitar players for me. He was influenced by the American blues stuff but he came from something divine. He was such a talented guy. His music, his playing, its nothing but heart and soul and hard work. You can tell.”

This ‘no bulls**t’ demeanor resonated when Huey was putting ‘Come Find Yourself’ together in the 1990s.

“I think this record when it came out rang true for a lot of people. It allowed me to have a fantastic life but also gain the perspective that this was a gift that I deserved to be giving back to people. This record is kind of unique in that it is my first big connection to everybody. I can go back and reconnect after 30 years with people.”

Hugh Thomas Diaz Morgan was born in New York City in 1968 and came of age during a golden era of music.

Meccas that birthed entire musical movements such as Paradise Garage (disco) and CBGBs (punk) were literally within walking distance from his home.

"Growing up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan was great. You had all this stuff. Back then New York City was the musical capital of America.

"Everything was happening there. When I first became properly aware of music it was the late 1970s and early 80s when hip hop came in,” he recalls.

Huey was also immersed in the rhythms and sounds of salsa, Latin jazz and boogaloo that resounded around the block on Avenue C (Loisaida) and Sixth where he grew up.

"Right around that time there was lot of this Latin music because there was a lot of Latin American immigrants in that neighbourhood.

“This was music that I knew as much as I knew Deep Purple’s 'Smoke on the Water' or the Ramones.

"That was a blessing to be able to be in that neighbourhood at that time and being a music head - it was like wow you can't get enough of this stuff.”

He recalls how legendary disco and funk auteur and Chic founder Nile Rodgers – a great favourite of Derry music audiences – once characterised the Lower East Side of those days.

Rodgers has spoken candidly of how his parents tragically suffered from heroin addiction when he was growing up.

“Nile is friend of mine,” says Huey. “When he was a kid he jammed with Jimi Hendrix in the West Village. He talked about the East Village and the West Village the way it really is. He said that when things weren't going too well they lived in the East Village. That's kind of what it was.

"It was a place where you could live very inexpensively. There was a lot of immigrant neighbourhoods squashed into that little area. Little Italy and Chinatown. Lower East Side from Houston to 14th Street, all around there you heard all these different kinds of music and culture and stuff.

"It was the place to be when I was a kid. It was greater than the sum of its parts.”

Huey was raised by his Puerto Rican-American mother and remembers being enriched by the diversity of cultures present in the neighbourhood at that time.

Every Friday night five families of different backgrounds who lived in his building would take turns looking after the ‘noisy boys’ including young Huey.

"That was probably the best way for me to experience these cultures while being like a part of the family.

"When you see people who don't understand other cultures you realise that you have to kind of live as a family member and then you understand the similarities that we all have.

"As a musician I was always interested in the emotions of the music of different cultures and how they are expressed. When they are happy what sort of music is that? When they are sad what kind of music is that? Sometimes that can inform you about a culture better than food or language.”

Though his father was Irish-American, he wasn’t around when Huey was growing up.

“I didn't really have an idea of my Irish heritage or any of that. When I first started going to Ireland, I knew I had Irish roots but I didn't know where.

"Every place I went everybody would tell me there are some Morgans from around here, which is the highest form of flattery. They were like, ‘We know you don't know where the f**k you are from but we'll take credit for you. You seem like a nice enough guy’.

"I always thought that was a really cool way to be. Over the years going back to Ireland has been a really great connection.”

Last year in his memoir, ‘Huey Morgan: The Fun Lovin’ Memoir’ he wrote about his mental health struggles after leaving the US Marines.

From a perspective of 30 years he acknowledges ‘Come Find Yourself’ was made during ‘one of the hardest times of my life’.

“For me I look back at a guy who was really struggling with adversity but was still able to make art that was good enough that 30 years later, even though I'm a different guy and not suffering as much as I was back then, I'm still playing for people.”

Huey admits it is a gift to be able to revisit his magnum opus now that he in a much better place.

“It's humbling and you have so much gratitude as an artist that you can play a record made 30 years ago and people are still like, ‘that's cool’.

“Maybe I'm a little but biased in that I wrote this record during a difficult period in my life but there is something to this record as well. I've a lot of gratitude to be able to play it again.

“I've put together this amazing band over the last couple of years and we are about to throw it down like it's never been thrown down before.

"It's going to be a fun gig. To be able to come to Northern Ireland and play it again it's crazy nuts.”

Huey Morgan & Full Band take over the Guildhall on Sunday, November 1, with Hypnic Jerk joining the party as special guest.

Doors open at 6.45pm, with the show kicking off at 7.30pm.

Tickets are available now via Ticketmaster Ireland: www.ticketmaster.ie