By Chaos, Freelance Writer
Andrew McIntyre
THIS IS the final segment of an interview with Andrew McIntyre. The first segment was carried in yesterday's Sunday Gleaner.
"JUNIOR SAID 'Well listen, we're leaving for Europe in two days' and... I was hired backstage as a background vocalist and rhythm guitarist. He said 'Bring your passport to the hotel and, after Europe, we're going back on the road in August'. He gave me 10 albums and said 'Learn that and when we get back to Jamaica we'll rehearse and then we'll tour'. It ended up being four and a half years," McIntyre said, shaking his head and smiling.
"During the Europe tour I was kept waiting and wondering. I got a call, saying that a ticket was at the airport. I got a taxi to the airport... he said we're gonna rehearse and that was four and a half years."
"The cool thing was that they had just got back together and were playing big venues, open-air productions- big stuff. Bob had died, The Wailers got back together, people wanted to see them... Bob had hits to stone dog."
Andrew McIntyre's evolution into a Wailer was by no means smooth sailing. He was walking into a band that forever will be connected to the biggest reggae star in history and that had all the baggage that goes along with it. He explained: "As time went by, he (Marvin) began to incorporate me more into the set, as an 'uptown' boy with The Wailers. I had to prove myself. Every night there were two or three guys backstage trying to take my job (they would turn up, unsolicited, to audition) and we toured the world," McIntyre said, going on to list some of the many countries he toured with the band, which include Israel, the United States, Brazil, Spain, Australia and England.
"After four and half years and an album - Majestic Warriors - I was on my own," he said. McIntyre wrote one of the tracks on the album, Sweet Cry Freedom.
When asked why he left what seemed to be a successful collaboration, McIntyre shrugged, paused and then picked his words with care. "It was... a combination of things - money, ego, irreconcilable differences, people moving in different directions... It was a gift, a once-in-a-lifetime gift, even if bad tings did gwaan. I have 'wicked' memories, I sang to 90,000 people in Cologne (Germany)... Carrot Jarrett left first, there were changes on the keyboard, then I left... Some likkle foolishness, but I don't want to dirty the image, I had some wonderful experiences..."
In a number of cases, Jamaican musicians seem to have extremely bad luck when it comes to timing. Damian 'Junior Gong' Marley, for example, released his album Half-Way Tree on September 11, 2001. In this case, McIntyre went to Los Angeles (L.A.) and then his 'bad luck' happened.
It was April 1992 and a jury had just found the policemen who were accused of the beating of Rodney King - a black man - not guilty of any wrongdoing. The city erupted in rioting and fire and took a long time to heal its wounds. McIntyre's efforts were lost somewhere there. Not long after, he left The Wailers.
So it was back to Jamaica. "I started a band with Rupert Bent III, Fahrenheit and Andrew Simpson called 'Offbeat' - an acoustic band," he said.
The band, however, 'just grew apart' and he moved back to New York. "I started playing out in New York, recorded my album Precious Time with Gordon Mack III (the producer of, among others, Madonna, Eyrkah Badu and D'Angelo) - it was being distributed in Germany but the distributors went out of business. I got a deal in Germany. I was the co-owner of Jamrock (a recording label), but the distributors went out of business after about three months. People were calling the radio stations, saying they could not find the album (after the first single had been released and was on many a radio station playlist), so it was pulled off the playlists," he explains philosophically.
The company was dissolved and it was back to New York, where McIntyre built a home studio, played at some clubs, set up his website www.andrewmcintyre. net and slowly established himself as a producer and returned to his studio engineering roots. He also became a stage manager, acting in that capacity for acts such as Angie Stone and Joe (at Reggae Sumfest).
He has also played with North American act Big Mountain, played at Japansplash and worked freelance for MTV Road Rules - 'You have to call to get paid' - as well as a bartender between gigs.
For Andrew McIntyre, everything is relative. He played at stadiums and small clubs, tended bar and sang before thousands of cheering fans. Relative.
"I just love to play. 90,000 was the biggest but the little shows, when everyone is around you and they're close and they can see your fingers moving, your body movement - they (the musician and the audience) feed each other. In a big arena, you're not feeling every- thing. Little clubs can be much more beautiful. Of course, you want the big audiences. It's not to say I want to play small clubs all my life. There are perks to big shows feeling your lungs expand... I mean I've played, I've tasted the energy at the big shows, I've been on-stage and seen people jumping on-stage and the security people throwing them back into the crowd... and we're wondering if they're insane," McIntyre says.
"I love the colour of music. You can play the same chord 50 different ways, there are 50 different pastels of colours," he emotes, doing his best to verbally describe what he is blessed enough to see and even more to the point, create, no matter the sacrifice.
To Andrew McIntyre, it is the music that matters.
