FEARGAL SHARKEY: BIG VOICE, BIG SOUND, BIG DEAL!

Former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey is the proud parent of two new albums. One, titled Feargal Sharkey, features a big, bright array of widescreen pop music, produced by his buddy Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. The other, with the same name, contains perhaps the gloomiest bunch of songs to come along since Job's last record.

The platters in guestion, of course, are one and the same, and the split personality is entirely intentional, says the 27-year-old Sharkey. "On a superficial level, hopefully it's just a good noise coming out of the speakers," he smiles. "But there's more going on if you dig deeper. I've always admired that technigue of songwriting, Smokey Robinson's 'Tears Of A Clown' being a classic case."

Holed up in a conference room in A&M Records' Manhattan office for the standard promotional interviews, Feargal Sharkey, the person, embodies the same kinds of contrasts that mark Feargal Sharkey, the LP. With his hawkish visage, he looks like a cool cat in his loose-fitting dark suit and wraparound shades, dragging on an endless chain of Marlboros as he confidently discusses the album. Then, he'll speak in a nervous rush and admit he's still a beginner. Split personality, indeed.

Feargal Sharkey knows what it means to be riding high in April and shot down in May. As lead singer for the Undertones, Northern Ireland's answer to the Ramones, he furnished rousing vocals for such zippy U.K. hits as "Get Over You" and "My Perfect Cousin" in the late '70s. But by the time the 'tones went under in 1983, he was "disillusioned and pissed off" at the commercial failure of the group's fourth LP, The Sin Of Pride.

"I was worn out," he recalls. "We'd made this adventurous album, and when it came out to almost total apathy, that was hard to live with. I was 24 at the time, married and with a kid, but I felt like people still expected us to be 17 and play 'Teenage Kicks.'

"After that, I wanted to make my records on my own, but I wasn't in a big hurry," says Sharkey, who began studying songwriting, producing, and even film directing because he'd decided "it wasn't enough for me to be a singer. I wanted more."

A well-deserved reputation as a powerhouse vocalist made it impossible to remain on the sidelines for long, however. Synth-pop whiz Vince Clarke (ex-Depeche Mode, ex-Yaz, and now Erasure) gave Sharkey a demo of a new song he'd written, and before long the two were in the studio for a one-shot session as the Assembly, recording "Never Never."

He laughs, "It was all the result of the music press. Vince had left Yazoo about the same time I left the Undertones, and one of the pop papers ran an item saying we were working together, which was completely untrue. I'd never even met him! But he decided to send me a tape of the song after seeing that in print and I thought it was brilliant."

So did the limey public. By the end of '83, "Never Never" had reached the U.K. Top Five. Notes Sharkey, "We figured that if a few Yazoo fans and a few Undertones fans bought it, the record would scrape into Top 40. Instead, it turned out to be the biggest hit either one of us had ever had."

"Never Never" gave him more than a financial boost. "That record was probably the first time I had the confidence to portray my own emotions, rather than just sing," he remembers. "I think that's the difference between good and bad singers. Most people can be taught to carry a tune—but only the good ones can make you believe them."

The unexpected success also made the prospect of a solo Sharkey a lot more appealing to record companies than before. Feargal landed a deal with Virgin U.K. simply on the strength of "Never Never" and "a few sketchy ideas. Maybe I talk good at meetings," he chuckles, puffing on his Marlboro.

Still taking it slow, Feargal made singles with Madness ("Listen To Your Father") and (!?!) Queen's Roger Taylor ("Loving You") before settling into the Eurythmics' London studio with old pal Stewart to work on the LP in mid-'85. When sessions started, Sharkey had no material or clear direction, just some pretty strong ideas of how he wanted to proceed.

"Most producers are into a regimented method of recording that entails making demos and then reproducing them as closely as possible. But how many times do you hear people say the demo was better than the actual record? I cut out the demo stage to try and make the end result more exciting.

"Dave and I decided at the start that this was going to be a singer's record, and to ensure that, we did something else that goes against accepted recording procedure. We'd lay down a backing track using guitar, a drum machine, and keyboards, and then I’d record the vocal as close to the finished version as possible.

My songwriting's still in its infancy. I've got a lot to learn."

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‘‘But instead of stopping there, we’d go ahead and erase everything but the vocal and build a new arrangement around it. I’ve found in the past that if the band goes in first and you add the vocals afterward, you can end up screaming over 14 tracks of guitar.

“We allowed ourselves to be led by the process rather than aim for a specific style. I might lay down a keyboard part halfway through a song that would send it off in a totally new direction, and we’d end up throwing out everything we’d previously done on the song.” Sharkey laughs, “The engineers began looking a little pallid after a few weeks of that.”

Mixed in Los Angeles, Feargal Sharkey took less than three months to create from start to finish. (Afterward, Stewart got Sharkey a part in a Bob Dylan video, but that’s another story.) As noted above, the LP’s jumbo sound showcases an overwhelmingly negative attitude. What’s the deal with the sad-sack outlook, Feargal?

“Actually, I’m quite happy and I was during the making of the album, too,” he insists. “I don’t see why I can’t sing a song like ‘Bitter Man’ in the studio and go out to dinner with a few friends afterward and have a good time. Dave helped me realize that.”

Sensible. What next? “Keep getting better. My songwriting’s still in its infancy. I’ve got a lot to learn.” Above all, Feargal Sharkey wants to keep doing what he does best. “Singers have a unique opportunity, because the great ones can make you cry. I’ve yet to hear a guitar player that can even remotely affect my emotions that way.”

So sing on, laddie. (3