Tom Dunne: As the Waterboys release a fine album, let's recall the five ages of Mike Scott 

Many people got into The Waterboys through their brilliant early albums, but new release Life, Death, And Dennis Hopper looks set to join that list of classics 

A detail from the cover of Life, Death, and Dennis Hopper, by The Waterboys.

In the Q&A section of a recent interview I did with Mike Scott at the Irish Film Institute, an audience member was in wry form. “Any truth, Mike,” he asked, “that they are going to erect a statue of you in Spiddal?” He was joking and we laughed heartily. But that said, I’ve heard worse ideas.

 If there was to be a statue, it would be erected to commemorate the Fisherman’s Blues album. Its recording in Spiddal was the stuff of myth: a £250,000 SSL recording desk transported via truck on the worst roads in Europe; the use, some say, of 40% of all the quarter inch recording tape used in Ireland that year.