The Waterboys’ new concept album, Life, Death and Dennis Hopper, was released today (April 4). The inventive 25-track collection presents a sonic exploration of the fascinating life and times of late actor and maverick director Dennis Hopper.
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The project was the brainchild of Waterboys frontman Mike Scott, who also enlisted several guest artists to contribute to the album, including Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, Fiona Apple, and Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes.
In a new interview with American Songwriter, Scott explained how the concept album was born out of an appreciation he began developing for Hopper about 10 years ago, when he stumbled upon an exhibit of Dennis’s photography in London’s Savile Row.
“I walked around this exhibition, and I fell in love with his eye, with the way he chose what to take photographs of, how he framed it … and the world that was captured in these pictures,” Mike noted. He added that the images were “of early-’60s Los Angeles, just as the ’60s are beginning to come into color.”
Scott continued, “So, that made me interested in Dennis the man. Of course, this was completely different from my preconception of him. I didn’t know he was a photographer, and I didn’t know about his background in pop art, and all these pop artists, like Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol, were in the pictures. And so, there was a world to explore here.”
Scott proceeded to start reading about Dennis and his work.
“So I began to develop an appreciation of the arc of his life,”. Mike shared. “That didn’t make me write an album about him, but it did make me write a song about him.”
More About the Genesis of Life, Death and Dennis Hopper
The song, appropriately titled “Dennis Hopper,” appeared on The Waterboys’ 2020 album, Good Luck, Seeker.
After recording the tune, Scott recalled, “I thought, ‘Dennis Hopper, he’s [had] such a colorful life. Maybe we should do a couple of mashups of this track that have got different lyrics about different periods of his life.’” He and Waterboys keyboardist Brother Paul both proceeded to create mashups, and then Scott put together a digital EP of songs focusing on Hooper.
According to Mike, what really kicked the concept album into high gear was that some of his Waterboys bandmates did a secret recording session and then sent him seven instrumental tracks and asked if he could write lyrics for them.
“It was one of the nicest surprises or gifts anyone had ever given me,” he maintained. “And the instrumentals were just fantastic, fabulous, and music that I wouldn’t have written or wouldn’t have been able to write myself.”
At that same time, Scott had been reading a book of interviews with Hopper from various stages of his career. And so, as Mike explained, “[S]uddenly, I was writing about Dennis over all these instrumentals, just from nowhere. Suddenly this gate opened.”
About Steve Earle’s Guest Appearance on the Album
To kick off the album, Scott wrote a song called “Kansas,” which was inspired by Hopper’s childhood in Kansas and Missouri, and his desire to head west to California, “where movies were made.”
Mike said he wasn’t happy with the music he’d written for the song, thinking it “didn’t sound American enough.” He new Steve Earle because they had the same manager, so he reached out to the alt-country veteran and asked if he could come up with music for the tune.
Earle sent back a demo of the song, and Scott not only liked his music but his vocal as well.
“[H]is vocal was so great on the demo that I thought, ‘Screw this. I’m not gonna sing this. It’s got to be him,’” Scott said. “But, of course, it means that the first track on … a Waterboys album [is] sung by Steve Earle. And I just love that.”
Contributions from Springsteen and Other Guest Artists
Scott told American Songwriter that after Earle, he didn’t plan on getting any other guest artists involved in the album. That changed after he played some of the tracks for his friend, veteran U.K. A&R man David Bates. Bates suggested that instead of taking on various roles himself on select songs, Scott should get more outside artists involved.
The most famous artist who lent his talents to the project was Springsteen.
Bruce did a spoken-word segment in the song “Ten Years Gone,” about Hopper’s descent into drug addiction during the 1970s and ’80s. Springsteen’s part replaced one that Scott had already recorded.
“Bruce delivered it in inimitable fashion, beautifully,” Mike said. “And … like so many people, I’m a fan of Bruce’s live performances, where he would deliver these unforgettable stories, like how he met Clarence Clemons that he used to do at the end of ‘E Street Shuffle’ back in the ’70s and so on. … And so, I went to him and he did this beautiful voice over [the track] in that voice.”
Apple sings lead vocals and plays piano on a song called “Letter from an Unknown Girlfriend.” The intense, edgy song was inspired by accounts of Hopper’s abusive behavior toward multiple romantic partners.
Goldsmith contributed falsetto backing vocals to “I Don’t Know How I Made It,” an introspective song about Hopper’s emergence from his dark years of addiction.
Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine makes a spoken-word cameo portraying a “hippie girl” in search of Hopper’s house in the song “Freakout at the Mud Palace.” The tune was based on a period that the actor/director spent partying heavily while living in Taos, New Mexico, in the early 1970s.
More About Life, Death and Dennis Hopper
Life, Death and Dennis Hopper’s 25 tracks are arranged chronologically. Besides the previously mentioned tunes, the album features songs about Hopper’s 1950s career as an up-and-coming Hollywood star, his involvement in promoting Andy Warhol’s art during the early 1960s, his massive success as director and co-star of the legendary 1969 counterculture biker film Easy Rider, and his role as crazed killer Frank Booth in David Lynch’s 1986 psychological thriller Blue Velvet.
The album also features five instrumental songs that are each inspired by one of Hopper’s wives.
The Waterboys’ 2025 Tour Plans
The Waterboys have more than 70 tour dates lined up for 2025 in North American and Europe. The band’s itinerary begins with a U.K. leg running from a May 1 show in Basingstoke through a July 19 concert in Truro. The group also will perform in Dublin, Ireland on June 7. During July and August, the band has more European shows scheduled in Italy, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the U.K.
In September, The Waterboys will head to North America for a monthlong series of shows in the U.S. and Canada. The trek begins on September 4, in Washington, D.C., and runs through an October 4 performance in Oklahoma City.
The band will wind down 2025 with a fall European trek that will visit Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain. The outing is plotted out from an October 31 gig in Gothenburg, Sweden, through a December 2 show in Pamplona, Spain.
Scott shared with American Songwriter an approximate plan for the show The Waterboys will present during the upcoming tour.
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“We’ll play about [a] half an hour or so of Waterboys favorites, older numbers [at the beginning],” he said. “Then we’ll play enough of the Hopper album, not the whole of it, but maybe 40, 45 minutes, to cover the arc of the story and the main points. And then, we’ll do another half hour of older Waterboys music. It’ll be fabulous.”
Life, Death and Dennis Hopper Track List:
- “Kansas” (featuring Steve Earle)
- “Hollywood ’55”
- “Live in the Moment, Baby”
- “Brooke/1712 North Crescent Heights”
- “Andy (A Guy Like You)”
- “The Tourist” (featuring Barny Fletcher)
- “Freaks on Wheels”
- “Blues for Terry Southern”
- “Memories of Monterey”
- “Riding Down to Mardi Gras”
- “Hopper’s on Top (Genius)”
- “Transcendental Peruvian Blues”
- “Michelle (Always Stay)”
- “Freakout at the Mud Palace”
- “Daria”
- “Ten Years Gone” (featuring Bruce Springsteen)
- “Letter from an Unknown Girlfriend” (featuring Fiona Apple)
- “Rock Bottom”
- “I Don’t Know How I Made It” (featuring Taylor Goldsmith)
- “Frank (Let’s F—)”
- “Katherine” (featuring Anana Kaye)
- “Everybody Loves Dennis Hopper”
- “Golf, They Say”
- “Venice, California (Victoria)/The Passing of Hopper”
- “Aftermath”
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