Storm Window

The Prairie Dogg finds the dirt on squatting rats, high tide at “The Sal” and going on a Titanic beer run with Steve Twigger of Gaelic Storm.
PD: So do you travel by plane, bus or rickshaw?
ST: It’s closer to the rickshaw. We have a fifteen-person passenger van that gets us most places, although it seems a rat has made its home in the van.
A live rat or a dead rat?
Well, it’s been eating things. It ate my coat. And it left a few pieces of itself around the van, shall we say. I’m sure U2 doesn’t have to deal with that.
Is home Santa Monica or Coventry [England, Twigger’s hometown]?
We all live in the States now. I just moved to rural Virginia in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Los Angeles is not a particularly real place. It’s an extension of Disneyland.
Have you become Americanized?
Some of the rough edges have been smoothed down. Although Patrick [Murphy, vocals and accordion] is Irish, and I still can’t understand half of what he says.
Aren’t accents a magnet for women?
It’s just as well we have the accents, because we’re both ugly as sin.
Is there anything you miss about the UK when you’re here?
I miss the pub culture. It really is a way of life back there. There are weddings and funerals, and I’m sure quite a number of babies are conceived in the pub.
Are there any “authentic” pubs here?
What people don’t understand about authenticity is that the pub has a sort of dirt and grime to it. The phone numbers written on the bar. The funky elements that make it feel lived in.
What pub do you miss the most?
The Salutation. Everybody calls it “The Sal” where my parents live in Cornwall, a little fishing village. When the key floods, there’s a foot of water in the pub at high tide. Everybody puts on their Wellington boots and goes to the bar to splash around and have a pint.
Do you prefer Jameson whiskey, Guinness stout or Bud Light?
(Laughs) When I’m not drinking, I drink Bud Light.
Is there an Undisputed Drinking Champion of the band?
(Laughs) We know who’s not the champion, but I won’t say. The rest of us get a good run at it.
If Gaelic Storm were really playing on the Titanic, would the band play on as the ship sank?
We’d wait until everybody got off, and then we’d go for the beer.