Mike Scott is the lead singer and driving force behind The Waterboys, the band (and occasionally one-man show) that has infused rock and roll with a contemplative twist and the Celtic folk genre with a taste for spiritual transformation.
Mike first put down his spiritual roots in 1992 after viewing a video featuring one of the founders of Findhorn, a spiritual community in Mike's native Scotland. Though initially disillusioned by the "normalcy" and "everydayness" of Findhorn, while participating in a morning meditation he underwent, "a heart opening experience, where I could feel my heart 'coming on' inside me like a great fire...and was enveloped in a powerful, magnificent, and urgent emotion, like every love affair I'd ever had rolled into one." It was this spiritual opening (and many following it) that would be chronicled and celebrated in songs like "Nectar" and "Big Lover" and that would form the bedrock of Mike's relationship to his craft.
Mike lived and worked at Findhorn until 1995, recording his striking solo album, Bring 'Em All In, which would be followed by multiple Depth-driven albums like This Is The Sea, Fisherman's Blues, and the apocalyptically stirring comeback, A Rock In The Weary Land.
Combinations of rock and mysticism often result in pseudo-spiritual self-indulgence that not so subtly announces a narrow interpretation and exclusive allegiance to a particular tradition or teaching. But Mike's approach to the marriage of rock and God falls prey to no denominational devotion or doctrinal line. Though certain religious imagery pervades his lyrics, there is no moralistic message or salvational credo concealed in a carefully crafted audio offering. If anything, Mike simply intends to, "get under the defenses of the intellect." He does this by a practiced repetition of select lyrical lines, functioning like an affirmation or mantra, rendering the listener ripe for trans-intellectual insight.
Mike's upcoming live album (Autumn 2024) is titled Karma to Burn, and like his previous albums, expresses the unity and embodied transcendence that he identifies as the "the highest purpose of rock music."
Mike has appeared on Integral Naked:
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Music, Mystery, and the Inner Lantern • 10/17/2005 |
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