Ahead of his new Dennis-Hopper-themed album, Scott answers your questions on jamming with Dylan, the magic of Ireland and why he’s had more than 80 bandmates

Why did your new album, Life, Death and Dennis Hopper, take four years? VerulamiumParkRanger
I knew Dennis Hopper as the actor in Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now and Rebel Without a Cause, and that he stood for the counterculture, but I’d never done a deep dive. Ten years ago I saw his photos at the Royal Academy and realised he was also a brilliant photographer; I started reading biographies and checking out the movies I’d missed. Then I wrote a fun song about him called Dennis Hopper where every line rhymed with Hopper. I thought it would be great to do an EP, because his life was so colourful, but after some of my band members secretly recorded some instrumentals and suggested I put lyrics to them, I realised it could be an album of his life.

I started just before the pandemic but had all these other albums and box set projects, so I’d work intensely on Hopper then leave it and return with fresh ears. It has 25 songs. A friend of mine suggested I was doing too many voices myself – an American commentator, an old hippy and so on – and needed some guests. I used to love those Bruce Springsteen bootlegs where he’d do these incredible narratives at the end of the songs and thought, “If we could only get Bruce … ” He had come to a Waterboys gig in Dublin 10 years ago so there was a connection, and our manager asked his. Bruce did three takes for the song Ten Years Gone and sent all three. I got to pick between them. He did it so brilliantly and brought all the drama that I’d hoped he would.