Mickey Bradley is refreshingly honest about how he believed his career as a musician would go. Like so many teenagers he was in a band with his mates - they were playing in local clubs in Derry in Northern Ireland.
It was 1976 and the punk scene was about to change the musical landscape.
“I remember my mum bought me a leather biker jacket from Freeman’s Catalogue because that’s what you did back then,” he recalled. “I remember thinking at the time ‘when I stop playing with the band this jacket will do me when I get a job on the building site’.”
Fifty years on and Mickey is still making music with that same band - The Undertones - who play the Ritz in Manchester on Saturday as part of a 50th anniversary tour.
“When you’re 17 or 18 you don’t think what you are likely to be doing in 50 years time,” he said. “If I was able to go back and tell the young me we’d still be playing and enjoying it I know I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Unlike many bands who broke through in the late Seventies and early 80s, there was nothing manufactured or contrived about The Undertones.
“We had a very down to earth attitude,” said Mickey. “We just did what we did in the moment, we never really had a long term plan or made statements like ‘we’re going to break America’.”
In the band with Mickey on bass were brothers John and Damian O’Neill, singer Feargal Sharkey and drummer Billy Doherty.
“We’d just spend out time round at the O’Neill’s house writing songs and watching TV; it was a bit like the Royle Family with us all on the settee,” he said. “I remember John’s dad said it was like a youth club with us all sprawled over everywhere.”
In 1978 everything changed. A song written by John O’Neill was recorded on a Belfast record label and a copy was sent to legendary DJ John Peel. He loved it, playing it twice in a row on his radio show.
John Peel would often say that Teenage Kicks was his favourite song of all time and it proved the catalyst for an amazing five years for the band.
“We’d just been playing in a bar in Derry every week and suddenly Sire Records wanted to sign us,” said Mickey. “We went into the studio and re-recorded Teenage Kicks and then we were on Top of the Pops. We couldn’t fail to be amazed and delighted that this was happening but honestly it was without any major effort on our part.
“It’s not like we’d been doing loads of support slots on tours in England, we’d just been playing in a bar in Derry every week. The night after we did our first Top of the Pops we flew back and played in a bar.”
A string of hit singles soon followed including Jimmy Jimmy, Here Comes the Summer,Wednesday Week and My Perfect Cousin written by Mickey with the band recording four albums in a five year spell.
“We loved making LPs,” said Mickey. “We couldn’t get over the fact that people would go out and get you sandwiches while you were in the recording studio.”
In 1983 it all came to an end.
“We’d sort of seen it coming,” said Mickey. “Our fourth album The Sin of Pride didn’t sell well and we weren’t in great form. We were on tour in Sweden and after a photoshoot Feargal called a band meeting and said he wanted to leave. I think John said ‘so do I’ and then Damian and I also said we did too.
“We finished that tour and that was it. There was no big falling out or anything.”
Feargal Sharkey went on to have a very successful solo career. John O’Neill formed That Petrol Emotion with brother Damian joining on bass.
“I think I thought at 23 I was getting too old to be in a band,” laughed Mickey. “Damian and I did try to write a few songs for a year but it didn’t really work and I was happy to go back to Derry.”
In 1999 The Undertones reformed with Paul McLoone replacing Feargal Sharkey on vocals and the band have been touring successfully ever since.
“We have reached that point where people recognise the name,” he said. “We get the original fans who come and see us but we also get a lot of younger audience members who have discovered the music.
“We put on a good show and those songs have really stood the test of time and we enjoy playing them live just as much as we ever did.”
The Undertones play Manchester O2 Ritz on Saturday, October 24.
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