All the Heroes Are Dead Gavin Friday | Big Think

All the Heroes Are Dead

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Gavin Friday wonders why our heroes always let us down.

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Gavin Friday:

Gavin Friday was born in Dublin on October 8, 1959 and founded the band Virgin Prunes in 1977. In 1986 Gavin briefly abandoned music to paint, which culminated in the 1988 exhibition entitled ‘I didn’t come up the Liffey in a bubble’ at Dublin’s Hendriks Gallery. From 1987 to 2005 Friday composed and performed with pianist Maurice Roycroft (The Man Seezer). ‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’ (1989), their compelling moody debut produced by Hal Willner, explored the world of Brel (whose song ‘Next’ is covered on the album), Piaf, Brecht and Weill. The follow up was 1992’s ‘Adam ‘N’ Eve.’

In Summer 1999, Gavin travelled to Kosovo on behalf of the charity Concern, to film a documentary highlighting to plight of Kosovan refugees. ‘Artists for Kosovo’, a slide-show of work by renowned Irish artists set to Friday/Seezer music opened in Dublin’s Temple Bar. Later that year the video documentary ‘Three Wishes For Kosovo’ was completed and Gavin’s children’s charity project for Kosovo, ‘Muc the flying piggy bank’ was launched. The project encouraged kids in schools around Ireland to set up their own collections for the charity.

Gavin Friday's film work includes the songs written with Bono for the popular 1993 film ‘In the Name of the Father’. They recorded the title track as well as the Sinead O’Connor sung hit ‘You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart’. In 1996 Friday and Seezer contributed the song ‘Angel’ to the ‘Romeo + Juliet’ soundtrack and wrote their first piece of score for the Australian film ‘Angel Baby’. His subsequent film scores have included ‘The Boxer’ (1998), ‘Disco Pigs’ (2001) and ‘In America’ (2002). In late 2005, Friday and Seezer teamed up with legendary producer Quincy Jones to score the Jim Sheridan directed 50 Cent biopic ‘Get Rich or Die Trying.’ Gavin also performed the surreal and personal one man show ‘I Didn’t Come up the Liffey in a Bubble’ at the Dublin Fringe Festival.

Gavin Friday is currently working on his fourth solo album with writing partner Herb Macken

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Who are your heroes?

Gavin Friday: They're all dead. I've lots of heroes. My mum is a hero. She had to put up with me and my dad. She is one of my heroes. Some of my friends are heroes. There are so many. But heroes usually let you down, don't they? There is people I admire, people I respect.