Cait O'Riordan

Caitlin "Cait" O'Riordan (born January 4, 1965 in Nigeria ) was the bass player for the English-Irish folk punk band The Pogues from 1983 to 1986 .

Her parents, originally from Ireland and Scotland, left Nigeria in 1967 when the Biafra War broke out there. At the age of 14, Cait heard the Nips track Gabrielle on the radio and decided to buy the record at Rocks Off Records . She met singer Shane MacGowan , who worked as a salesman in the store. In 1982 he asked her if she would join his band Pogue Mahone . They didn't have a bass player at the time, and O'Riordan owned a bass guitar. MacGowan didn't mind that she couldn't actually play the instrument. She played on the band's first two albums, Red Roses for Me and Rum, Sodomy & the Lash(Vocals in I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day ), and on the soundtrack to Alex Cox's film Sid and Nancy .

The Pogues' greatest commercial hit, Fairytale of New York on the album If I Should Fall from Grace with God , was originally intended as a duet between Cait and Shane MacGowan, but was performed with the voice of Kirsty after they left the band MacColl added.

Cait left the band in 1986 to marry producer and songwriter Elvis Costello , whom she fell in love with while making Rum, Sodomy & the Lash . In 2002 the couple divorced.

O'Riordan played bass in the band The Radiators from Space of ex-Pogues guitarist Philip Chevron . She also took part in the reunion concerts in Great Britain in 2004. There was no further collaboration between O'Riordan and the Pogues due to the recurrence of personal differences.

Web links

• Biography of Cait O'Riordan as part of the biographies of the band members of the Pogues (German site)
• Biography of Cait O'Riordan as part of the biographies of the Pogues band members