 | Biography
Gerry Cott was born in rural County Kildare, Ireland and grew up surrounded by animals and farming. He was eight when his family moved to Sandycove, County Dublin. Getting a Spanish guitar at eleven he took Flamenco lessons from a student from Bilbao living in Dublin. When Bob Dylan played Dublin for the first time Gerry was in the third row. "Dylan was like an atomic bomb" he remembers. Tuning into records from Delta artists Son House, Big Bill Broonzy and Mississippi John Hurt, Gerry soon discovered Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and other Chicago greats. This Black rural and urban music helped Gerry appreciate the true origins of the music of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Van Morrison, Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy and other R&B, rock and pop artists. Irish music and work of Sean O'Riada, Ceoltoiri Chualann, The Chieftains, Donal Lunny and many others have also been of keen interest.
Like most of us it was during his teenage years that Gerry formulated his musical values. As far as he was concerned there were two types of music, good and bad. This maxim was ably espoused by Murrays Record Centre in Dun Laoghaire, just along the coast from Sandycove. Now defunct, in those days Murrays was a musical oasis in a desert of mediocrity. Presided over by brothers John and Jimmy, Murrays aficionados included Bob Geldof and other future members of The Boomtown Rats.
In 1975 Gerry cofounded The Boomtown Rats with Bob Geldof, Garry Roberts, Simon Crowe, Pete Briquette and Johnnie Fingers. The band played their first gig at Dublin's Kevin Street College of Technology. The next eighteen months were spent gigging the length and breath of Ireland honing their sound and chops. In 1977 The Boomtown Rats moved to London, signed a deal with Ensign Records and rented a house from Richard Branson. Along with The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers, The Jam and The Police, The Boomtown Rats became an integral part of the collage that was Punk and New Wave. After five years, four hit albums, thirteen hit singles and four world tours Gerry decided to call it a day.
Harking back to his Irish childhood, countryside, dogs and horses became part of Gerry's life once more. A chance request to do some filming with his collie dog Marley opened up an entirely different career. As it does in life, one thing led to another and over the next few years Gerry became an acknowledged expert at filming with animals in feature films, television and advertising.
Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later benefitted from Gerry's expert knowledge of how to arrange and film the iconic "rats sequence". The producer of The Queen (Oscar winner for Helen Mirren) asked Gerry to arrange and coordinate the film's touching "red deer by the river" sequence. Just some examples of Gerry's cutting edge work in over three thousand projects comprising feature films, television, TV commercials and photography.
Ironically, although away from the business of music, his success and life experience in his second chosen career has allowed Gerry time and space to develop a highly individual and eccentric approach to solo instrumental guitar. Urban Soundscapes is the first in a series of guitar projects now coming into focus.
Gerry Cott speaking about Urban Soundscapes
"After leaving The Boomtown Rats I dropped off the radar of the music business though guitar continued to be a creative and compelling travelling companion. The post Boomtown Rats period of my life has centred round the other things I loved about my Irish childhood; open space, fresh air, being around animals and countryside.
Over the last twenty-five years I have embarked on a unique journey becoming an acknowledged expert in animal behaviour, training and filming with animals. Films, television, TV commercials and photography projects have taken me to many interesting places.
The idea for Urban Soundscapes came to me during one such trip. I had been asked by the executive producer of a film called Leap Year to set-up and supervise a stunt sequence in Ireland. Perhaps in an effort to beef up a rather formulaic chic-flick, the stunt involved a herd of cattle and Hollywood a-lister Amy Adams. The shoot location was in the Wicklow Mountains about 15 miles east of Baltinglass, the birthplace of my father Turlough. Usually an a-lister steps aside for her stunt double in such circumstances. However Amy Adams proved to be plucky and played the scene surrounded by twenty cows. The sequence took a day to shoot but as the setting-up and preparations had taken the best part of ten days I had some time to think.
I have always believed solo instrumental guitar music must have a reason for its existence other than just technical virtuosity. Urban Soundscapes has allowed me to express feelings of optimism, excitement, fascination, curiosity and nostalgia experienced going about the business of a life. I wanted to create in these solo guitar recordings a sonic landscape to engage the right brain and disengage the left. No words to impose or direct, the listener decides where to go with it.
Village, town and city life fascinates me. People go about the detail of their daily lives perhaps alone like Eleanor Rigby or in the midst of family or friends. But ultimately they all travel solo within an Urban Soundscape."
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