Shane MacGowan Official Site
In Japan two years ago the rest of the Pogues decided to fire Shane because he had missed several gigs through drink. "Touring was getting to me", he recalls. "In Japan we went on a train from Tokyo to Osako and I drank Saki all the way and when I got off the train I fell and broke my head open and was unable to do the gig that night. Two days later they said to me it's be better if we didn't play together anymore and I agreed with them."
... He would be a great fella to have on your side in a game of Trival Pursuit. Especially should the subject be Japanese culture. On the Yuko Mishima, the author who committed hara-kiri in the Japanese army HQ in Tokyo, Shane is formidable. "He thought the Japanese nation had lost its soul. He hated the way the country was being run by bread-obsessed capitalists and finally found that he couldn't write anything angry enough, so he topped himself. He committed ritual hara-kiri." Would you ever consider committing ritual suicide? "Naah!" he laughs.
