Irish boys and girls with soul
The return of 'The Commitments'
By Todd Leopold
CNN
(CNN) -- When he tried out for the movie, Dick Massey had never heard of "The Commitments," the Roddy Doyle novel on which the 1991 film was based.
But he found out quickly.
"I didn't know anything about the book," recalls Massey, doing a phone interview with colleague Ken McCluskey to talk about the recent "Collector's Edition" DVD release of the movie. "Later, I read it, and thought, 'Holy kamoley! If I get this part, it'll be brilliant!' "
Massey got more than he bargained for. Not only was he cast in the movie as drummer Billy Mooney, who famously tests a drum kit in the window of a pawn shop, he's now a full-time member and co-manager of a real band that plays as the Commitments, along with McCluskey, who played bassist Derek Scully.
Indeed, "The Commitments" has had a longer life than either Massey or McCluskey ever imagined.
The film chronicles the rise and breakup of a soul band from the poor Barrytown neighborhood of Dublin.
Local hustler Jimmy Rabbitte takes out a newspaper ad and auditions a handful of friends and strangers ("Who're your influences?" he demands of an endless line of hopefuls), determined to create an R&B group.
The band that emerges becomes a crack unit complete with three female backup singers, leather-lunged singer Deco Cuffe (Andrew Strong) and a mysterious older trumpet player, Joey "The Lips" Fagan (Johnny Murphy).
But soon after becoming the rage of the clubs, it disintegrates before hitting it big and meeting hero Wilson Pickett.
Rude remarks from Van Morrison
 Dean Fay (Felim Gormley) and Joey "The Lips" Fagan (Johnny Murphy) practice their instruments in "The Commitments." |  |
Finding the musicians to play the Commitments wasn't easy. Massey recalls the filmmakers hosting open auditions, scouting at clubs and putting out newspaper ads.
The hardest role to cast was the lead singer, since director Alan Parker and writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais knew they needed a true soul belter.
"Alan even read Van Morrison," recalls Murphy on a making-of disc accompanying the new DVD. "He made rude remarks about the script."
In the end, Parker found his lead singer in the unlikeliest place. A man named Rob Strong was brought in to do some work for the film, and he brought along his 16-year-old son, Andrew. The younger Strong started singing, Parker recalls on the DVD, "and our mouths just dropped open."
To get the band tight, Parker had them rehearse for three weeks.
"We'd do the songs and do our lines ... and then several of us would go to a bar and practice there," Massey says. "Parker liked all that. When we said our lines, they [didn't sound] staged and rehearsed."
Though, of course, they leavened the script with some prime Irish profanity.
"We'd be lost without bad language," Murphy jokes. "We wouldn't be able to communicate at all."
The band members, many of whom knew each other before shooting, grew closer during filming. "We got on very well. We'd start at 6 or 7 a.m., go to 6 or 7 p.m., then drink until 3 or 4 in the morning," McCluskey says.
'Just a movie'?
|  The Commitments, a real touring band, today. Massey kneels center front; McCluskey is to his immediate right. |
After the movie was released in America, the band put on several shows but then drifted apart, despite the soundtrack's top 10 success. ("It was just a movie," says Felim Gormley, who played saxophonist Dean Fay, on the DVD.)
It was two years later when a real Commitments formed, and Massey and McCluskey have been leading it ever since.
(Other band members have maintained musical careers: Strong, who lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, has put out four solo albums, and Robert Arkins, who played Jimmy Rabbitte, is a Dublin multi-instrumentalist. Incidentally, the most famous musician to emerge from the movie is Andrea Corr of the Corrs, who played the non-singing role of Rabbitte's sister, Sharon.)
McCluskey is still amazed by his career. He's in a working, successful band: The Commitments travel the world, playing festivals and clubs. (And yes, they've met Wilson Pickett.) "The movie changed my life," he says.
And it's changed others' lives -- in surprising ways.
"Over the years I've seen [the film] in various festivals," says Massey. "It's been dubbed into German."
"Yeh, colleges study it," adds McCluskey in a jolly Irish brogue, "to learn English."
