My keyboard player’s brother’s girlfriend was an actor, and recommended us to her agent, who put us in touch with the casting people for The Commitments. The band I sang in at the time were trying to do something modern: cross electronic music with hard guitars. I wasn’t a soul or Motown fan – they felt so old in the 80s. I never met an Irish person who didn’t like it. But the Dublin screening was the best we had anywhere in the world. It got an R-rating in the US – maybe why it only made $15m on first release. We used multiple cameras to take advantage of the spontaneity of the moment when I let the cast fly, they improvised like crazy, breaking the record for the most swearwords used in a film. Consequently, we did not have to rely on vocal miming – the norm for music filming. We used a new technique of shooting music, which allowed me to play backing tracks loudly but shoot live vocals. The dramatic scenes were filmed conventionally in a disciplined manner, but the musical sequences were shot in a grittier, looser, documentary style. I never met an Irish person who didn’t like it The Dublin screening was the best we had anywhere in the world. We gave them all mobiles – a novelty in 1990 – so we could keep tabs on them. None of them had phones some relied on a granny taking messages. But because most of the actors were working musicians – or more often out-of-work musicians – they lived rather nomadic, dubious lifestyles. The cast were tantrum-free, and every day was a joy. When you’re filming music, it lifts everyone. Because we were so well prepared, the shoot ran smoothly. We had an unusually long five-week rehearsal period, with dramatic rehearsals in the mornings and musical ones in the afternoons. Watch Treat Her Right from The Commitments on YouTube

Author of the commitments