Michael McDermott’s Memoir, Scars From Another Life, Tells the Story of His Addiction and Redemption

BY ANDREW MORKES, FOUNDER AND AUTHOR OF NATURE IN CHICAGOLAND

I’m taking a break from nature stories to write about a great memoir by Michael McDermott, one of my favorite singer-songwriters. More nature coming soon.

Singer-songwriter Michael McDermott should be a dead man based on his stories of rampant drug and alcohol abuse in his memoir, Scars From Another Life (979-8365706316, 256 pages), which was published last year. If not dead, a shadow of himself drained of creativity, vigor, and sanity. But after years of jaw-dropping abuse, he gave up drugs and alcohol on January 14, 2014. Two weeks earlier I had watched McDermott and his band, The Westies, play at the Copernicus Center. It was a great show, which is even more amazing given that he was in the last stages of nearly killing himself.

Flash forward to July 5, 2019. I watched McDermott perform with super-charged energy and exuberance at the American Music Festival at Fitzgerald’s. I remember him frequently smiling, telling stories to the audience, and jumping up and down, right fist in the air at the end of “Getaway Car” as if his body couldn’t contain his lifeforce. After the show, I said to my friend Steve that McDermott played like someone who had been given his life back. And, after reading Scars From Another Life, I think that’s true.

Today, McDermott remains a creative force in the music world. He’s an American treasure and an underappreciated storyteller that many have compared to Dylan, Springsteen, and Guthrie. I love his story-songs that depict the down-and-outers of the world, his social conscience, and his ability to write beautiful, melodic music.  

I read Scars From Another Life in four consecutive late nights after wrestling with words all day as an editor and writer. I should have been sleeping but stayed up late to finish the book. I’m tired but fulfilled.      

Scars From Another Life features 57 short chapters and an epilogue that trace McDermott’s life from his youth, to breaking into the music industry and becoming a star with the release of his first album “620 W. Surf” in 1991, to his slide into addiction, to his attempts to rebuild his career after becoming sober. Each chapter begins with a mini travelogue in Sweden in 2018 that features missed connections, lost luggage, cultural confusion, and other roadblocks. It’s an odd construct, but it works. Overall, Scars From Another Life is laugh-out-loud funny, disturbing, moving, and inspiring (especially in its closing chapters when he talks about his version of God, creativity, “making it,” and the powers of transcendental meditation).

McDermott is about a year older than me, and as I read the book, I was surprised at how our Chicago lives—not the drug abuse or musical aspects—ran in parallel for many years. We are both Southlanders (McDermott grew up in Orland Park, and I grew up in the Chicago neighborhood of Beverly). We went to the same bars and music clubs such as Fitzgerald’s, Orphans, Nicks, Double Door, Abbey Pub, Metro, Beat Kitchen, Green Mill, Schubas, Martyrs, Davenports, and Chief O’Neills. He went to Loyola University Chicago for a day. I graduated from there with a bachelor’s degree.

I thought I already knew a lot about McDermott, but are here some new things that I discovered after I read his memoir:

• When he was 13, his parents began leaving him alone each summer in Michigan with his siblings. His stories of how he became a musician are fascinating.  
• McDermott is actually a Murphy, but I’ll let him tell you the story.
• He has no problem making himself look terrible and obnoxious, which I found refreshing in the age of music-star memoirs. Although at some point, I almost hated McDermott for his poor decisions, wasting of his talent, and the terrible way he treated those who loved and respected him. But I’m thankful this is a book of redemption, rather than a “dead addict rock star biography.”    
• McDermott tells some great stories about relatively unknown (e.g., Mike Jordan & the Rockamatics, Insiders) and renowned musicians (e.g., Chicago folk-scene artists, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, Lou Reed, Jakob Dylan, Daniel Lanois, Peter Yarrow, and a famous unnamed female folk singer with multiple personalities).  
• Stephen King LOVES Michael McDermott. He called him “one of the best songwriters in the world and possibly the greatest undiscovered rock n roll talent of the last 20 years.” King featured some McDermott lyrics in his 1994 novel Insomnia. Who would have thunk?
• Many, many people supported McDermott emotionally, financially, and creatively during his decades of addiction. Despite this support, McDermott almost destroyed his career and lost his life. This reinforced how hard it must be for an addict without creative talent and a strong support group to beat his or her addiction. The answer: very difficult, with many failures. There are more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths each year in the United States.
• Heather Horton, McDermott’s wife and a talented musician-songwriter in her own right, should get the most credit for saving him and supporting him when he was at his worst. Every addict should have a Heather Horton in their lives. I loved his stories of how they met and fell in love.     

Scars From Another Life is a great read full of stories of both McDermott’s darkest and brightest days. It’s available at his website.  

Copyright (text) Andrew Morkes   

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ABOUT ANDREW MORKES

I have been a writer and editor for more than 25 years. I’m the founder of College & Career Press (2002); the editorial director of the CAM Report career newsletter and College Spotlight newsletter; the author and publisher of “The Morkes Report: College and Career Planning Trends” blog; and the author and publisher of Hot Health Care Careers: 30 Occupations With Fast Growth and Many New Job Openings; Nontraditional Careers for Women and Men: More Than 30 Great Jobs for Women and Men With Apprenticeships Through PhDs; They Teach That in College!?: A Resource Guide to More Than 100 Interesting College Majors, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by the library journal Voice of Youth Advocates; and other titles. They Teach That in College!? provides more information on environmental- and sustainability-related majors such as Ecotourism, Range Management, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Built Environment, Sustainability Studies, and Sustainable Agriculture/Organic Farming. I’m also a member of the parent advisory board at my son’s school. 

In addition to these publications, I’ve written more than 40 books about careers for other publishing and media companies including Infobase (such as the venerable Encyclopedia of Careers & Vocational Guidance, the Vault Career Guide to Accounting, and many volumes in the Careers in Focus, Discovering Careers, What Can I Do Now?!, and Career Skills Library series) and Mason Crest (including those in the Careers in the Building Trades and Cool Careers in Science series).

My poetry has appeared in Cadence, Wisconsin Review, Poetry Motel, Strong Coffee, and Mid-America Review.