Break-up of The Real McCoy Band blamed on swine flu

Ex-Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy joined forces with Foo Fighters' Chris Shiflett, but experiment was shortlived

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The former Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy and the Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett’s group - The Real McCoy Band - split up yesterday after having completed just three gigs in Pori, Tampere, and Helsinki.
      The original plan was to carry out a 13-date tour. In a brief statement on Andy McCoy’s website the cancellation of the tour is explained by Shiflett’s son's having contracted swine flu.
      The band decided not to continue as a four-piece, although this, too, had been considered as an option.
      “This morning Andy decided to put a stop to it”, reported Mikko Hansson of the tour promoter Wanaja Event on Wednesday.
      Apparent tension between Shiflett and McCoy, which culminated in a physical scuffle outside the Nosturi concert venue before the Helsinki gig, has also been suggested as a plausible reason for the breakup.
      It is believed there has also been some altercation between McCoy’s wife Angela and Shiflett.
     
“Yeah, they were sort of grabbing each other by the collar in the yard”, describes Nosturi programme chief Eeka Mäkynen, who witnessed the incident. Mäkynen was quick to add, however, that on the stage the pair were on good terms with each other.
      “And backstage after the gig the guys conversed with each other in a quite civilised manner”, says Mäkynen.
      “Perhaps feelings ran a bit high owing to the fact that Chris is leaving”, Hansson admits.
     
Mäkynen had a differing view of the cause of the squabble. In his view Shiflett’s leaving has to do with a more simple issue than swine flu, namely contentment.
      “Shiflett did this on a goodwill basis. When one chooses to do something like this on his own initiative, at the very least it should be fun.”
     
Over the last twenty years, Andy McCoy - a semi-legendary figure in Finnish popular music in the "louche wasted rock'n'roll gipsy" mould - has been involved with a variety of rather unpredictable and uneven musical projects outside Hanoi Rocks.
      Hanoi Rocks themselves reformed briefly for a second time not long ago and did a farewell tour, but now that project, too, has reached journey's end.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Hanoi Rocks to break up (again) in the spring (22.10.2008)

Links:
  Chris Shiflett (Wikipedia)
  Andy McCoy
  Andy McCoy (Wikipedia)

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