Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [1] Student of HST

TGL: What were the main reasons you chose to become a student of Hunter S Thompson?

RF: It was kind of inevitable to be honest, but it was a long road that brought me to the Gonzo World. I’ve always had an interest in America, ever since I was a child. I have two uncles living there, both of whom served in the military, with one having fought in Vietnam and the other deployed to Okinawa. Growing up I heard a lot of stories about that kind of thing, my own father always had an interest in the military aircraft so I guess one of my first associations with America was in terms of the war machine. Of course as child it is just a fascination with the planes, battleships and tanks. The second association was the music. One of my earliest memories is discovering my fathers record collection for the first time. I was at home from school because I was sick, but I was also bored and as curious kids tend to do I was wandering around the house looking for something to entertain myself with…well on this particular day it turned out to be the new record player. The first record I put on was The Mamas & The Papas and the song was California Dreamin’ – and yes it was a winters day, a particularly nasty grey mundane one so typical of Ireland and the song was just magic to my ears, I still love it to this day. Transfixed by the music I started looking through the other records until I came across one with a particularly wild looking guy on the cover. He had a cool looking white guitar. I put the record on and that was when I first heard the opening to Voodoo Child. I must have been only about 5 or 6 years old and here I was listening to Jimi Hendrix, totally mesmerized by this crazy looking and crazier sounding guitar god who might as well have been from another planet to a child from 80’s Ireland.