“No matter how many bad choices they’ve made, you still want to show your characters as human beings”

By Cheryl Caira

Here’s something I couldn’t have envisaged being on this year’s bingo card: Scotland’s greatest, grittiest writer helping me navigate my mother’s death.

It goes against every rule in the book. Unless you’re trying to find common ground for rapport, let your guest get a word in edgeways – rather than processing your last few weeks of misery via a coveted interview with Irvine Welsh.

But the lid is off, and there seems to be a compulsion to vent. The evening prior, I’d watched Welsh’s critically acclaimed documentary, Reality Is Not Enough – an affecting, transcendental weave through his life, from growing up on a housing estate in Muirhouse to concocting characters that are inextricably part of Scotland’s fabric. Among narration of his novels courtesy of a host of stars, including Nick Cave, Ruth Negga and Liam Neeson, there’s also footage of Welsh on a controlled DMT trip in a Toronto clinic – part of a quest for self-discovery and a partitioning interlude throughout the feature.

I don’t do too much research via previous interviews, as it tends to put me off-kilter, plus I’m feart to read about the ones that have gone awry. That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the term “enfant terrible” appear so many times in association with one person. I wait gingerly to see what that’s really about. Are they referencing his thunderous output, or the temperament of the man himself? 

While I flip between interview questions, Welsh wanders into London’s Groucho Club, H2O in hand. After dancing round the idea of miniature snacks, we opt for heartier fare. We’re both a bit worse for wear – Welsh after quaffing the good plonk at a Sky Arts event, myself just afflicted with general exhaustion.

I start by telling him that Reality Is Not Enough was an emotional watch; that I knew when he recounted the feeling of his own parents’ death, I was projecting somewhat. Welsh has viewed his own film the same amount of times as me – once.

“I find it difficult to watch, but that’s from a vanity perspective more than anything. When you get to a certain age, you think: I can do five minutes in the morning in the shaving mirror. Do I really want to be there for an hour and a half looking at myself on the big screen?

“There’s something quite disempowering about being the subject of something, when you’re normally the author – I wouldn’t have acquiesced to doing something as intimate as this with anyone other than Paul [Sng, the documentary’s director]. I think I would have been performing a bit more otherwise. There was no point trying to bullshit this, because we’ve been mates for years.”

Historically associated with indigenous tradition and the psychoactive brew of ayahuasca, the hallucinogen DMT is having a clinically trialled turnaround – part of a broader psychedelic renaissance. Did he feel vulnerable, having to relinquish control, unfiltered on camera?

“I’ve done the standard DMT, which is like a post-death experience – where little mechanical gnomes take you round and you shoot up into space, and that’s obviously really fantastical. This 5-MeO-DMT is more like a pre-birth experience. I felt myself in pixelate, hovering above my body, then I went into this womb-like construction. I really enjoyed it – it felt so relaxing.

“There were more fiery exchanges with the DMT facilitator than you see on camera. He wanted to be a therapist, and I didn’t want to be therapised. I was more interested in looking out into the cosmos and into my own narrative. 

“When I came out, it was almost like waking up from a general anaesthetic. There’s no comedown, hangover, or sense you’re doing something that should be overwhelming. When I started doing DMT, I moved from being a hardcore atheist to thinking: ‘No, this existence is not the whole story.’ It’s given me brief glimpses of what else might be out there.” 

I mention I’ve become intrigued by the idea of signs: specifically, a heron stalking peacefully in the glint of the evening in the Water of Leith, the day my mum passed away. Did losing his parents – his mum most recently, in 2023 – make him want to believe in something bigger? 

“When my dad died, it was devastating, because I was a lot younger. But I kind of retained this atheist point of view. My mum died peacefully in her sleep – which would be an anticlimax to her, as she was geared up for this big square-go with death.

“We were coming up to Edinburgh on the Sunday from London, and she called me on the Saturday night and said she was feeling a bit rough – she got quite emotional and told me that she loved me. Of course, when we got off the train and got down to the flat, the polis were waiting.

“I’d planned to go backpacking in Australia, and suddenly it felt even more pertinent. I had this whole thing about going to Alice Springs and having this Jim Morrison moment in the desert, feeling his presence along with my mother and father, in this big emotional catharsis. 

“It was beautiful, just so isolated. But I looked up to the heavens and felt absolutely nothing. A few days later, I was in Perth watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 at the cinema, and the songs, the wee raccoon guy – everything triggered me. I was bawling my eyes out.”

According to Welsh, he essentially retired 35 years ago to pursue his hobbies – although we’re not talking the classic amble on the golf course. His current pastimes include a novel set for release in August, two TV shows in development (an adaptation of his novel, The Blade Artist and a crime show, Monsters), a film, some theatre – and a techno opera, naturally. He also DJs throughout the year and has a Brighton-based record label, co-founded with producer Steve Mac in 2022.

Through his fiction, Welsh has explored the multitude of ways in which human beings self-sabotage – finding humour in the darkest of corners, and beauty in the harrowing. As he’s grown older alongside his characters, does he feel more sympathetic to the way they behave?

“No matter how many bad choices they’ve made, you still want to show them as human beings. It’s much scarier to have somebody who tries to become cold and psychotic, in order to cauterise the damage they’ve done – that point where they’re so heinous, you lose any empathy for them. I’m always trying to find that point where you think: is redemption possible?”

Welsh’s characters pop up like familiar pals across his books, overlapping their different worlds in crossover style. I wonder if there’s an element of him wanting to check in on certain characters more than others once time has gone by – and given the fervent fandom for his Trainspotting characters, I’m guessing there’s a stream of people rapping on the door, wondering when the next installment is coming.

“I don’t have much awareness of the characters until I decide to write something. If I’ve got anyone in the toolbox, I take them out and sharpen them up a bit, or age them appropriately. Obviously they’re all there, swirling around in the subconscious somewhere, but I don’t walk around thinking: ‘What would Renton say about this?’ or ‘What would Spud do here?’

“I used to get all these daft questions – and still do – things like, ‘How would Sick Boy vote in the Scottish independence referendum?’ F**k off, Sick Boy doesn’t exist! He’ll vote how I tell him to vote.”

Welsh with wife, Emma Currie

Welsh’s next book is an intergenerational family saga set in Las Vegas – called Can Nothing Save Us? – with an entirely new raft of protagonists. His last book, Men In Love, which charts the Trainspotting crew cavorting through sex, romance and raving, already feels like history to him.

“It was great fun bringing those characters back, but it’s great fun not to have them again. Too much of the arts and entertainment industry is focused on giving people what they think they want, rather than giving them what they don’t know they want. What you need is a book about apocalyptic America, set in Vegas – you don’t really need another Trainspotting right now.”

Welsh hops between being a Miamian for the first three months of the year, his north London abode, and his place in the Scottish capital. He married his partner Emma Currie in 2022, and she features in the documentary, offering a through-the-keyhole at their dynamic. “I said to Paul – you’re following us around for 18 months. Just do anything you like, then show me the cut of the film. When you’ve written this big drug book like Trainspotting and it becomes this phenomenon, you’re always going to be labelled as a drugs writer. Paul was keen to show a different side to me.”

Welsh is heading to Wolverhampton, and I’m darting for a train to Edinburgh, en route to my mum’s final farewell. He wishes me luck with a hug, a fist bump and the closing gambit: “We’re all part of the same cosmic energy!” Like the familiar characters we escape into the pages with, it’s comforting.

Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough is available now on DVD, Blu-ray & digital