“This Way Up” was released on April 16th 2015 and a sold out theatre show (304 bums on seats) followed that. This was good. This was very good!!
CD’s were pressed and now I had merch to take with me on the road.
I travelled around Ireland as a “singer-songwriter” for about 3 years solid playing open mic slots and singer songwriter nights. I’d be sharing the stage with poets, spoken word artists, the wacky, the weird and some of the most talented singers and musicians I’ve ever heard. 

The length of my set would vary. Sometimes I’d get to perform two songs, other nights I might be lucky enough to get a longer slot of 6 or 8 songs. I began to make a lot of friends on the road and made a lot of memories along the way. And I can say, because I’ve been told, that I made a name for myself as one of the hardest working musicians at that level of the music scene at the time. 

But it didn’t come easy and It was tough going at times, I didn’t have a car at the time so my life was all about buses and trains, timetables, bad coffee, no coffee, late nights, B&B’s more buses…. all while constantly trying to keep my set of songs fresh and trying to write as much new material as possible.
And of course I’d be hoping people would buy my CD’s. They did, but I’ve an awful lot still left hahahaha 

I’ll Just have The One!

One particular gig sticks out in my memory. I travelled to Cork to play at an Open Mic night in Gallagher’s on the corner of MacCurtain St. It took me 5 hours and 2 bus journeys to get there and I still managed to arrive early that evening. It was evident that it was going to be a busy night, I was told that I was first up and each performer had ONE SONG!!! One song? A 10 hour round trip for one song? I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to request a second or third song because it was my first visit to this particular singer-songwriter night and I didn’t want to make a bad impression. 

Let’s just say I was slightly less than disheartened. I didn’t hang around long after my song (which was frowned upon on the Open Mic scene), I hopped on the next bus and made it back as far as Dublin for a drink before closing time. 

But I know I shouldn’t dwell on the bad memories though, because the good times far outweigh the bad.
My song “Full Circle” (2016) is actually written about life on the road and the accompanying music video (featured further down) is an artistic representation of struggle, hard work and the relief of reaching goals as a solo singer songwriter.