music of 1920s America & early recorded artists in general. It was through the nods, covers & steals by the artists from my parent’s generation. Credits of songs, haunting photographs & animated drawings were all I had to go on though. Their records were not readily available in Dublin at the time. It was only when I got to New York & London that I managed to hear them & they became the only artists that I would listen to for a long time, although, I’m very much about a song as opposed to a genre. I worked in a lot of record shops in Dublin & London over the years that followed & I gained a lot of musical knowledge I otherwise might not have. The only shop from then that remains open now is Celtic Note in Dublin. I got to know the window cleaner when I was there, a guy called Luke Cheevers. It turned out that he was an unaccompanied singer & an early member of a traditional singer’s club called An Góilín. I visited the club regularly after meeting him & he brought me to a gathering for a Frank Harte album. Frank had passed away prior to its release & people took turns around a small room upstairs in the Baggot Inn singing & playing songs. At one point the whole room, including Andy Irvine & Donal Lunny, sang ‘Tunnel Tigers’ & it rattled me. I can still put myself back in that room & feel what it was like being there. It was timeless & I haven’t heard anything like it since. I guess where I am, as a musician & songwriter, is somewhere between the trancey rhythms of early blues & the lyrical content of closer to home folk.


When I was in school, a Gaelic football manager I had would sing Sean Nós songs on the way home from games. Some of the lads would sing too, that also made an impression on me. I’m certainly not from a musical family as such, but my mother could hold a tune & knew many, actually taught me my first guitar riff too, the only one she knew. Didn’t get to meet either of my grandfathers but both of my grandmothers weren’t shy of a song either. My Father borrowed a guitar for me to try out when I showed an interest in having one & I pretty much started writing songs straight away. He had named me after Bob Dylan, with Dylan Robert Walshe being my full name, strange though, as he wanted me to be a footballer initially. It was football that gave me my first glimpse of life outside of Ireland, playing at tournaments in England & France. The early mornings became a difficult task once the music kicked in & in my last year of playing, I went from a team that wouldn’t let you play if your boots weren’t clean, to a local dressing room full of players smoking. I enjoyed that year of the sport the most.


My first experience of being in a band involved the school chaplain, yep, the chaplain. He had drums, access to classrooms for rehearsing & played bass. No funny stuff though, he was a good guy, young & in fancy dress it seemed. When he didn’t turn up for a while, we enquired after him, plaguing some teachers as to his whereabouts.


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