Galway city ex-buskers Rofi James have winning formula
Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell - The young and ambitious Rofi James will play Monroe’s Live on Saturday, May 31. The pop/rock band from Galway City began when lead singer and guitarist Rónán Ó Flaithearta started busking with his friend, drummer Jamie Murray. Jamie started out with a snare drum but then moved on to the more dynamic sound of the Spanish cajon box-drum.
Did they find that busking helped them to sharpen their live sound?
“I think it definitely has,” says Jamie. “One of the things people noticed about us was our stripped back sound between the box and the guitar. I think busking really developed that.”
Busking in Galway is a sure fire way to meet the town’s characters – a less likely scenario is getting caught up in a presidential election.
“We were busking one day and David Norris came up,” Rónán says. “His whole team surrounded us for a few minutes with TV cameras. I played one of our own tracks, Going Down. He really liked the song and gave us €5 or €10. He started asking us about the song after.”
Rofi James started out as two-piece but they recently became a quartet with the addition of guitarist Levi O’Brien and Eoin Ó Conghaile on bass.
“I met Rónán years ago at a bus stop,” says Levi, who joined the band two months ago. “I had this new guitar pedal; he saw it and said ‘oh, that’s lovely’. We said we’d go jamming anyway, that was years ago. Then I met him again recently in bar and he said ‘oh, you can play guitar, come jam with us’.”
The gig in Monroe’s will celebrate the release of Rofi James’ latest single, Heuston, which will be available on iTunes and Spotify.
“It was song I wrote four or years ago after going up to Heustion Station to meet a girl I thought it was going pretty well with,” says Rónán.
“I was supposed to get off in Newbridge but I slept through my stop and woke up in Heuston Station. I got a call – she was fairly annoyed at me! She said ‘don’t bother coming to Newbridge, we’re finished’. That’s where the lyric ‘Heuston, Heuston we have a problem came from.’”
Has the ex-girlfriend in question heard the song?
“I never played it for her because I thought it would be too embarrassing,” says Rónán.
“Wait ‘til we’re number one!” quips Eoin.
Rofi James won the NUIG Witless Battle of the Bands competition in 2013, an impressive feat, considering Rónán had only previously played in cover bands.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.