Damien Dempsey – creating a natural high for audiences

 Damien Dempsey and Glen Hansard play the Festival Big Top on Thursday, July 25 as part of this year’s Galway Arts Festival. Last year, Dempsey released Almighty Love, a record that’s arguably his strongest so far and earned the Dubliner a Choice Prize nomination.

The last time Dempsey spoke to the Groove Tube, he was about to take some time off from music to travel. Was he inspired by the change of scenery?

“I kind of left it alone,” he says. “I tried a bit of writing when I was away, but it wasn’t coming together – nothing decent coming. It was probably a bit of writer’s block.

“About two years ago now, when I got back from my travels I just started writing songs that meant something to me again. I was trying to go a different angle and write something a bit lighter, a bit more ‘festival’. Just to pick people up, because everyone seemed a bit down with the recession and that.”

Damien was initially unhappy with the direction of the new album, but eventually found the tone he was looking for. The breakthrough came with Chris and Stevie, a song he wrote about losing people to suicide.

“The lyrics and the verse would have come in a day,” says Damien. “I had a different chorus, but it wasn’t strong enough I didn’t think. I had to try and write a more simple chorus, that people could relate to. It was a bit too wordy, the chorus I had.”

The one Dempsey went for sees him sing ‘I’m missing you tonight’. It’s a tune his fans took to with gusto, and quickly became a live favourite.

“Everybody misses somebody at the moment, I’m sure,” he says. “It goes down really well. People seem to enjoy the story and they get emotional. It touches people, I suppose. It shuts them up too, if they’re getting too rowdy. The melody you can sing acapella, so I can stop playing the guitar so that stops people talking if they’re having a chat.”

At the Arts Festival show, Damien will be sharing the bill with Glen Hansard, who will be joined by The Frames and a brass section. Hansard has had quite a few years – he’s won an Oscar, the musical of Once scooped eight Tony awards and, most recently, he played alongside Rufus Wainwright at Joni Mitchell’s birthday tribute in Toronto’s famous Massey Hall.

How does Damien feel about his fellow Dubliner’s success?

“I’ve always been a fan of Glen,” he says. “He’s never lost the passion that he had when I first saw him 20 years ago; he still has that passion that gives me the shivers whenever he sings. As soon as I saw him I was hooked, I was in love with his singing. I still am; he hasn’t lost that edge.

“It’s great. I’ve seen how hard he’s worked, all over the world. For many years he went out there and lost money, and came back with bills from America and Europe. But he kept going, kept grafting out there. And it’s finally after paying off; it’s just brilliant to see.”

Damien Dempsey has become one of Ireland’s most popular and enduring live performers. People come to see him in their droves, but he had his own struggles in getting to that point.

“I was 10 years before I made a shilling,” he says. “Then it started to turn. After about 12 years, I started to make something, but before that I made nothing. It was a hard old slog for them years; I was penniless a lot of the time. People saying to me, ‘give up the ghost, you gave it a try’.

“Outside of Ireland, it’s still very tough – in the States. But it’s going well in Australia, and some of the cities around the UK.”

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.