Even though Clare man J-Healy releases his debut album this month, he has been playing and performing music since a very tender age. “I’ve been playing since I was very small, but I really only knuckled down to write songs, or what I consider as songs, for the last five years or so,” Healy explains. “When I settled down a year and half ago in Dublin to do the record it really sharpened me up and made me focus and finish a lot of songs. Conor Brady (The Sofas) booted the arse off me as well and helped me knock them into shape!”

Born in Ennis and brought up in Miltown Malbay Co. Clare, J has already traveled far and wide and turned his hands to many endeavours outside music. “I went away for a couple of years after college around ’94/’95 and went to Australia for a couple of years,” he recalls. “I came back here for a while and went off again. Being that far away from home makes you think about your own home and background. It really made me focus on the stories from my hometown of Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare. It’s a real highlight marker of your life when you get out of your own small bubble and look into it and see where you went right or wrong. It definitely helped the stories and songs.

“Like most people, I’d never sit down and write a concise story with a beginning, a middle and an end with what happens to Joe Sixpack. Its more like capturing the vibe, mood and sentiment of what’s in my mind. It was easier to get focused on stuff. There is a song on the record called ‘Reservoir of Dreams’ about my hometown in West Clare but it could be about any town in the world.”

As with anyone’s relationship with their hometown and community, J believes it to be something most of us all too often take for granted. “When I went to NCAD in Dublin everyone in my class would be going ‘You’re so lucky to be from West Clare and I’ll be complaining that it’s like a cemetery in the Winter’,” J states. “I grew up with a piece of string and a ball for fun. I didn’t have TV or whatever! But after I got out of Miltown Malbay for a bit I realised what a brilliant place it is. The vibe off the music is unreal. I’d go home now and listen to trad sessions and sean nós and I’d get a vibe and soul off as much as funk, soul or acid or whatever you’re into. I’d often stand in the pub when I’m home and the guys would be milling out ‘The Goose and the Slippery Gap’ or ‘The Mason’s Apron’ or some other trad tune and I would be totally uplifted.” These local musicians included Martin Tally and Micho Russell.

“Growing up here with boys like that made me think that I gotta do my thing. That I’d got to make my own statement and make it come from within myself.”

While you mightn’t have encountered his music yet, its highly likely you have seen one of J’s acclaimed advertising creations. “I worked as an Art Director for Owens DBB and did quite a lot of ads in a short space of time. I just had the head for it. Its completely built on conceptual creativity and a fast turnaround. I did a lot of TV ads, press and outdoor stuff. I enjoyed it no end and it definitely helped in paying for the record.” The moment most of us will know is the Esat Digifone Speakeasy ad with the guy with the high-pitched country accent going; “Howya Kate! It’s me! The guy from the bar!” “The gas thing about that one is that he is a Canadian model called Dan Kane and the voice is Risteard Cooper (Apres Match) doing a Mayo accent!” Healy laughs.

Finally, what does the mysterious letter J mean? “My name is Jack Healy, but somebody told me that someone else had been knocking about with the same name! I know myself from that commercial injection from the ad thing, that if a DJ plays your song on the radio and somebody are half-listening in their kitchen they might think I’m Jack Lukeman or something! A lot of people around and most of the heads in town know me as J so I just stuck to that. I wound up one DJ once and said that the J standed for Jackwin. Then I told him that one Christmas I received a present of gold, frankincense and mirr and he believed me. I didn’t want to upset him and tell him me name wasn’t Jesus!”