DAYZ LIKE THIS

twenty-one years treading the boards hasn't slowed down singer/songwriter Kieran Halpin. Not in the gigging stakes at any rate. In fact, so busy is the Co. Louth born, Glasgow-based troubadour on the international circuit these days, that it's been over two years since he last played in Ireland. Over the past year alone, he has not only completed several treks across Europe but has jetted out to Australia - twice! So what's the secret to his current level of success?
"I feel that there isn't any age limit on the kind of music that I do," he reflects. "I have lots of younger people coming along to the gigs as well as the older fans. In Germany recently, the local mayor came to the gig and brought his 21-year-old daughter along and they both liked it."
Strangely enough, Halpin partly credits the Brit-pop scene and bands like Oasis, Blur and Pulp for his own resurgence in the public eye.
"Things have gone back to where the song has become important again," he states. "For a long time, the rhythm was central to music and the melody was almost incidental. Now the song is what matters and younger fans have come to appreciate what a good song is, regardless of who's playing it."
Halpin is also keen to lose the folk tag that he has often been labelled with over the years.
"I still do some folk clubs but that circuit is dwindling," he explains. "A lot of rock venues now have acoustic nights and I do a lot of arts centres as well. If you think Bruce Springsteen standing with a guitar is a folk artist then you could describe me as a folk artist but I'd prefer to call it acoustic rock."
Halpin has recorded ten albums since his first with Tom McConville in the early Eighties. His last album, The Rite Hand, was an all-out production job recorded in Nashville using slick session players, but his new live album Glory Dayz is a return to basics.
"I did a European tour in 1995 with Chris Jones, a brilliant American guitar player who lives in Germany," he explains. "We recorded 16 shows live onto DAT and the album includes six brand new songs as well as older favourites from albums like The Rite Hand and Mission Street."
Meanwhile a new studio album entitled Closing Time In Paradise has already been recorded and is due for release sometime next year.
"It's a duo album with Anth Kaley, the keyboard player who also played on my last couple of albums," says Kieran. "We did a tour of Australia which went very well and a company out there wanted to record us as a duo. We said 'yeah, we'd love to do it' so they flew us out to Sydney again last March. We did a week in Hong Kong on the way out and had a great time. The album was done with some Australian session musicians and they're doing individual deals with various record companies around the world so it should eventually get a release in Ireland." n
* Kieran Halpin plays at The Blue Room in Behans, Dublin on Sunday 15th December. His new album Glory Dayz is available from Claddagh Records, 2 Cecilia Street, Dublin 2.