Owl’s Well That Ends Well

“I’M NO Spice Girl, darling,” declares Dolores Keane, a mischievous grin creeping across her broad visage. “ I could probably do with losing a stone or two but it doesn’t bother me. I absolutely love food and I love cooking so I don’t go on diets. There are far too many people starving in the world, that’s what I always say. When I’m happy I eat and I drink and when I’m unhappy I do exactly the same things! Only when I’m unhappy I tend to drink a bit more than I should. But that’s my own business.”

Happily ensconced in the bar of the Westbury Hotel doing the promotional rounds for her new album Night Owl, Dolores is in fighting form today. Clutching a pint of lager in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she certainly makes for a formidable presence amongst the businessmen and blue-rinsed matrons taking afternoon tea. Suddenly, a mobile phone goes off and a pin-striped yuppie type answers it, speaking several decibels higher than is absolutely necessary.

“I hate fuckers like that,” she snaps, clearly irked at the intrusion. “It’s not the phone, it’s the way they make a big drama out of answering it. It gives me a pain in the arse.”

Night Owl is her first studio album since 1993’s Solid Ground and it sees a return to a more sparse acoustic approach, following the rock-oriented arrangements of its predecessor. Featuring both traditional tunes and more contemporary songs written specially for her, it’s also her most lyrically personal offering in years.

“There were certain songs that I’d wanted to do for a long time but I never got a slot to be able to record or perform them,” she explains. “A lot of the times you’re being led by record companies but this time I was able to go my own way. The album was made for a Norwegian company and they wanted me to do something more folk and traditional-oriented, so it was an opportunity to do these songs. A few of them are obviously new songs, mainly composed by John Faulkner, though the title track was written by Steve Tilston. It was a demo that John got off Steve about the Vikings coming to Ireland and pillaging and all that stuff.”

Night Owl comes in the wake of the success of last year’s compilation The Best of Dolores Keane, which sold over 60,000 copies, a figure which she says was way beyond her expectations. “I was really surprised and very pleased with how well it did,” she says. “It restored my confidence in myself after going through a rough patch where I didn’t know what I was doing.”

She confides that the 1993 breakdown of her marriage to long-time partner John Faulkner had a greater effect on her than she thought at the time. “I did have a major problem during that time,” she offers. “I was saying to myself that the split-up wasn’t affecting me but it probably was. We’ve been separated now for five years after being together since 1975, so it’s a long time. Obviously when things started to fray, there were moments I’d rather forget.

public eye

“I’m the kind of person to try to sort things out in my own head before I’d talk to anyone,” she continues, “and it was probably too much for my own head. It was around the time of the Woman’s Heart tour and although everyone thinks we had great craic on the road, I was crying myself to sleep every night.”

She also confesses that, at times, she took to drink in order to get her through that difficult period.

“None of us are without our faults,” she sighs, “and that was mine. But because you’re in the public eye, people whisper to themselves saying things like ‘I think she’s had a little too much to drink’ that sort of thing. There were times when I was absolutely mortified. I break into a cold sweat just thinking about it.

“Then, to top it all, I got those nodes in the throat and it frightened the shit out of me. I was drained of energy and I became very uncertain about whether I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. Then, I thought, shit, I’m getting too old to start doing something else. I’ve been singing professionally since I was 19.”

She pauses for a moment before proclaiming out loudly: “Jesus, I’ll be 45 next September. I forgot to celebrate my 25th anniversary in the business. But then I don’t bother with that sort of shit. Anniversaries and birthdays – I ‘d eat the cake before they got to put icing on it!”

Now happily ensconsed in a long-term relationship with Barry “Bazza” Farmer, a studio engineer from London, whom she met through working with Hank Wangford, Keane remains on good terms with John Faulkner. He produced the album and he still plays in her band – or at least he did until recently, as she explains: “We had a row again and he’s not in the band at the moment but he’ll probably be back in a few months’ time. At least we got the album finished before the row! Always know when to have the row. Timing is everything!”

Despite the success of her records, Keane still puts in a gruelling touring schedule with trips to the US and Britain along with Irish dates planned over the coming months. "I have to do the live work to survive," she says. "I have a mortgage like everyone else. I should be sitting at home at this stage of my life relaxing and enjoying the fruits of the work I've done.

"Fortunately, I've had the chance to make a lot of albums but unfortunately, a lot of the record companies I've had in the past never pay me any royalties. I've been let down very badly by them so I have to work."

Performing predominantly as a solo artist, is, she says, much more demanding than with an ensemble like the Woman’s Heart collective or with a band. “It’s a much bigger responsibility. When I was with De Dannan, I’d do maybe four or six songs a night but now I do 17 or 18 and the onus is on yourself rather than the group as a whole. De Dannan was sinful, it was so good. It was brilliant and we enjoyed every concert, even the bad ones. We’d pull out of it and someone would crack a joke.

“The things I really enjoy are the one-off projects. I did a song with Frank McGuinness who’s a very good friend of mine. He gave a poem, ‘I Courted A Soldier’ to Shaun Davey who put it to music, I sang the vocals, and we did a video for RTE. It was great. It’s like drinking pints all night, and all of a sudden you get a shot of tequila and you’re off again.”

• Night Owl is out now on Grapevine Records.