Ronan Eile

He's sold several million albums worth of his own musical creations and scored a recent top ten hit in France. He's also become a wealthy man into the bargain. But Ronan Hardiman remains a relatively anonymous figure on the Irish music landscape. As the composer of the music for Micheal Flatley's dance extravaganza Lord Of The Dance, the former bank teller has become one of our most successful musical exports. Following the instant success of that project, Hardiman worked again with Flatley on the music for the follow up show Feet Of Flames, launching his own solo career proper in 1997 with the album Solas. Never one to rest on his laurels the ever-prolific Hardiman has just released a new solo album Anthem, making it four albums in less than four years.

Despite the fact that he never performs live, Solas his debut sold well, particularly in America and Asia where Hardiman is known as a major Celtic composer. "It sold half a million worldwide, about a quarter of that in America, the rest divided between France, Germany England and Taiwan where it sold 25,000 copies," he relates. "It actually did better in Taiwan than it did here. I can't understand that!"

According to Hardiman, Anthem is stronger melodically and has a more distinctively pop outlook than Solas. Certainly the throbbing grooves of the title track suggest he's moving away from the soaring Celtic textures he's become renowned for towards a more contemporary background. Former In Tua Nua vocalist Leslie Dowdall features on two songs on Anthem, the trip-hoppy 'That Place in Your Heart' and the funkier 'Heaven (Waiting There For Me)' which has already been a hit in France.

"It's contemporary, it's sharper focused and the production is crisper," he states. "Leslie Dowdall is very much part of the sound on Anthem. I love incorporating ethnic and contemporary rhythms and classical ideas into the discipline of the four-minute pop song."

Hard to believe that Hardiman's success has happened in a relatively short space of time. Having spent twelve years behind the counter in the Bank of Ireland, he launched his professional career as a composer barely a decade ago.

In the early days as a professional Hardiman composed jingles for RTE including the main Evening News signature tune and the theme for the Pat Kenny Radio Show. He also targeted the independent film sector and was soon working on various commissions. His first real critical success came with the soundtrack to Dick Warner's award-winning TV series Waterways which is still broadcast widely around the world on channels like National Geographic "Waterways seems to has carved out a niche in people's consciousness," he says. "People know it in America and the album is still selling quite well."

In early 1996 Hardiman heard through the industry grapevine that Micheal Flatley who'd recently departed Riverdance in controversial circumstances, was planning his own project. He sent some demos to Flatley's management and initially heard nothing. Then out of the blue he received a phone call requesting him to meet up with the dance superstar. "We established a rapport and a trust right from the start, "Hardiman recalls. "I discovered that he was a highly focused individual who knew exactly what he wanted. He already had the dramatic structure of the show worked out in detail but he allowed me enormous scope and freedom, basically allowing me to do what I wanted within the framework of the show."

After ten grueling weeks often working twenty-hour days Hardiman, wrote, arranged, produced and recorded the 85 minutes of music which would become the soundtrack to Lord Of The Dance. The show opened in Dublin in June 1996 and the rest, as they say, is history.

"It's one of those things you dream about," he reflects. "Everything that has happened to me from about three years ago is a bonus. Lord Of The Dance will probably go on forever - it's having an Andrew Lloyd Webber kind of life-span. It's been on the road since 1996 and this is the biggest year so far."

Three separate productions of the show are currently running simultaneously, one in Las Vegas one touring the US and one in Europe, while the soundtrack has sold two million copies and rising. "Aside from that it's been a profile enhancing experience in terms of the doors it has opened," he says. "I had offers to do other shows but I took on the solo projects because I felt it would be a new challenge. I also had a feeling that if I'd done another show and it wasn't as successful, it might rebound on me in a negative way. You might feel a sense of having done second best.

"With something like Lord Of The Dance you're the last in the chain in contributing to a concept that somebody else has developed. On a solo project like Solas and Anthem I'm the guy who has to develop the concept and bring it to completion and promote it."

Astonishingly Hardiman is already working on the follow-up to Anthem which he intends will move him even closer to the pop mainstream.

"When I left the bank in 1990 I had three main aims," he explains. "Firstly I wanted to market myself as a record producer as I'd clocked up quite a bit of time in the studio with various bands. The second thing I wanted to do was to join an established band, and the third was to become involved in soundtrack composition for TV and movies. I went at all three with a vengeance. I pestered bands like The Four of Us and even the Edge who lived down the road from me at the time, plying them with letters and demo tapes.

"The soundtrack work just happened to be the one that came through quickly for me followed by Lord Of The Dance. But my heart was always in rock and pop and I'd like to do something more in that vein in the future.”

Anthem is out now on Universal Records