Originally published in Hot Press in 2000...

Seán Keane, when he speaks of needing to go back to the "source of your music" in the DVD for Water From The Well, could be referring to his own music-soaked upbringing in Dublin in the ’50s.

"Music was almost the first sound my brother and I were aware of," he says. "There were only the two of us and when we’d go to bed every night, there was music. The sound of fiddles or my uncle playing the pipes. It was taken for granted in our home."

That said, Seán Keane actually started out studying not Irish traditional music but classical music.

"It was a way of learning the fiddle," he explains. "I studied, initially, with Johnny Fox and he had no great interest in traditional music so I studied classical fiddle with him. Everything from learning the scales to how to hold the fiddle and the bow. And studying classical composers like Beethoven. Then, from the age of twelve to eighteen I went to the College of Music in Chatam Row."

Given that one defining feature of the Chieftains music is the way they brought a "classical" sensibility to Irish traditional music – as in the arranging skills Paddy Moloney picked up, in part, from Seán Ó Riada – how does Seán feel his own classical base affected the overall sound of the group?

"I wouldn’t say it, necessarily, affected what I brought to the Chieftains," he replies, "but it definitely affected my view of tone, proper scale structure in tunes and the overall sense of going for the right note rather than going for a rough approximation, which is used a lot in terms of triplets and rolls. Particularly rolls on the left hand where, instead of playing the full phrase some people tend to roll through it. Or take the short cut. Studying classical music, on the other hand, gave me a deep and abiding appreciation for melody."

As in the purity of line that still comes through when Seán plays.

"I hope it does."

But is that line so pure that when Seán plays a solo, he is actually transported to some sacred musical space?

"It’s hard to analyse," he responds, fumbling. "You are aware there is an audience there and know you have to get this melody out to them but, at the same time, the moment you get it right you are transported to a world beyond it all. You might even sense, from the audience, that they’re not too interested in what you’re doing but you still go there. Like, last night, for example. Kevin and Matt, as you say, may have felt they weren’t fully connected to the audience, at this level, but what I felt, coming from that audience in Carnegie Hall, was totally positive energy. Definitely. When I went out there I felt totally motivated. And that, too, is ‘Water From The Well’. Otherwise you may as well stay and play at home. For yourself!

"And as for the idea that the Chieftains set out to bring Irish traditional music from the pub onto the concert hall stage, the real point is that Paddy wanted to perform on stage and formed the group to perform the music, which he saw in a particular way."

As in, a "classical" context in the way that Seán Ó Riada did?

"Yes," says Keane. "Seán analysed and broke down the session setting and gave every instrument its turn but it got to a certain point where Seán said ‘that’s it. I’ve done what I wanted to do, brought the music to such a stage’. Whereas Paddy was already hammering away at the Chieftains since 1963. As we all were. In various projects. So he picked up the gauntlet and brought it all that much further.But he rarely gets credit for this fact."

It’s said that Seán Ó Riada originally introduced Seán to the Chieftains as someone who "plays like an angel and looks like a Greek God?"

"If your tape recorder could capture colour it would capture a very deep red right now!" says Seán. "My Jesus, that quote is an embarrassment!

"Actually, I didn’t hear about that comment until years afterwards, when Thomas Kinsella, the poet, told me! So, thank God, I didn’t have to live up to that image at the time! But those days were great because they were new, we were young and suddenly having hundreds of people at our concerts rather than tens. That, alone, apart from the parties, was a wonderful feeling. Then when the travelling started we thought ‘this is it’ but as Kevin and Matt said to you, the novelty soon wore off. And we are all affected by that. Especially when family comes into it. It’s very hard to deal with the fact that your family is 3,000 miles away, at home. But I married at 22, so I had a great foundation there. Fortunately. Because my wife loves the music as well. Although she often cursed it!"

Why? Because it set a distance between herself and that ‘Greek God’?

"Well, she laughed at that as much as I did," says Seán. "But she was born and raised in the middle of music as well. And when I met her it really was like meeting a soul-mate. We met at a club in Dublin, where we used to go for set dancing. And that has been one of the real blessings of my life. But it still doesn’t make it any easier for her, in terms of the travelling! I can’t imagine what it must have been like, rearing three children – and as Matt says, this probably goes for most of the rest of the lads as well – when we were away. In fact, we’ve been touring like that, since October 1975. And I got married in ‘69, which doesn’t leave much time for me to focus, full-time, on the marriage."

But did Seán ever feel ‘if I don’t draw back from the Chieftains I’m gong to lose the woman I love’?

"There always was an element of not so much losing each other but that the whole thing was becoming a hell of a strain," he responds. "And we did question that a lot. And this helped to solidify the relationship. As in, we looked at both sides of it all, asked questions like was I going to be happy if I gave it all up? Was Marie gong to be happy with me in a job I didn’t like or wasn’t going to be good at? Those questions were always there.

"But, that said, I don’t really feel that my wife, children and I have less of a relationship than we might have had if I wasn’t a member of the Chieftains. And there have been certain rewards – such as the family coming to France for family holidays – which, if I was in a regular job, wouldn’t have been the case! And my family are impressed, to a certain extent, by aspects of my ‘fame’ in the Chieftains. Like when we meet certain stars. A few years ago, all my daughter wanted – as a mature lady! – was an autograph of David Letterman! That’s their perception of my life in the Chieftains, as long as they have daddy around, I guess!"

Which will hopefully be for a long time since Seán has amended his lifestyle following a heart attack.

"That happened five years ago, when I was 49 and it was brought on by stress," he reflects. "It also was an alarm bell. Something that made me take stock of the whole situation, re-adjust my life. As in, saying, ‘okay, this is what I do, I play music’ but from that point onwards I also started to exercise again. And just be more careful in terms of my life. In fact, I had two suspected heart attacks, both at home."

Shifting his focus to Chieftains recordings that took place around the same time as his suspected heart attacks, Seán Keane admits that many of the Chieftains’ collaborations with "special guests" were "arduous, to say the least." Other such recordings were, he says, "worthwhile." But surely during those sessions that produced Chieftains tracks such as ‘The Rocky Road To Dublin’, the purity of line-loving Seán Keane must have asked himself if this, patently commercial project, really was what he’d committed his life to?

"It’s funny you mention that track," he says. "Because it is, possibly, one of those very tracks where, as Kevin says, the music might have been teetering on the brink of being lost. And if he says that track is ‘fun’ that, too, is as far as I’d go. That’s all it was."

Where, in contrast with all this mutual superstar-wanking, would Seán Keane say he’d played his purest musical lines?

"Probably on my own solo albums like Jig It In Style," he says. "And the first solo album I made in 1975. As for the music I’ve played with the Chieftains, I really couldn’t pick any specific recordings. Because it’s been a journey of delight since we started recording. At times I do think ‘where the hell are we going next?’ but something new always turns up. Like Water From The Well, where we go back to the very source of our music. This album really, was an absolute delight to make.

"In fact, it’s albums like this that make my life with the Chieftains seem totally worthwhile. At points, we all wonder is it time to walk away from the band, give it all up? But then I think ‘what if I did and they came along and made an album like this without me? Wouldn’t I be kicking myself in the arse!’ That’s why, looking back, I realise I really was in the right place at the right time, in 1968, when Paddy Moloney invited me to join the Chieftains.

"In fact, to give Paddy his due, he’s the biggest ‘small man’ I ever came across! He’s huge. As in, his way of piping, his demeanour, his way of handling people. Not only that, Paddy’s as tough as they come, as far as business is concerned. That, too, is why the Chieftains have survived for nearly forty years. We wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for Paddy Moloney. That’s why I trust him, implcity. Even if I don’t agree with everything he does."