Irish Drummers

For the guts of a decade this site has been about other people's drumming. Thirty-two of them ended up in Irish Drummers Volume 1 — the players, the gigs, the kits, the near-misses and the long roads. I asked the questions. This autumn, for a change, I'm on the other side of it.

I've been playing percussion with Giuliano & Friends, and we have a new CD released.

Who's in it

Giuliano Gnagnatti is on vocals, guitar and songwriting. He founded his first rock band, The Spirituals, at fifteen back in Italy — and remarkably, that band is still going with its original line-up. Since 2015 he's been a familiar face on the Mayo folk club circuit: Westport, Ballina, Killala.

Ray McHale plays guitar. Ray is from Ballina and spent the Britpop years working the Irish and UK rock and folk scenes, and it shows — there isn't a song you can put in front of him that he doesn't find the right shape for.

Donncha Butler is on double bass, an instrument he came to in retirement after concluding that an acoustic bass guitar without an amplifier is mostly a rumour. Hard to argue with the logic.

And I'm on percussion.

The music

We released our first single on 14 August: an acoustic reworking of "The Way We Were". Taking on a Streisand standard is either brave or foolish, depending on the day.

The EP of original songs follows in late autumn, recorded at Clew Bay Studio in Westport. I'll put the details up here the moment we have a date. Don't forget if want to order the book or CD then drop me a line. irishdrummers@gmail.com