Paul O'Brien

Saturday night the 14th of Feb sees Paul start his Irish leg of his tour.Cobblestones Dublin on Valentines night, where he will be performing with Mick Hanly (Moving Hearts) and again on Sunday night at Cleeres in Kilkenny. Monday the 16th Paul and Kalissa will be at The Thatch Rahan in Co.Offaly - listen out for him on local radio stations KCLR 96fm and Midlands Radio 103fm.

So more great news yesterday! Paul has been nominated for a Monday Magazine Award - where Victoria celebrates it's artists of all kinds - check it out and if you would like - you can vote for Paul at www.mondaymag.com

So... despite landing in the worst snow that England has seen in 18 years - Paul's UK tour is successfully underway! And as he left Canada he received the news that his CD Plastic has been placed among several Top Tens for '08.Amongst the Penguin Egg magazine top ten, Sheryl MacKay's Top Ten new albums (CBC Radio)and Johnny Coppin's Top Ten Cd's for '08 from BBC radio in England!

After the great success of friday night's CD release concert Paul is now looking forward to his Christmas gigs and his forth coming tour of England Scotland and Ireland in feb of '09. Friday nights concert was a sell out event and a fab DVD was recorded through the evening which is currently being edited and will be available to view on this site in the near future. So many things to look forward to in '09.As I said Paul has over 20 dates booked in Feb in the UK so far. His German Agent Michael Behr is organising dates for Sept '09 where Paul hopes to be joined by his brother Aidan ( who is touring America early in '09 with the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra on pipes and guitar.) We are looking forward to introducing a fellow British Singer Songwriter Mike Silver to West Coast Canada in late spring early summer. Amongst other dates we will certainly be hosting a house concert for Mike so please watch the site for info as that will be a wonderful evening of songs. See Paul's links page for Mikes details. So check out the events page for details of the upcoming Craigdarroch Castle gigs as well as dates into the New Year. Thanks.

From Sir, with love – his own music Adrian Chamberlain Times Colonist Article His old drummer plays with singer James Blunt; his former keyboardist tours with U.K soul star Duffy. And now Victoria singer-songwriter Paul O’Brien is making his own bid for musical success with his new disk Plastic. O’Brien has quit his full-time job as a teacher and spent $25,000 to record a self-financed album of autobiographical folk-pop. Tomorrow he and musical guests play a concert t the Metro Studio marking the release of Plastic. In some ways, I’ts crazy to be doing what I’m doing,” O’Brien admitted. The 42 year old had no intention of pursuing music in 2004 when he immigrated with his family to Victoria from Birmingham England. For 13 years, he was a singer and guitarist in Britain. O’Brien and his band played regularly for a huge population of Irish expatriates living in the London area. Eventually, they tapped into a vein of lucrative corporate events and weddings, paying the group up to $4,500 a gig. His musicians were top-notch – drummer Karl Brazil now plays with James Blunt; keyboardist Sean Barry has performed with Duffy and Natalie Imbruglia. Despite fat paycheques, O’Brien the son of Irish parents, wasn’t particularly happy playing a mix of pop and Celtic favourites. He yearned to write and isng his own songs. Frustrated, he changed careers. He put his education degree to use, taking a teaching job at Birmingham’s Archbishop Ilsley catholic Technology College. It went well – in fact, O’Brien was eventually in line to become a head teacher. Wanderlust took over, however.He, his wife and their children moved to Victoria arriving in the middle of a snowstorm. He took a job as a special-needs teacher at St.Andrew’s a Catholic high school. One day, turning out of his driveway on the way to work, O’Brien happened to look inhis rear view mirror.There was a beautiful sunrise over the waterfront. “I turned the car around,: he said. “I had to go to the beach.” It was a turning point in more ways than one. O’Brien wrote a song about the experience, Sunrise, which appears on his new disk. He views the incident as an example of choosing to follow a career in music – this time focusing on his original compositions. His family is supportive. In fact his wife has gone from being a full-time to a part-time nurse, to help O’Brien book dates. O’Brien is excited about playing his own music on a 20- date solo tour of the UK in February. This will be followed by a tour of Germany in August, then another British tour next November. While he still had musical contacts in England , they were mostly in the Celtic music scene, of little use for a folk-pop singer. He ste up his tours by making cold calls to folk music promoters, then sending along his new Cd. British concert bookers had warned O’Brien such efforts would fail, but “I’ve proven I could get the gigs.” He’d like to tour Canada as well ( he has booked British Columbia dates in March ) but is daunted by the distances between most Canadian Cities. On Feb 28 O’Brien will reunite with members of his old band – for a homecoming show in Birmingham . The last time they played together was just before he set out for Canada. But this time the band will be playing O’Brien’s music. “So I’m going to go back and be the new me,” he said. “It’s kind of like a full circle.”

By Robert Moyes It has taken two decades, two CD’s and the little matter of emigrating from England to Canada with his wife and family, but born-again musician Paul O’Brien is finally ready to step up to the microphone as a singer songwriter with something to say. The formal release party for his new recording, Plastic,takes place this month at The Metro. The CD represents, in part, an exploration into the meaning of identity in a multicultural world; the event itself, a true coming-out celebration, heralds the debut of an impressive talent. Born in the 1960s in Birmingham to Irish parents, O’Brien grew up in that city’s Irish ghetto and always considered his real home to be Ireland. “So many people had to leave Ireland, even though they didn’t want to,” explains O’Brien, his voice touched with emotion as he recalls the plight of those economic migrants from long ago. “There’s a huge Irish diaspora in Birmingham, so much so that they have the third largest St.Patrick’s Day Parade in the world,” O’Brien says. And we weren’t allowed to speak with an English accent,” he adds. “My mom used to clip us around the ears if we did.” As it turned out, this reluctant inheritor of something akin to dual citizenship was extremely musical – and there too he lead a double life. Initially immersed in the classical realm where he played French Horn, O’Brien soon got into folk music and even started writing his own songs. “England was giving me a classical music education, and on my own time I was exploring my Irish – Celtic roots,” he says. “It got to the point where I was performing a folk gig in the morning and then that afternoon, playing Mozart with the Birmingham Schools Symphony Orchestra.” O’Brien made it as far as first year university with his classical studies, then bailed out at the tender age of 19. With no second thoughts he started what would turn into a lucrative career as a folk musician. “I was so inspired by folk songs, especially those by Vin Garbutt,” say’s O’Brien. “Folk music could educate you or make you cry. It could make you a different person.” And while north of England Garbutt embodied the English folk influence on O’Brien, the Irish side of him was most stirred by The Fureys legendary Celtic performers. It wasn’t too many years before O’Brien found himself increasingly successful- and increasingly unhappy. “I had a family to raise so I opted for the route that would pay, and I ended up as a wedding singer and hated what I had become,” he confesses. “Playing cover versions of pop music was the antithesis of what I originally wanted. The more money I made the more I realized I wasn’t the musician I aspired to be.” Deeply unhappy with how things had turned out, O’Brien made a complete break with his earlier life in England by moving to Victoria in 2004, taking a position as a teacher at St.Andrew’s High School. “I was burnt out when I came here.” Admits O’Brien. “My wife Louise even had to persuade me to bring my guitar along.” Although O’Brien seemed done with music for good, he did an abrupt about face upon meeting Joby Baker a celebrated record producer who lives in Victoria. “Joby was the catalyst….going into his studio was like entering Aladdin’s cave,” recalls O’Brien with a huge smile. “He played me something he had produced and it was brilliantly recorded. It was an epiphany – I realized that I wanted to make a record that sounded like that.” Suddenly galvanized, O’Brien came home to his wife and declared: “I’ve got to make a record.” Reborn as a musician, he went to work on what developed into a densely layered but fairly traditional folk album called Sacred Lines, which came out in 2005. “I spent everything that we had saved on Lines, and it was essentially an apprenticeship,” explains O’Brien in his quiet but intense voice. “Joby’s guidance was amazing – it was like he’d pulled me out of a slumber.” Ironically, O’Brien was so exhausted by the time he’d finished the Cd that he couldn’t summon the energy to promote it properly. “I never took self promotion seriously, because when I was a musician in England I never really took myself seriously,” he shrugs. One person who does take O’Brien very seriously indeed is fellow singer-songwriter Anne Schaefer, who appears on both of O’Brien’s recordings. “Paul is a truly gifted folk musician, he’s a great guitarist and he’s got s gorgeous voice,” declares Schaefer, herself recognized as one of the best musicians in Victoria. She also points out that O’Brien has an unusually stable marriage and family life for a musician, which frees him up to tackle subjects other than personal angst. “Paul is very earnest and he can write about issues without ever coming across as overly-earnest,” she continues. “I just love playing with him and talking with him……he’s a stellar human being.” O’Brien took another big step two years ago when he realized he wasn’t really happy as a teacher. The emerging singer- songwriter felt music was his true calling, and he took a leave of absence from St.Andrews in 2007 to start a second collaboration with Baker. Just released Plastic is a more boundary-pushing effort than O’Brien’s first recording. In particular, the sound has more of a ‘band’ feel and less that of a “gentle folkie” enamoured of acoustic instruments. The lyrics, as before, are thoughtful and evocative. “It was coming to Canada that gave me something to say,” muses O’Brien. “When I was in England I had dual identities and they cancelled each other out. In Canada, they were able to be reconciled- I realized that I really was English and Irish.” What O’Brien refers to as his “dual cultureship” is explored with particular poignancy an the title track of the new album. ‘The name comes from the derogatory phrase ‘plastic paddy’, referring to someone who’s considered not ‘really’ to be Irish,” say’s O’Brien. “Well, I’ve realized that I’m stronger as second generation Irish and I’m reclaiming the word ‘plastic’,” he asserts. According to O’Brien he’s had people of various nationalities with a “hyphenated” background similar to his own come up to him and say how much they resonate with his notion of identity. “It’s something of a universal,” say’s O’Brien. And ultimately it’s really about how you perceive yourself, not how others perceive you.” Music has become quite the enterprise in the whole O’Brien household. Fourteen year old Millie sings on the current Cd and often performs with her Dad. She has also appeared in Victoria Operatic productions and in a student show at last year’s Fringe Festival. The two sons- 12 year old Cormac and Fintan a year younger – sing, play various instruments and write their own songs. “When they busk downtown they create quite a stir,” say’s O’Brien proudly. “The crowds gather the money flows… and they’re using the proceeds to pay off a Mac laptop that they record their music on.” Not surprisingly for a songwriter, O’Brien is articulate and a good storyteller – but as our interview progresses he goes deeper, proving to be one of the most measured, candid and thoughtful people I’ve ever talked with. Close your eyes at certain moments and you could almost be listening in on a confessional TV show; with eyes open, though, you’re looking at what seems to be an ordinary bloke whose squarish face and unremarkable features would be right at home talking soccer in any Dublin pub. So let’s call this songwriter a working class poet then, one with a knack for straightforward language held aloft by a sweet gift of melody. At the moment, O’Brien finds himself straddling two worlds; that of the singer-songwriter as well as a more prosaic existence as a workaday pub musician with regular gigs at places like The Irish Times. “At some point I’ll be phasing those gigs out,” declares O’Brien, “I dearly love playing Celtic music, but I need to step away from that because it clashes with my ambitions to write my own songs,” he explains, aware of the danger of repeating the same pattern that chased him out of England. “But these days everything is heading in the right direction,” he adds, a note of satisfaction in his voice. “I’ve got the albums, I’ve got the songs- now I just have to put the miles in and see to some serious self-promotion.”

Lots of news - Paul's new album that he recorded in March in Germany with Stockfisch Records will be out in August sometime . Paul returns to Germany in September for his first tour there where he will be joined for several dates by Virtuoso guitarist and composer Uli Kringler ( www.ulikringler.de). Paul will be heading down to Nashville in the summer sometime where he hopes to do some more recording and writing. October - Paul will be touring and doing some dates in BC including a night at the legondary 'Hermans' here in Victoria. Paul will be returning to England in November where he will be playing more dates and working in schools - his school show and workshops. March 2010 - already has dates booked for his second German Tour. Thankyou to all of you who voted for him in the ' Monday Magazine Awards' - he was delighted to win an award.