Tomorrow night Ryan Sheridan will take to the stage at the Sugarbeat festival in Tuam as he heads out on the bye-roads of Ireland for the first time in five years. We caught up with Sheridan last week ahead of this gig and his appearance in Castlebar in Garbo's on Friday, September 18. Speaking about his time out from the circuit in Ireland, Sheridan said: "It's been five years, it's been a long time away, but I'm dying to get back out there and tour Ireland."
The Monaghan man has a new album Here and Now coming out at the end of the month and despite its difficult birth Sheridan cannot wait for everyone to hear it. "I'm really happy with the new album, I had to record it twice, initially when I did it I was happy with it, but then when I listened back to it I thought I'd gone a bit too rocky with it. So we went at it again and I wrote five or six new songs I didn't have at the start, and pared some of the songs back to give it the more acoustic edge to it. But there's something for everyone on it, a bit folky, rocky, and everything around the edge." Having to record it again is something that Sheridan has no regrets about, "It was great I was able to do that because you want to be happy with what you put out there."
Since initially breaking into the Irish music scene five years ago, Sheridan has not been taking things easy, he has been working his way around Europe a few times, with Germany in particular really buying into his sound. "I spent a lot of time touring over the last few years, Universal in Germany picked up my first album and it was released out there, then I got a gig doing a support tour, and then off the back of that got my own headline tour, which was fantastic when you think I'm just a fella from Monaghan, and you're standing on the edge of the stage in a theatre in the east of Germany and there's a full house waiting for you to go on. It's an amazing thing."
Playing live is what Sheridan lives for and that tightness he gets from playing live with a band is something you cannot beat, he says. "You get that closeness and tightness from playing live, not from a rehearsal room. My band are fantastic, you can feel it in the air on stage, I could drop a note or go down beat and they'll pick it up in a second and go with it. They're a great bunch to have around. I enjoy the touring, when you get on stage and are ready to go on, or after when you've played a good gig and you know the 10 or 11 hour bus trip was well worth it to get there."
Heading into this weekend's performance at the Sugarbeat festival Ryan is itching to get back playing in the west again, he told us. "It's been a long time since I was out west here to play, I'm really looking forward to it and getting out there on stage. Festivals have their own little thing to them where the crowd get into it and everyone goes for it. It's great for you to get your music out there to people who might not know you yet. By their nature, festivals have people who drop in for one or three songs by someone and if you can catch them, that's great. It's all about getting your music heard, that's why you do it."
With a Castlebar gig coming up in the near future, Sheridan is relishing getting back to Mayo. "I'm looking forward to getting back to Castlebar, it's been about four year since I was there last, and that was a great night in a good little room where everyone got involved in the show. I've not played Garbo's before but I'm looking forward to getting out there and giving it a real good show."
