 in the studio by the man himself. Jason, you're very welcome indeed to Highland Radio. I'd better put up your microphone now. Thanks very much for having me. You sound much better. Come here, tell us a little bit about yourself. I know your family is steeped in music. Paul has been at it a long time. When did you start yourself? Jesus, Tommy, I started. I would say I was eight or nine maybe. Daddy and that were always out. It was charity events, kind of fundraisers and that. They were always out doing and daddy was doing karaoke and he was doing this stuck on everywhere. So I kind of just kind of fell in from there. I couldn't mess. As you say, it was just it was day to be. And it's inevitable. And you have a big week coming up now next week. You're going to be on the new series of Lord Cherry had young Chelsea up at me last week and she's on it as well. So she's on actually the week after you. She's on. So I'm on now in Tuesday. This Tuesday coming the 19th. So the excitement is starting to build now. So the nerves are kicking in. We might have to go on to hiding for a couple of weeks after it. It might be that bad. No, everything's going well. Thank God. Listen, we're I know it's a competition, but we're not taking it that way. We're we're out to get our name out there, get songs on the radio and sit here and chat to people like you. It's going to be a big help, Tommy. I can barely tell you. How did the process come across from you? I know Claudia Buckley is your mentor. How did it come across for you? Well, it started started, I would say early last year, Tommy. I can sit at the house and I applied for the visa to Australia. So some of my closest friends headed away, you know, so I said to me, you know what, I'm going to head out with them. And then whatever it was on the Facebook, Tommy, I seen the application for Glortier. And I said, you know what, I said, I'll give it a shot. So I got off Australia and I said, I'll wait until I get word back. And if I don't get no word, we're on the plane. So thankfully, then it was just around Christmas time in the phone call came. So we're going to nearly Christmas present. So when you then, if we're going to be on Glortier's 20th season this year with Claudia as my mentor, so we couldn't ask for better. Well, I must say now, I don't want to put you under any pressure, but I was just watching the first episode there on last night. And it's a high standard. It's going to be a title job this year, you know, it is for sure. We even said that we were all being Chelsea even when we were speaking down there. But between our, we were saying there's not one bad person on it. Everybody that's there, deserves to be there barring me right now. We'll love it. I don't be underestimating yourself, but not everyone else. Excellent, excellent singers, excellent stage presence. Just everybody deserves to get their chance. And hopefully everybody gets a good shot at it now. That's the that's theme. I remember he was down there a couple of years ago on myself at the launch. Now, I wasn't singing around to nail it, but it was down and it was in the keys in Galway at that time to move down to a brand new studio now, haven't they? They did. They've moved out now to Connemara. Oh, that's right. They're out in Connemara. That's for a while. So it's, it's actually a wee bit further out than Connemara, but oh, Jesus, great spot Tommy, big, big studio. Yeah, I've seen a lot of them dancing and all, you know. Oh, but that, that was the best thing about it, to be honest. When you're in the kind of, you were thinking, oh, geez, this is going to be overwhelming. It's going to be nerve-racking. But once you went in, Tommy, you seen the crowd there dancing, we had the benefit of our night. We had seen what was going on before our show was recorded. Yeah. So, but once you get on the stage, the nerves were going, but once you get on the stage and seen the crowd were up in the dance floor, just felt like you were out in a normal gig, out playing and people enjoying it. So hopefully it comes across. Yeah, that'd be, that'd be the good thing about it this year, you know, because rather than you sitting, singing on the stage and you're kind of aware, there's three people watching you and they're going to be judging you. When you see the crowd in front of you, you chill out a bit more and get into it more, especially when you have the bit of experience. Well, that's it. Thankfully, we got through it and everything went well. We didn't fall off the stage or we didn't miss no words. Hopefully, as I say, not at some experience, even, even if, as I said, it was a one just getting on the show, Tommy, to be picked out of no matter how many people were in for it. And to get that experience for a stand, it can't, there's no losing it, it can't go wrong. It's going to even the further you go on your career now, it's going to help for sure. And as we were saying off here, and I was saying to Chelsea last week too, you don't actually have to win it to get the exposure, like just being on that, like, whereas you're giggling up here in Donegal and you're playing the local gigs around here, maybe in the Northwest, but you'd be seen there on Glordshire and people from around the country might say, we must get that guy down. If he's anywhere good at all, that's the bloody dreams to be honest, I am out playing and playing in pubs, but you're using back and tracks. Yeah, pubs are great. I love, love been out playing in the pubs. And, but I love my biggest aim is to be with a band. If you give me a love, the life band, just to the different experience on the stage, listen, I still do me, hopefully we'll get get a band the road somewhere down the line. But for now, hopefully Glordshire brings us a wee bit of luck and we can get out of Donegal and we can go further afield and travel up and down the country, hopefully. But that'll only happen if we get the votes. That's, that's the big one. That's the one that's, that's another job, isn't it? Getting kind of getting a little, you're like a politician, getting people working behind to get you canvassing, that's what I said. Like, it's the excitement's there. Everybody's busy, like they're all over chatty about it and it's class and the buzz is there. But as I say now, hopefully we can turn the buzz and to vote, because that's the big one. But as we say, like we're not, we're not even, it'd be nice to want it. We're not aiming to want it, it'd be nice to want it. But just hopefully we'll get an extra couple of shows below to get, to get back in the screen. No, but just, just getting back to your dad for a minute, you know, I've known Paul for a long time and he was out doing the pub scenes and doing the driving and all that. But he got a great break there a year or two back for his, he's out down these coast of the salt which in me booked Ian, Mike Denver and he's, he's doing great, you know what he's weekends, either a weekend here in this country or maybe he's got out to him and that's just from starting off in the pubs and the lounges around and they go on. But that's that, that's why we've been kind of to be looking at daddy the way he, where he came from, as I say, I'm kind of going on the same lines as him, but they have someone like him as I say, you know, with you to know, he knows how it went through. As you say, he started in the pubs now. He's, I think he's made up in five years now, he's going out with Jimmy Buckley out to the news on Robert Mazzales now in May too, the boogie in the Brava. So that's five years and cracking the costa and now he's going to the boogie in the Brava where we're having Mazzales. So that's definitely something to look for or look up to and good to have somebody there to be able to help you along the way that knows, knows what's happening. And Camara, when you were growing up and you were getting into the music, you saying, had any particular favourites Irish or American artists, who would you have been inspired by? Well, Irish first, I'm a big American country fan too, but Irish first, not just saying it because of Claudia, Jimmy, Jimmy Buckley was seeing my dad, he's helped daddy so much and people can't thank Jimmy enough. And what I mean, Jimmy Buckley and obviously, you can't be from Donegal and not love Daniel Adon. He, yeah, you definitely have to look up to him, somebody like that who's done what he's done. Oh yeah, it's amazing. And how long he stood? How long, I'm still going as strong as he ever did. I'm still going as strong and hopefully it's one person I've never met Daniel so that would be a goal now to get to meet him and hopefully we get to sing a song with him someday for that level. But that would be, that would be nice to him for a look forward to. But I just heard Michael English talking last night on the, on the gloar chair to about the music seems to be back in full swing again and a lot of young ones are coming in. It's amazing how many people are into the job. I know your dad taught the jive and down there in the Mulroy Woods and there's a social night down there and it turns out the amount of people, not just my age, but you know, your own age, younger crowd that are going mad now for the old jive and it's not. It's mental, mental. The kids for dad, dad would have been up with me here the night I would say but he's actually jiving down Remelton in the community centre. They do it every Wednesday and he's down somewhere on a Thursday and it's just, it's mental. Even though we've got a text message the last day for, it's actually a kids, kids club in Remelton and we're going to go on now and we're going to do a bit of jiving with the kids and they're they're very, very young. They always ask who, what, what do you want to do, you know, different activities. So it's just right down Tommy to write up as far as you can, the dancing is mental, jive and everything you get. It's just a, it's a phenomenon sort of. Yeah, you couldn't believe it. Paddy Bradley asked me, it was last year, he had the social nights down there and he was asking me to interview somebody and I forget who was the first person I interviewed for him and he said, come down on Thursday night and I said, well no on a Thursday night and when I went down it, I've seen that many cars in the car park. I said, what's going on? Because I knew the Milford Inn is to be small function room in the front. I went into the big ballroom and the back jammed. Mental jammed. I'm telling you, do you think that that could be a Thursday night in the middle of winter or Thursday night in the middle of summer? And that's not, and that's not a big, that's not a big band. It could be a two piece or it could be somebody like, I remember John Balloy was down there and John would have used a lot of backing tracks. He played the guitar as well, but he was, he was still, he had a full band with him. That's that's the last couple of years. You know, your social dancing has kind of taken off since COVID. Social dancing is definitely a big, big scene now and that's, that's the aim now to get in, into the social dancing as well. But as you say there, tell me the crowds that are going to, it's mad, it's mad. So it's, it's good to see. It's definitely good to see that. How did you manage during the COVID? You know, you'd been out doing a few gigs in the pub and how did you find it? You know, nothing, no more than me self-appear in the radio because on the radio, when the COVID was here, from seven o'clock in the you know, there was no shows for nearly a year, you know. And I know how I missed it so bad when you've been doing it for over nearly 40 years, you know, especially for musicians and that it must have been. It definitely was tight, but I was kind of doing music full time before COVID and your pubs. And I was doing DJing at weddings and I was doing everything. I was a jack of all trades and I was a master of none of them at that stage. But I saw COVID hat then and I had to go out into the real world and I had to go and get a job. So I started out then as delivery man up with DPD there and I'm not for DPD anymore, but I'm still still as a delivery man this day and I'll keep the two, I'll juggle the two between because it's good to get up and get out during the during the weeks too. But no, COVID definitely hit hard, but it was actually it was an eye opener as well because it kind of turned me then to write what do you want to do? Do you want to be a singer? Do you want to do karaoke? Do you want to be an agey? So I just kind of put Michelle down then I says let's give the singing a go and I just sat down and I would sit at the computer and I would sit by a guitar and so it's led me here now to this. So hopefully it's only only up from here. I just got a message in here says just wishing Jason all the best. He sounds like his dad. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's a while and a short. From Anthony, from Anthony Molly and all the guys. That's a while and short. Not at all, not at all. That's what everybody, when we're writing about everybody says the same things that you're just secure daddy. But even daddy says in himself I took the singing after my mother. Even though she couldn't sing. Did you ever try songwriting at all or did that ever enter your. I have Tommy and it's one thing that I really want to get into because I think there's one thing in the music business that's grand doing covers. But if you all the big ones I'll tell you I was listening to a couple of podcasts that I asked a couple of weeks from where I was working. They'll all tell you that one hat. You get that one hat that self. That's it, that's it. That's on your that song your dad did about the wedding. I don't know. I think it might have been original but it's a really catchy number and he's the only one I heard singing. So somebody wrote that for him. It's a great, great song. It's a great old song. Definitely all about the weddings in this. So that's hopefully that what comes out of this to Tommy if we can get. I would like a bit of your song but guidance that's what you need somebody to put their arm around you and tell you maybe you should do it this way, do it that way. So hopefully we make it in touch with a couple of songwriters and we can sit down and try go through a bit of stuff or they can they can teach me how to do these things. So it's all positive, hopefully. I remember before my daughter got married, myself and Margot went on a six week jive and course out in the drama hall at the time. And just so we could have an old jive at the wedding and that and on the day of the wedding we didn't dance once. We were just chatting. The people didn't get a chance to get out and now the jive is always the sex mixture. Somebody somebody here from the coast of Del Dunlore rang up and said to wish you all the best all the crack from the coast that from the coast of gang in Dunlore says all the best. By the way, just I know the show on Tuesday night has been recorded. Yes. But can you give out the address the phone in yet or do you have to wait until the show goes out and choose the. There's no there's no voting until the 9th of April. Tommy. All right. So all the voting is done on the phone this year. It's just an app. So it's a glory to your app. We small purple kind of box with a white microphone in it. There's that by corn and it's all done through that. So I know on the 9th that's the night of the open and then it'll open right through then to to the final. So if people want to follow if you go on and follow me and on the social media, I have all this information up and I'll have I'll have more on it in the next couple of weeks. As I say, I'll be like a politician now in the next couple of weeks until we're running about. I just I just need to send here if anybody wants to follow me. He didn't even a studio about. We're heading to the mountain top. Out to the mountain, out to the mountain road. So you can follow me. I remember I was interviewing a guy here a couple of years ago. I'm American nice and American. I forget who he was. Nobody was chatting when I said, how did you get here? And he said on the 747. It wasn't lying to you right now. Tell it. Smart, smart bugger, smart bugger. Come here, we're going to go out with your current single, the luckiest. I that's that's a song. I just I did it. Might have been just after COVID, Tommy, I recorded it and I never did anything. What that I left it lying and it's a great song. Piercey, Piercey Robinson done the steel working all on it. Yeah, so hopefully it goes down well. We're working on a couple of new songs here at the minute. So hopefully they'll be with you. Where did you pick up that song? Because I just heard a little bit of it before we came on here and I hadn't heard it before. I would say I have never heard it around here. So say I found it during COVID as I was driving about. I'm used to have all these different playlists going and it just mean you weren't listening to me here. It was too early in the day for you, Tommy. Sorry, sorry, I was on. But no, it was great. No, but before you play it, Tommy, just want to thank everybody for all the sport so far. Hopefully we can turn it on the votes. Everybody's been class and a big shout out to all of menswear, too. They've carried me out for the whole show, Tommy. They're definitely, they couldn't have been nicer to me, but all the people on the phone, everybody ringing texts, it's all appreciated. So let's get the votes. I was just telling my son today, I know you met him in letter Kenny on the night out. I was telling him you were on next weekend to make sure he gives you his vote. Ah, Jesus, that was a good while ago now, Tommy. You'd better say not about that night, because... The memory's still false, hey, but we'll move on from there. Tommy, here it is, Deluckius, Jason, all the best and we'll be all in support now. Thank you very much.