 there we go 12 minutes after eight o'clock on a Monday night welcome back in and that's Davey Fury Davey has a brand new single out we haven't got a hold of a jet but I know here they get that up just very very shortly and he ticks off supporting the legendary Paul Brady on tour in the next coming months so we wish Davey well we might see him up around these parts again as always a good old friend of her own and doing well the music scene is Davey right we're the street in and we welcome we say hello to our first guest here on this Monday night sessions and it's Tommy Keyes Tommy good evening how are you doing I'm doing very very well listen it's lovely to see you I'm delighted to be here and thanks for making the journey yeah yeah I called you a Dublin man well I'm for the international audience I describe myself as Dublin because they can relate to that but I'm actually a meath man oh are you I was born in Dublin grew up in Dublin but I moved man I shout for me against Dublin I think that's the kind of the oh that's the town yeah all right that'll go down well yeah well it goes with some people it does it does come here as I say once again we totally appreciate the effort that you've done to come up here my pleasure means a lot to us and we always said a different artists you know we'll take that as an example you making that decision to come up here to see us and you know that's what it's all about and as I say I slowly as you done that and thanks very very much indeed and I hope you enjoy your stay in Donegal absolutely absolutely we are and one of the time I do radio shows myself promoting singer-songwriters and there are so many fantastic singer-songwriters and bands in Donegal it's a real hotbed I mean like I just like the problem with name and names is that you forget somebody but people like the kings of cool and straw man and Mickey Duffy and Maria McComachle and Campbell I mean there's just so many last night the place that we're staying there was a lad playing in the bar I had never even heard of him before his name was Mark Langan I'll give a shout out to Mark Langan because he was just absolutely brilliant you know so like there's just I think Donegal is a great place to come to to bring a bit of your original music because there's such an appreciation of music up here yeah well we have we're currently on the competition throughout all the independent radio stations in Ireland and it wrapped up there the voting wrapped up at midnight past and we had a total basically what happens four four finalists are picked and they go forward one individual goes forward to represent Highland Radio in Dublin and then it's a 10,000 euro prize 5,000 for equipment and 5,000 cash you can record a single plus you get played in all the radio stations but only that's a long story they we had 85 maybe 90 songs sent in from this catchment area here and I think it's one of the one of the largest in the country it was the last time this competition runs from the hot press in the BA and we listened to the 85 songs myself and Jimmy were the judges and a few other people up here in the station it was one of the most difficult decisions we've ever had to make because it was not one bad song in it yeah and you know it's just amazing yeah and when you hear 85 90 songs and you're trying to make a decision it's very difficult but you're right we're the buns of talent up here I can I say hats off to the pair of you and there's others like you around the country but not as many as there should be radio stations that are actually supporting the independent singer-songwriters because it's very very difficult for most singer-songwriters to get much airplay as you know we discussed that with other people as well and that always surprised me I always surprised but we loved it and the thing about it Tommy now is we have been doing this show for eight years I've been on a Wednesday night prior to that for about ten seven eight years and it's easier now to put together a good Irish music show because the quality we're getting throughout the country it's absolutely you know it's world-class you know I know I know that from my own show and you'll see that you see that in a steady basis well anyway about yourself as a your meat man you've been in the in the business well you're performed in the 70s yeah I've been in and out and back in yeah I was like in the 70s if you could play an instrument at all and even if you couldn't you're in a band everybody was in a band in the 70s yes and it was an absolutely fantastic time and I had a fair bit of success with bands I was in and that in the 70s but life moved on I was doing all the things I had a different career I had a family and just I had to walk away from music for about 35 years well and then about seven years ago my career that I was in was kind of coming to an end I was in a position to retire and just focus on what I really wanted to do and the passion I had I wanted to get back to the music so I walked it I walked out of an office seven and a half years ago and two weeks later I was in the studio for the next three months doing me first albums and I've been flat out I've been flat out since I have been because you have kindly given us an album here and they're really looking forward we have been listening to your music and I know that you've been you've been you've been very good at playing me in the past few months and I really appreciate that the I've seven albums under my belt at this seven years yeah and are they all originals yeah I own yeah I only record original music yeah and have you been you know that time off from the 35 years away music did you continue song right now yeah I was writing and particularly in the particularly in the first two or three albums I love the songs some of them were even songs that I had written in the 70s some of them were you see in the 70s you could like anybody it's it's really easy now to bring music out very very easy to bring music out now in the 70s there was no question of bringing music out independently you needed a record company to do it so what we all did was demos you know demos demos on cassettes and you sent them off to people like Dave Fanning and so on and if you're really looking your cassettes will get would get played so some of the songs that I recorded in my early albums were ones that had been on the cassettes for the bands that had been in the 70s and a lot of songs that I had been writing over the years without them knowing where they were going to go but once I came back to music and once I started recording just found the floodgates opened the creativity just took off excellent and the songs just started coming you know so you know and they haven't dried up yet no I hope they don't either can we what we'd love to do we'd love to get a piece of music from you I'm going to go for a quick outbreak but the first song you're going to give us tonight tell me the first song I'm going to give you is a song that has kind of become my signature song in the last few years it's the title track of my album Aging with Attitude so the song is called Aging with Attitude and it's basically telling people you know if you must get all there's a way to do it there's a way to do it yeah we're looking forward to this don't go away Tommy keys live and Stu hey yeah oh my god is everything okay you and Paul Jane there's plenty more fish in the CCPC money to breaking up with your bank quick find another match with CCPC's free independent current account money to find your new account now at ccpc.ie forward slash move from the competition and consumer protection commission at very we deliver everything you need and more with over 70,000 products and free home delivery freshen up your family's wardrobe at prices you love get the very latest inspiration for your great outdoors level up your sports gear with the very biggest brands with various choice across fashion home toys gifts beauty and electricals you can choose the brands you love and we will deliver them for free shop now at very.ie free delivery excludes large items what was that probably just the elephant Serengeti safari good be get your ticket from Highland Radio and Highland Radio dot com and if that's not enough enter before Friday 24th of March and you will also be in with the chance of winning a 1000 euro voucher to use on any celebrity cruise booking for Atlantic travel plus 1000 euro cash draw will take place on the 9 to 9 show Friday 24th of March broadcasting throughout the Northwest and across the world online this is Highland Radio with Paul McDevitt and to my dogs for a checkup just the other day he says for man of your advancing years all you're doing okay you might just want to slow down a little bit and act your age the nice young lady on the bus awful me her seat she says I can't help notice your little bells steady on your feet but you see I played a game of ball last night I got a bang on the knee attitude so don't expect any gratitude if you show me too much latitude after all of the right here's the true story workman's club said hey granddad maybe not today I don't think you'd really like the music of those young people play attitudes so don't expect any gratitude if you show me too much latitude attitude of under right to bed as moves I'm still a match for dude I'm a gym without a jude I'm a gym without a jude age and without a jude have a seat thank you very much indeed that is Tommy Key live in studio and one of his own tracks age and without a jude and that's the best way to do it to you I think just age without a jude and yeah absolutely grow grisly you're you're you're you're gigging and all Tommy and when I came back to music I was getting everywhere because nobody knew me anymore yeah you know 40 years off the scene so I had no name no profile so I started going to all the open mics around Dublin gradually building up a name and I stumbled upon a session in a in a very legendary venue in Dublin called Darkie Kelly's it currently has the award for the best live music pub in Dublin they have it they had a Tuesday night session which was kind of an open mic it was a kind of a singer-songwriter night and I started going along there every Tuesday and after about a year or so they invited me to take it over and run it so I run it now as the Darkie Kelly's Tuesday singer-songwriter night and we get singer-songwriters from all over the country it's not an open mic people really have to have to have to be booked in to play it and like there's a waiting list of a few months now it's so popular but we get people coming from all over Ireland to play it it's a really really fantastic session so I put so much into that now that really I don't play very much else other than that apart from the occasional big winter festival or something like that to himself but that's probably the best way to be now do it do it for your enjoyment more yeah because obviously when you packed it on all them years ago you know you always missed it even you're away from it yeah but you're when you come back I always find that when I'm talking to artists you know who were you know out five six nights a week way back 60s and 70s and now they're just you know they come on and they don't care if they just get the music out there and they're happier they seem to enjoy it better it's come with a better burst of energy yeah you see like is it do you see it as work or do you see it as your passion I don't see it as work so therefore I don't see it as something that I'd ever kind of retired from or gave up or anything like that and I just see it as my passion you know it's my way of you know I have a certain amount of creativity in me and I like I like performing and this it gives me the opportunity to do all of this so it's it's fantastic Lin Campbell just messages there and said please tell Tommy said hey he has me as his feature artist this week Lin is a great songwriter I really like really like her stuff she is we've seen them perform live and we're lucky up around here because we have a couple of crack and venues here which we're grateful for and I have no doubt you'll see them down there do you notice any new marriage and talent on the scene that you come across yeah I mean I'm getting because I do a radio show yeah I'm getting so much in and then I get I get a lot of applications from people who want to play the session as well I suppose what you what you have now which you didn't have in my day is like people can actually go to college now too I know to learn the industry and to learn the business and so on the only thing that I'd say is that is you know it's the music business is kind of broken and I'm sure all the artists have said this to you it's it has become a very difficult industry to make any type of a living in and so I'm kind of you know I'm kind of I'm kind of reluctant to encourage people too much to put all of their hopes in making a career out of music that that's that's the problem and I hope that that might turn around in some way because you know I can't imagine a world without music but it's very very difficult for young artists trying to make a living out of it but you said something there that I've agreed with and I get blown away where young people come on up here you know and they say the same thing oh I'm studying music at such and such a college or I'm doing sound engineering at such and such a college and I'm like yourself you know I left school like at 16 couldn't wait to get out of the place and you're going God if I had been a music course I'd have loved to done that you know but unfortunately they weren't there for the likes of us like but anyway it's great that it is there for young people now and they can as you said yourself you know you're recorded years ago on a demo on a cassette and stuff it's a quality now that you can simply do yourself was amazing yeah now I I don't have engineering skills or any other type of stuff so and I'm I'm I am kind of old school so for my albums I go into I go into a studio with recording engineer and session musicians and and like it's and it's a very expensive way of doing it and I have a huge admiration for people who are multi-instrumentalists and have the technical savvy know that they can actually in a home studio overload they can do it they can do they can do the whole thing themselves I've been talking to people they got to and I say who's on the drums I don't know them over that yeah no I just don't have the I don't have the the knowledge to do that do you play many instruments I don't play any instrument at all other than piano I I can't even play guitar and when I say that to people they look at me with chalk on their face I cannot I mean how can you not play guitar everybody can play guitar I can play harmonica and I can play the keyboards but I never put the time into learning to play guitar learn to play anything else and it's a shame and I'll tell you when I really found her the disadvantage when I started going along to the open mics and fellas would rock up fellas and these were venues in the city centre of Dublin you know very difficult to get out with cars written at that and fellas would rock up with guitars over their back in that yeah and there's me lumping along the big keyboard not not easy no I don't play I don't really play anything else well we'd love to get another track from me if you don't mind okay well what I'd like to play because it's the first song of mine that was played on Highland radio it was played by Jimmy on his show back when it came out in September October and it's how I got to know about this show and Monday night sessions and Highland radio and so on this is a song called Storytime it's the title track of my current album and it's a song that I wrote when my first grandchild our first grandchild because my wife is here with me tonight when our first grandchild arrived a couple of years ago I wrote a song kind of looking ahead to things that hadn't happened yet but what happened of you know trying to get a toddler to sleep when the toddler only wants to play and all that type of thing and on the cover of the album there's a lovely picture of the said grandchild sitting on my lap at the piano and every day because we mind him during the week every day he sits on my lap and he has what he calls a piano lesson now he's two so he's not a very advanced piano player but he can sing this song this is this is Storytime I love to hear this we all love Irish music month and the artists that make it we're taking part in Irish music month in partnership with hot press magazine to promote the amazing work of Irish artists in every music genre across the country we're putting Irish music first we're playing more Irish music than ever before and we're going to pay Irish artists 100,000 euro to play and perform for us on independent radio stations across the country we're committed to promoting Irish music are you this is Irish music month supported by hot press IBI and the BAI sound and vision fund do you need a little extra help staying in your home at Bluebird care we offer a wide variety of Q mark approved personalised home care services across Donegal and our fully trained and committed staff will always meet your care needs with kindness compassion and dignity to get your personal home care assessment plan visit bluebirdcare.ie or call our care team today on 07491 29562 and bring care home hello thanks for waiting could you hold the line yeah no problem now how can I help you hi I'm looking to make some updates to my insurance policy have you tried our online portal I thought it would be easier to call yeah yeah no you're gonna have to log on to a mentor policy thanks for calling no no wait I don't know my password get the feeling that your insurer doesn't want to talk to you at local insurance we understand your needs call today for a bespoke quote or find us online at localinsurance.ie local insurance we'll get you sorted the local insurance network DAC trading is local insurance is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland local insurance is a tide insurance intermediary of Acorn Brokerage Limited Acorn Brokerage Limited trading is Acorn Insurance is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland okay welcome back and Tommy Key is going to sing a track from his album called Storytime as he was telling us just prior to that break and we have an opportunity for one oh big apart one lucky listener for you fancy winning a copy of Tommy's album Storytime just text in your name to always six sixty twenty five thousand okay always six sixty twenty five thousand there's sixteen tracks in it in total and we're gonna get a track from it and this is Tommy Key's live on Highland Radio and this is the title track this is Storytime once upon a time there was a boy Sunday's job but always full of joy fingers tightly wrapped around his toy you're supposed to be a sleepyhead what's the point of putting you to bed heaven's sake this can fly through space with ease for this planet if that's not all I say is true never tell a fit to you these are things I told your mother when she was small Storytime beautiful beautiful I'm falling I'm falling the words on the words on the album itself here and it's beautiful thank you very much indeed there we go ticker tank you got a grandchild I have five of them well you can maybe identify every word identify with it then every single word yeah and that's what I loved about yeah I write from the heart Paul well you can tell that yeah that's beautiful absolutely beautiful I see you've had Dick Farley and Jared Farley yeah it's that the same Farleys connected with the Isle of Ennis free their dad their dad Richard Farley wrote the Isle of Ennis free that is true yeah I met them I met I just see the two names there and that is sister and your term was a band one time and I was at a club somewhere and somebody said to me so talking to him you know and a given album I said of course we'll play the album certainly and I said I live on his phrase I said I said and he said my father wrote that well I nearly I nearly was blown over you know I I thought it was the songs around for hundreds of years and they told me that and I was like since that I still have their album and I just want to see the name yeah you connect they're just right away you know so their dad was a guard to all his life but he was yeah he was he he wrote songs he was a songwriter and he had great success with them and that song that song became a became a standard and Dick is guitar he plays guitar and bass on my albums and Jer drums and Jer is married to a singer called Sinead Stone who sings on my albums as well and Jer and Sinead brought brought out an album called the quiet man which is actually the songs of Richard Farley and that might well be that's the album that was that was the album yeah yeah that's actually Jer's wife was singing on that album she sings she sings on my album yeah absolutely beautiful album really you know and I'm talking maybe 10 12 13 years ago I got that so I didn't know what to expect playing it my God was just amazing you know and I never forgot that them and the name just when you see the name you know it's not it's not a name you see about tell me the what I love about and I say this to people what is one thing getting you know yourself when we're growing up the you look forward to buying an LP or you look forward to buying a seven inch single there was so much anticipation and you didn't know what was gonna happen but there was always plenty of photographs and stories and liner notes yes and what I love about this and I always make a point of reading the designer notes as you call them and this is well done it's beautifully Pakistan and do you know what I like about your albums every one of your albums they're talking here 16 17 songs whereas some people maybe you know you're you're looking to get six or seven you know what I mean so you pack plenty on the album yeah it's old school I'm I'm I'm old school and it's kind of a dyno thing but I I think they I mean a lot of music that's coming out now isn't I mean it's very hard to shift CDs now people just want to download and I think you lose so much not having the physical thing said that many many times you know because music so accessible now and there's pluses probably as well as there is minuses but I think one thing that they are losing is that physicality that where they can touch and feel nearly even smell an album you know do I remember gonna be shot you just saved your money and you you appreciate it every album that you had whereas every song but when I say that I do you understand totally it throws it open you know somebody could a lot of times it's happened here somebody would say I I was listening to such and such and I never heard tell of these persons so you can go to Spotify and very quickly find someone who would you have looked up to you know grown up the Beatles and the Stones I mean like I started listening to music in the 60s so you know the British bands more so than the American ones for me and then in the 70s I really really like Tom Waits and Randy Newman and it's funny because people listen to my singing style and and they tell me they see they see influence influences there but I've got my tastes are really really broad I mean I still buy a lot of CDs of a massive collection of 4000 CDs at home and like it's it's very wide it goes across so many different genres as I always say it started off as a hobby no it's an illness but I do the same right across and it's lovely but you see when you said Tom Waits there I got I got a piece of that in that last song yeah I got that there's not not said it was totally but I just have there's an influence an influence with that I doubt who we say hello to there Cleat Rathbone Clinton hi Tommy and Paul greetings from me oh yeah thanks Cleat and Michael Christie our Kings the cool yeah Kings the Kings the cool are coming up aren't they next week yeah we're looking forward to that yeah do good music they said tell somebody Tommy I said hello so there you go yeah Michael and that one of our many bad we're looking forward to them actually coming up because they've been sending us music for a few years now and I love it you know the the radio show yeah that's a is that a first for you yeah it's a it's a first for me I was asked about a year just at the start of last year a legendary character in Irish music who you guys know well Mike Gleason yeah my grooms down the road radio which is an internet station but has a lot of listeners down in Caldera he asked me I was sending him music he did like I was just like I send music to everybody I was sending music and then he said to me would you consider doing a show and I kind of said well look I'm already promoting singer-songwriters through the singer songwriter night I do so would you let me do a songwriter show where I just play original music from Irish singer-songwriters yeah so we said fine we'll give you an hour a week for that in the Wednesday night and after a couple of months he said this is actually going really well can you will you do two hours a week yeah so I do a two hour show now Wednesday nights and it's repeated on Thursday mornings and it gets a decent listenership and I said to him now I said there's one would it be all right if I play him a track on my own every week on that and he said I'd be I'd be telling you to telling you to if you didn't so that's not well that's fair enough so sticking a track on my own as well excellent excellent it's a different line you know do down but it's an interesting one do at the same time because you're you get an opportunity like we do here to listen to so much music yeah just brilliant they you're not you have you are you planning any gigs have you anything lined up for this somewhere no I know I really my focus is mainly just on the on the the Tuesday night the Tuesday night session and I what I want to do what I'm really not interested in doing any anymore is what I might call kind of job in gigs you know like like where you're basically going out to a bar and you're going to you know go into the bar for the evening do kind of a covers gig and that type of thing I did a certain amount of that after I came back and to be honest with you it's not what I'm in music for no I'm in music to play my own play my own songs and write a show what I am I know there's great venues around and I'll push I'll push I'll put something out there to the motors of Donegal and so on if somebody is putting on a show anywhere in Donegal and there's a slot for somebody to join the bill doing original music give me a shout give give me a shout I'll be happy to come I'll go and play anywhere that people are willing to just sit and listen to my original music yeah and because of the lounge bars and the clubs not yeah it's very it's not very often you get that yeah because people are to be entertained and they want to you know but they say we are lucky here up around here because we have some beautiful wee venues that just cater for the independent artists where people go and sit and listen to music and it's great yeah and that's nice and long made that are you working on any other albums at the boy I have I have an album my next album is fully written and I don't have recording dates yet but later this year I'll be in studio and that'll be album number eight it's going to be called the key of blue and I hope that will be it'll be ready for release before the end of this year pretty well so absolutely look forward to that Tommy we would love to get a final track for me if you don't mind okay well what I'd like what I'd like to play would be the single that I have out at the moment of course the single I have out at the moment is called canaries in the coal mines yes one thing I steered away from completely in my music and a lot of musicians are political and you know they've a lot of message songs and and take stances and and that's all very valuable and I have no problem with people doing it but it's just it's not it's not what I do yeah but I would climate change is different I just I wrote a song which is really about the importance of just you have not ignoring all the evidence and the reason it's called canaries in the coal mines I don't know how many people people have heard that phrase but I don't have to know where it came from when they had mines back in the old days and long before there were any sensors or anything like that the miners used to bring live canaries down in cages down into the mines because if there was carbon monoxide or any poisonous gas in the air the first thing that would happen is the canary would keel over and therefore the guys would know right we've got time to get out of here so the canary in a coal mine is a warning sign and there's all the warning signs that we've had and we haven't been very good at addressing them although we're starting to do something now so the my one and only my probably definitely my first and probably my last ever message song it's canaries canaries in the coal mine for this after this break don't go away Tommy Key's live and studio and another song on the way after this break treat your mom this mother's day at done stores with 20% off wine and champagne and half price on a great selection of chocolates like Cadbury roses heroes and milk tray plus you can save even more with our five off 25 grocery vouchers shrink your bill with double savers new from done stores always better value terms and conditions apply by tricking used on next-in-store grocery shop 25 euro or more five tricks includes alcohol please ring sensibly the choices we make determine where we're going where will your choices take you visit Kelly's Toyota letter Kenny or Mount Charles and join the thousands of Irish drivers who swap diesel for Toyota hybrid electric luring their emissions and fuel costs we've Ireland's widest hybrid electric range including the Toyota CHR and Yaris Cross don't miss out order today at Kelly's Toyota letter Kenny or Mount Charles you'll never take a wrong turn with Toyota built for a better world I've just had the Eclipse cinema's experience wow they truly have taken a night at the movies to a whole new level amazing recliner chairs directors lounge VIP rooms pizza and hot food served to your seat have a glass of wine and enjoy the film on the big screen try it for yourself at Eclipse cinemas Bundorn and Lyfford Sturban where the star shine brighter by the way the pizzas are amazing you can book your seat any time at Eclipse cinemas dot IE I was going to count Tommy and something went missing by the way Kings of Cool are here on the 24th of April not next week I didn't want Michael probably panic and oh god now the 24th of April we're looking forward to it Tommy whenever you're ready thank you very much this is canaries in the coal mines we were masters of the universe we shaped the world do our command but as time went by as we took but never remember the price we paid was not the one we planned nor the signs canaries in the coal mines we just closed our eyes and we listened to the fools when they were telling us that none of that was true we were doing the best that we could do then our rivers and they flew into our houses in summer storms we'd never seen even then we chose to ignore the proof around us and life went on as always it had been ignore the signs canaries in the coal mines we just closed our eyes they were telling us that none of it was true we were doing the best we could do before our eyes we saw a drought and devastation but that was just TV and far away so we sympathized and we sent the donation and we thought that that was all we'd have to pay we still ignore the signs we just closed our eyes and we listened to the fools when they were telling us that none of it was true and my grandson's eyes I see innocent some wonder for his destiny I hope I'm pray but I realize we may tell his world is under I listened to the fools who are still telling us that none of it is true we are doing the best we could do we didn't do the best we thank you so much that track is also on the story time album and we want to thank Tommy very much indeed the album we have a copy to give away Tommy's candy give us a copy give me fancy wanting a copy of this album story time just texting your name and we will do the rest wait six sixty twenty five thousand and we will take it from there and Mickey doffy said hello Tommy or sound grace thank you Mickey Tommy all I want to say is thank you so much my pleasure the pleasure was ours and thanks for making the journey up we totally appreciate it your social media people get in touch with you worry on Facebook I'm very very very heavily using Facebook to go and promote myself so people just search for Tommy keys or Tommy keys music on Facebook they'll find me there and you're on the and if I should of course have a website you have to have a website of course Tommy keys dot com but remember K E Y E S there is an American artist called K E Tommy keys K E Y S kind of a rapper or something so it's not me I think I saw his photograph you know immediately wasn't me but you know the difference no listen have a safe journey back both thank you very much and we really appreciate it enjoy don't go while you're here and as I say it's been an absolute pleasure for us Tommy keys thank you very much indeed thank you