 And here we are this Tuesday afternoon. Now, the singer Brian Flanagan, known by a stage name, Oman, which stands for You Must Act Now, has not only got a new song out, but a new and big show coming up in the Castle Bar in the TF Royal. Brian grew up in Balli Hornus, and as far as I know, based in Dublin these days. But listen, I'm going to find out now because he joins me on the line. Brian, good afternoon. John, good to talk to you. Thanks for having us on. Yeah, no problem. Good to connect because I've been playing the music for the longest time. And so it was good to have a wee chat just to, you know, sort of catch up. Thank you for playing. Yeah. And by the way, I'm in Balli Hornus. So, yeah, back in the home turf. Oh, based in Balli Hornus. Based in Balli Hornus, yeah. Balli Happy as we call it, John. Ah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You may have a focus. There's Clanish. Now, you have had a number of different jobs down through the years working in furniture shops, even one shop that's sold baths. And even now I'm right in saying that when you're not making music, you're a financial planner. Correct. I have a small financial planning business, and it's funny, the business and the music, they're kind of aligned in that a lot of the songs that are right, similar to Hi, would be designed to inspire and empower people to try and live better lives. Same with financial planning. We have to help people to create the lives they want through advising them on how to create a life plan on financial planning. So the purpose is almost aligned. And so I get to switch off the left hand of the brain and then turn on the right hand and vice versa. So I'm never idle. All right. Okay. Because, you know, on the surface, it seems like a know their poles apart, but the way you put it. Yeah, well, if you can, if you if your mission is to make people's lives better to your business, and if your songs are designed to try and but actually the songs that I write, I try to help my, my own life. And one of the songs I'd be most known for would be a song called Flamin' Day, which I used to try and change my state in the morning. Hi was the song just written to I was living in Cork at the time and I wanted to. And it's just more how do you live? How do you design your life and achieve your potential if you're looking down or looking at a phone all the time or looking at a screen, you need to be present, you need to be out and about looking and appreciating what's out out in front of you. So that's where I came out of. And yeah, it's an upbeat up tempo and it's designed to try and get people in the right frame of mind. You mentioned there, the Flamin' Day, it was a it was a big, big breakthrough for you, a big hit in 2017. It was, yeah, I had a great look with that and it was played off the radio here and great. A lot of people who are into that positive psychology piece in particular and who wanted a song for the morning, a lot of people come back to me even still and said, this is my alarm clock in the morning because it gets me in the right frame of mind if I get out in a negative mood. So that really opened the door. That's really why I changed my name. I was asked by management because of the genre the music Flamin' Day is in, which is kind of pop soul gospel that Brian Falling, it just didn't suit the genre. So they said, can you come up with a name that'll suit this and you man was where so it's an abbreviation for as you said, you must act now, which is a kind of an empowering call to action, which a lot of the music is. And that's not to say that I just write that type of music. I love songs. I have political songs. I have lots of different topics, but that's kind of that was at the start where where it was leading. You sometimes write biographical songs about people that you admire. You've written songs about Chuck Feeney. Well, you know, again, pose apart Chuck Feeney and Adele. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of Chuck Feeney. I think he's if someone said who is the greatest human of all time, I put him up there because having given 8 billion of his fortune away with looking for zero recognition, I thought that was just powerful. And my two sisters went to UL and they didn't even know that he funded UL. And I just thought, well, what can you give someone who's who doesn't want anything is giving everything away. So I wrote a song from and I sent it on many family and he wrote back to to acknowledge and thank me for it. It was lovely because I'd be a huge admirer and Adele. I loved her song. We sent it to her. Her middle name is Laurie Blue. So it was initially called Laurie Blue. And it was a subtle biographical song about her life. And funny enough, her solicitor came back as my manager at the time. He was managing Gavin James as well. And they share the same solicitor as Adele. And the solicitor came back and said, with an email, I think she wants to sue. So I've got a bit of a fright. Never materialized. No, no, I thought she's going to no, thankfully, I thought she's going to tweet it or say, oh, thanks very much at the very least. But no, nothing, nothing Kevin. I do, I admire her and admire Chuck. And I've written songs for Wim Hof more recently in the Pendulum so much I introduced him on stage. And who else are Michael Flatley. So yeah, I write for all my friends and family for a different occasion. I just love that. I think it's a great piece to have for somebody. It's a great gift. But you've also had your songs recorded by the likes of Nadine Coyle and Nathan Carter. Yeah, I wrote with Nathan in Sligo one Sunday afternoon. We had a great session. Nadine now went over to London. I was introduced to Nadine by Michael Flatley actually and spent a weekend writing with her. And that was great fun. But I have to say there's nothing like writing and recording and hearing your own song, song by yourself. That's really what floats my boat. Yeah, yeah, I can understand. For an Irish singer songwriter, your influences seem to be a lot of soul and gospel. In many ways, unlikely influences, but they come out loud and clear in your songs. They do. They do. I'm a big fan of that genre. I suppose I started off with traditional Irish and mental to various different genres until I started writing. And I just would have been a big fan of the soul. Love Gospel Choir is actually the tour that I'm putting together at the moment. So it has a gospel choir in each place. So hopefully it'll be up in your jurisdiction. Soon as soon as we have the data, I'll let you know, John. We're launching the album in the Dublin, the Grand Social in Dublin with the Dublin Gospel Choir. We're in the TF with the Chapel Street Gospel Choir on the 10th of May, we're live with Mundy and Donna Taggart. It's actually guesting as well. And we're in Cork as well. That's a bit of a spin for you now. But again, with the Gospel Choir. So yeah, I do love the gospel sound and the songs are they'll end itself to harmonies. And if you listen to when the album comes out in this there's quite an eclectic group of songs there, although they have a similar thread running through them, this pop, this folk, this gospel, this soul. And but hopefully there's something for everybody. I envisage a night of, you know, harmonious, uplifting gospel, 10 soul, 10 used to music. Yeah, with it with it with the kind of a roller coaster. So I generally start off to show with a bit of a bang and then there's just me and a guitar at some point and maybe an acoustic ukulele. Then we kind of ramp it up again with the Gospel Choir. And so it's kind of a there's louds and soft. So it's dynamic. There's a again, you couldn't people might just get fed up of a whole on gospel choir roaring at your head for an hour and a half. So it's it's the songs again, there's some soft, there's some slow, there's some there's some fast and some and some loud. So it's a bit of a distortion. That's good. Good. Good. Okay. Well, the the date in Castle Bar is May the 10th. And fingers crossed, you'll be able to get some dates over the course of the year, maybe a little bit, a little bit north as well as west. And the album, when's the album coming out? 7th of June. It's supposed to be called Crossroads. And yeah, the 7th of June and all that forms. And yeah, you can find me. It's very difficult actually to find me because when I created the name U-Man, I didn't realize that it's also a small little state in the Ukraine. And there's another reggae artist in France that goes by the same name. So when you're trying to find me, I'm official U-Man on Instagram. U-Man music official on Facebook, or if you just check out Flamin' Day or High, you'll find you'll find me, but I'm not as easy as I'd like to find it. And I can't change the name of the stage, so I can't stick with it. So what about Block Capitals with Dots in between? That'll work too, will it? That'll work. That'll work. You will stick with it. Okay. I will look forward to the new album and High is one of the songs that will be on it. U-Man. Brian. I like Brian too. Listen. I like Brian too. Yeah. Thanks so much for having a chat. And good luck with the gig in the Castle Bar. And maybe we'll see you up here as the year goes on. I hope you'll have a date in a couple of weeks. And thanks for playing me, John. I really appreciate it.