John Conneely: The Sunday Sesh

It’s probably fair to say that John Conneely Inc at the Róisín Dubh has now become more of a Sunday institution in Galway than Mass itself. With an ever-growing and loyal congregation and an assembled band of some of the most talented musicians/disciples, they’ve created a brand of music that could lift even the most nailed-down of roofs.

We spoke to the much-revered King of Swing about how it all started, and eventually became the go-to gig in Galway.

“I’ve been in Galway forever,” John tells us. “My experimental days were spent here in the early 90s, surfing on the coattails of the likes of Toasted Heretic and Judas Diary, the heavy-hitters of the Galway music scene at the time.

“I took a break from it all in the middle of the 2000s, and then got back into it and started playing a little bit of gypsy jazz, a little bit of swing. I’d been very much a purveyor of rock’n’roll originals up until that point and was looking for something different. So I started playing the music of Django Reinhardt, and I’d always liked the classics. The jazz, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone…”

Roll on to present day, and the gypsy jazz and jazz classics are John Conneely Inc’s calling card. The gig happened nearly as an accident; Gugai, co-owner and music booker at the Róisín Dubh, rang John up following a cancellation and asked if he’d be interested in putting something together.

Now, you’re never really more than ten feet from someone who has been to a John Conneely Sunday sesh. Despite being a weekly gig, each one seems somehow almost individual or unique in some way.

“There’s just something that happens in that little back room that yes, has something to do with us, but it has a huge amount to do with this town and the people that are in it,” John says. “Our setlist has around 57 songs in it and we go through the 57 songs over the course of the months. I try to swap out and swap in; I don’t like to do the obvious tune so I’m slow to replace a song that I think works really well.

“I like to present songs from the 80’s; I think the musicality that the pop songs of the 80’s communicated is just great. Part of the tweeness associated [with that era] might be the geneal sound of it, but once you take the composition and the construct of those tunes and deliver it as a live band… Those tunes are just awesome. That’s kind of my guilty pleasure.”

John remembers working in a petrol station in Kinvarra at 12 or 13 years of age in the summertime, listening to the Eagles, Steely Dan, the Police as one of his first memorable exposures to music.

“It’s quality quality quality, proper hits, great pop songs in the middle of the day; you didn’t have to listen to some late night cool DJ. Larry Gogan was playing Just A Minute Quiz followed by Queen. That’s what I grew up listening to.”

With a busy live schedule, it’s a wonder John Conneely has time for anything else. Recording the live gigs is a bit of a technical nightmare in a small, ever-changing space, but he’s been working on original material for the last year or so.

“It’s nothing like what you’ve heard at the Róisín!” he says. “I would hope to have the album finished by the summertime. The first songs that I played were originals, and I did that for twenty years before I started playing what is essentially, and with affection, a covers band. The influences coming there are many and varied. The stability of the Sunday night gig has afforded me the opportunity to sit down and spend actual time writing, arranging, composing and putting down tracks.”

Of course, we had to ask John Conneely about his voice. At times beautiful and soul-wrenching, at others almost a razorblade roar, it’s nothing if not recognisable.

“Originally I didn’t want to be a singer!” John says. “I wanted to be the lead guitar player, but I didn’t have the discipline to sit down and become that. There’s nothing worse than a shit lead guitar player!”

At 16 when he joined his first band, the lead guitarist was ‘a prodigy’ and didn’t want to sing, so John filled the role.

“I started to emulate Eddie Vedder, which is what I was aiming for initially, but then over the course of fifteen years it morphed into something else> I guess for myself the trigger in how the sound changes is when you decide to commit to your performance. If you’re lost in that moment right there, you can’t do anything better than that.”

When he’s not immersed in the music, John Conneely has his usual haunts, as we all do.

“I come into Massimo for some dinner from time to time. I like a quiet whiskey in the corner of Neachtain’s. I like to get out of town as well. Padraicin’s out in Furbo do awesome crab salad, with the best views of the Burren! I grew up with the Burren as my back garden, but when you’re in it you never see it. So now I sit across the bay and I just look at it!”

If you’re one of the few who haven’t been to a John Conneely Inc gig then we suggest you exercise some cop on and get yourself down to the Róisín Dubh this coming Sunday and every Sunday after that!

Feature Image by: Boyd Challenger