Athlone musician Alan O’Neill releases debut album

On his Late Date show on RTE Radio One last Wednesday night, Cathal Murray introduced a talented new voice in Irish music, Athlone singer and songwriter Alan O'Neill.

Listeners to the programme got to hear Alan's song Bound, a beautifully melancholic modern folk ballad which is one of ten tracks on his debut album, Ghosts of the Past.

The album was launched on streaming platforms last Friday, April 1, and when he spoke to the Westmeath Independent on the eve of its launch Alan said he was grateful for the national radio airplay and the positive reaction to song snippets he had shared on social media.

"There's been a good response to the bits I've been putting up so far, and hearing it last night on the radio was great. I didn't expect to be getting straight on to RTE," said the Baylough resident.

Ghosts of the Past is an album of original material and it is very much a solo record. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Alan not only wrote and sang the songs but also played all of the instruments on the album in addition to producing and mixing the finished product himself.

Having been performing on the local and regional scene for the last 20 years, he admitted this album had been a long time coming.

"I had a few false starts with it over the years," he said. "There were a few attempts, years ago, to get it done but it was never just right. It never (sounded) the way I had imagined it."

The sound achieved on Ghosts of the Past invites comparison with contemporary alternative folk acts such as Bon Iver. "I would have listened to a lot of Bon Iver during lockdown, so stuff like that would have influenced a lot of it," he said.

"It's folky, but with ambient stuff going on as well. It's fairly laid back. I'd be big into soundscapes and sampling, so it was traditional folk song structures but with synth and ambient stuff, and soundscapes, going on as well. That's how I think of it anyway!"

With typical modesty, Alan said he was "fairly proud" of the album now that it's been completed.

"It's hard to know how you feel about it when you're in it, especially when I did it all myself. When you've been listening to it so much you can lose perspective, and you start thinking, 'Is this actually good? Should I actually put this out?'" he laughed.

Hailing from a musical family, Alan (36) started out performing with his Dad, Tommy, when he was 16 years of age. His brother, Kevin, plays with the up-and-coming indie rock band The Baines.

Alan initially played Irish folk music before moving more into the 'Americana' genres of bluegrass, country, and folk rock. For several years he performed with the local Americana collective, Hickory Wind.

When Covid-19 brought a halt to live music, Alan said there were some silver linings to that cloud. "It went on a bit too long, but at the same time the break was good. I kind of came back refreshed last year.

"It gave me a chance to regroup, get stuff together, and it gave me a bit more time for recording. So it had its benefits, as well as the obvious drawbacks."

His own musical influences are varied but artists like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and Planxty would be among his favourites. "Dylan would have been the main one over the years," he said.

"He would have gotten me into the whole thing of playing the acoustic guitar and harmonica, but I'm constantly listening to music and I listen to all sorts, not just the stuff that I play."

Now that his album is out on streaming platforms, Alan is planning to get CDs of it pressed and make them available for sale in the coming weeks.

He also said there were tentative plans for a live performance of Ghosts of the Past at which he would be joined by other local musicians.

* Ghosts of the Past by Alan O'Neill is available now on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, and all streaming platforms. You can also follow Alan on Twitter and Instagram.