Some musicians perceive success as coming from little wins as well as from big triumphs. They’d prefer to sing a few songs under night skies than to headline larger venues, valuing the connection that the former provides and shuddering at the way the latter might require them to present themselves as something they’re not.
“I played a gig the other night in Bohola, in Co Mayo, the Village Inn, a local pub,” says David Keenan, the Co Louth singer-songwriter, whose impressive career has combined courageously honest, poetic songs with acts of self-sabotage.
“The regulars are in the corner. Stephen Murphy, the poet, is opening up. Lads are working on farms all week. We’re coming in and taking over, to a degree, so you can sense a question from one corner of the room: ‘Who the f**k do these guys think they are?’
“That’s grand, because it’s their place, but as the gig proceeds the singsong starts to happen, and you feel the room move with you.”
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The gig then moves outside: it’s a tradition on the tour, Keenan says, to sing two songs under the stars, hail, rain or shine.
“So then we’re on the back of a donkey and cart, and everyone’s singing. There is no barrier, but at the same time I’m in the pub singing original songs. This is an Irish pub where gigs are mostly people playing other people’s songs, so for me it’s bringing original music back into the pub as well.”
People know that he has in effect come to play at the crossroads. “There’s respect in that. You get that back from the singsong. There’s something kind of heroic in it when the adversity, initially, is there, because you can get spoiled when you’re in a room where you can hear a pin drop.
“I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work. How am I going to get through this?’ I have to draw on all the skills that I’ve forged over the years. You can’t buy those kinds of experiences, and you can’t orchestrate them. It just doesn’t work.
“Also, in an age of dynamic pricing, I feel in a small way that I’m shining a light on grassroots venues. With every gig, too, there’s a different support act from the locality.”
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Keenan is an eloquent, occasionally conflicted man who cautiously admits his flaws – “I would open up hand grenades on myself, which ultimately resulted in a lot of self-examination and pain” – and a maverick songwriter for whom there are no obvious markers.
Beside him when we talk are two guitars and a portable suitcase that holds some merchandise, clothes, and a small amplifier. He is wearing a charity-shop green leather jacket, and the ends of his trousers are held in place by a wobbly row of safety pins.
He is halfway through a tour of some of Ireland’s most intimate venues. You wouldn’t associate all of them with music, but Keenan says he “wanted to reconnect with the grassroots of it all, to strip away the barriers, to meet people again”.
Keenan emerged almost 10 years ago, after time busking in Liverpool and trying to make some kind of a mark in London. His experiences in each city proved to be challenging and character-building.
“When I went to Liverpool I was a teenager, and there were lads in Dundalk who used to sneer at what I was doing. When I came back from Liverpool the sneering didn’t cease, but it lost all its sting,” he says.
“It didn’t matter any more, because I’d left Ireland and legitimised myself, and I feel like I’m reminding myself of that again by playing these shows. Also, you need to play, you need to get better, you need to be sharper.
I’m someone who loves to embrace spontaneity and reconnect. Modern Mythologies is inherently about society and storytelling, a point where tradition meets invention
“To be honest with you, it’s been a couple of years for getting my confidence back and going, ‘I can stand up here with just me and the guitar, the song and the music.’ It doesn’t matter about the size of the fee I’m getting for the gigs, because the alternative is to sit around and wait to be told when to play.
“I see the gigs as reclaiming a bit of autonomy, diluting the cynicism, and being enriched by the experiences.”
Keenan’s back-to-basics tour precedes the release of Modern Mythologies, his fourth studio album. He released his first two, A Beginner’s Guide to Bravery, from 2020, and What Then?, from 2021, on Rubyworks, the Irish independent label that guided Hozier from Co Wicklow to the four corners of the world.
Keenan released his third album, Crude, on his own label, Barrack Street Records. This one is on Good Form Recordings, which is overseen by Martin Hall, manager of Manic Street Preachers, The Script, Wet Leg and Keenan himself.
The singer says he had received thanks-but-no-thanks replies from Irish labels and managers after sending out about half of the new album in demo form. Dispirited, Keenan was advised by his partner to contact Hall, with whom he had worked before signing to Rubyworks.
Hall was quick to reply. “He loved the songs and wanted to put out the album,” Keenan says, delighted to have such a significant music-industry figure in his corner.
“I’m someone who loves to embrace spontaneity and reconnect. Modern Mythologies is inherently about society and storytelling, a point where tradition meets invention.
“I haven’t done a tour like this in about four or five years, maybe longer. Being with a band can be really freeing, but it can also be quite inhibiting. Ultimately, I’m looking for something deeper.”
Keenan wants to do similar unrehearsed tours once a year – “no matter what” – yet he is also aware of how romanticised that might sound. He refers to the late Manchán Magan and John Moriarty as he talks about how “connecting with the land, connecting with communities, getting out to some parts of Ireland I’ve never been” is spiritually fulfilling.
“I’m pulling around that equipment there myself,” he says, pointing to his kit. “There are no roadies, none of that. In an idealistic way, you know when you’ve done a good day’s work. There’s a sense of satisfaction. However, there’s also a sense of how the online realm – the way it works, especially with musicians and artists – pits us against each other.
“You compare and despair, and it’s highly competitive, but this is a way for me to stay in the here and now. You need to get the balance right; otherwise you’re driven spare. Social media is a good tool, but it’s a total distraction from what’s really important. I’m a songwriter, and I need to get out and be inspired. I wanted a reprieve from the spreadsheet tour. It’s as simple as that.”
Keenan is reflecting on how his life has changed over the past 10 years. “When you start getting a bit of attention, a level of success, you think that it will fix you and fill you up, which is such a cliche,” he says. “Then you realise it doesn’t, so you try to discover something deeper that gives you more meaning and that enriches you. That is the path I’ve been on in the last few years.”
With Modern Mythologies, Keenan decided to write songs that steered him in different directions without compromising his creative integrity. “I always want to get better, because I’m conscious of having a body of work that I can look back on and regard as quality.”
And the days of dropping hand grenades around himself? “I think I’m probably a bit unpredictable and a little bit wild for the music-industry establishment, let’s call it that, but that is what makes me who I am.”
Modern Mythologies is released by Good Form Recordings on Friday, November 21st
