You produced your own song at some point?
I recorded a demo, well it was the duo, I played guitar sang and my friend played the lead guitar. It was just a demo but there came an opportunity, really through my dad, to have the Ulster Orchestra playing along with the original demo. My dad went to see the Ulster Orchestra and asked the lead guy if he would help us, and he did. That track ended up as part of my dad’s film, The Hammer Boys.
And between recording that song and now, you have been working on the technical side of music?
I just taught myself. I have no training whatsoever. A lot of the time it’s just me and Google or YouTube. I learn by doing and I also learn visually which is why YouTube is good.
And you have a job?
I do. I work in carpet sales and i’m kept very busy, a lot of domestic and building work, and my phone never stops ringing. It’s a job that takes up a lot of time. But I love to find time to help people with musical projects.
You were part of setting up Star Studios?
We had talked about something like that, and lots of people talk about doing things but when it comes to the crunch, they never do it. If there’s no money in it or it takes a lot of time and graft, they are just don’t want to know. Thats were my Dad comes in ,he makes it all happen.
He said to me, what would happen if we could set up a recording studio and I thought it was a bit pie in the sky. And I said we can’t afford a studio, but he came back and he said that we had a room and some gear and that I had to go down and set the whole place up.
I never thought we would get a space, but he found a space in the Argyle Centre and we moved in there, and now we have all this equipment and we have people coming in to record songs and we get people in singing and recording for the first time and I love helping people do that.
You and your dad seem very close?
We do get on really well and I do love being part of his dreams as much as I get to do things that I have always wanted to do,
We had a guy come in here just recently and he said it was his 70th birthday and he wanted to record a song. And we made that happen and when his daughter came in and they wanted to pay me, I said not until they had heard the song and they were happy with it. When they were listening they were almost crying. That was brilliant.
I love being part of helping people, bringing them out of themselves, and singing and playing music is part of that. And for me that has to be built in. It is part of me, helping people in our community and Star Studios is a way of doing that. And I am also there with my dad and we bounce of each other.
We really are like mates a lot of that time. He gets excited and I get excited too, although he is always asking me to do things and he thinks we can do things tomorrow and sometimes it just takes longer than that. He wants to do podcasts now and it was only a few weeks ago he didn’t know what a podcast was.
What about TRASH Fashion?
Heather Douglas got in touch with me and asked me to help and originally it was just to be half an hour, and then it turned into an hour and a half, then two hours. And I was bringing gear down and then the Belfast City Council wanted us to use their gear. But whatever I have to do, I’ll just do it. I will be playing some music and helping with anything else that needs done.
Where to now?
I’m just doing more of the same. I would like to record more people from the Shankill, put a bit of effort into that, but really I like the idea of people getting to perform.
I think when you perform you stop worrying. You let your troubles go. You stop thinking and you start focussing and that’s what I like to do.
I’m sure there will be other things that my dad gets involved with and I will be happy to help him as well.
