Meeting Eoghan Colgan is certainly an experience. He is so friendly and approachable, it was no surprise when I heard he’s actually a doctor! What a romantic tale, doctor turned singer/songwriter who’s living the dream. Originally from County Down, but based in Glasgow at the moment, he decided to hit the Irish scene with a recent gig in Boyles in Slane and Whelans upstairs in Dublin. He has a distinctly Damien Rice / David Gray feel to his music and no doubt is set to make a huge impact on the Irish market.
His new single Dream Satellite was released last month and he did a string of gigs to promote it. It’s a really catchy song and you’ll find yourself singing along. The video is very innovative, I asked Eoghan about it. “I had this six month plan, I was going to release the single in April, and I thought with the way the economy was going nobody wants another singer/songwriter singing about heartbreak, people probably a bit of a release, a pop song. I’ve never really done one before and the lyrics are all about the credit crunch, saying c’mon it’s gonna be grand, we’re gonna have fun. Piss off anyone who’s feeling negative or down, we’re gonna be positive and have a good time. So it’s just a feel good song. We invited all our fans and friends to come down and everyone was in such good form”. There is a lovely scene right at the end when the little boy gives a high five to somebody behind the camera, Eoghan laughed when I mentioned this “That’s my god son, my sister’s wee lad. I was standing behind the camera trying to make him laugh and then I just stuck out my hand and he high-fived it. That wasn’t supposed to be in the video but when we looked back and saw it, we just thought that’s in”.
So the big question is, what made him give up a successful career as a doctor and enter the tough world of the music industry. “The more I learned about the record industry, they promise the earth and all sorts of stuff but it’s all we’ll see what happens. It’s the new generation; they don’t nurture new talent any more. They want you to come prepackaged. If you don’t come already with a hit single and 100,000 hits on MySpace, they don’t want to know. I didn’t have the time because I was working all the time. So that’s where the idea of a record label came from. I’ve done it all myself, and you know what? It’s been great! Working as a doctor has made it easy to do this, you work long hours. When I first started working as a doctor in Belfast, we very regularly did 100-hour weeks. So working as a doctor I invested a lot of time into my work. If I learned anything from medicine, it’s how to put in a hard day’s graft. I don’t mind, you know when you love something?”
It’s such a brave decision, how did he feel when he finally bit the bullet and said right I’m doing this full-time? “It’s not brave, it was the easiest decision of my life. I remember, one of my earliest times discussing music as a career, I was visiting my cousin in Fiji, we had just been out fishing and we were sitting on the beach at 4 o’clock in the morning. I remember saying I really wanted to make music my career. So when the opportunity came to make it my career, I knew medicine would be hard to give up but then I won the O2 Undiscovered, it’s like this UK wide search for talent. I won it in London in front of this panel of industry experts Amanda Ghost, Andy Taylor from Duran Duran etc. So on the back of that I thought, maybe I am good enough. So to make the decision then was easy”.
The reaction to the single has been great so far and Eoghan’s fans are looking for more, when can we expect an album? “Hopefully an album before the end of the year I’d love to get an album out, I’ve got to build on the good reaction we’re getting to this single”. At this stage, he must have a collection of songs under his belt so what can we expect from the album, does he have a set list in mind? “Well we have a set list for the tour, but for the album it’ll be hard. I’ve been writing for 10 or 12 years, so there’s certainly a few albums worth of material there, so deciding what makes the debut album is hard, it needs to be right! And I don’t know if I even trust myself to make the decision! I want it to be eclectic, you know a nice mix.”
Jeff Buckley heavily influences him and when I mentioned him, he told me an interesting story. “I was working in Africa in 1988, when I started medicine, all I wanted to do was work in the third world. So I went off to work on the Ivory Coast, hadn’t a clue. I can’t believe my mum even let me go, I’m more annoyed with her!” he said laughing. He continues nonchalantly “Anyway, I got malaria and almost died”. What?! The story gets better.. “My only comfort was my cassette player, and on one side was Jeff Buckley’s Grace and the other side was Ash. I love Ash but I got to the point where I was forwarding through Ash, just to get back to Jeff Buckley. I must have listened to that album for 20 hours a day for about 5 days solid and I just fell in love with it. It’s still my favorite album of all time.”
Check out the great new single on his MySpace page: www.myspace.com/eoghancolgan
