My influences are predominantly the bands Sweeny's Men, Planxty, The Dubliners and early Paul Brady. The Irish traditional music scene experienced a huge revival in the mid 70's. It went from a scene typicalised by 10 old men in suits and ties, all playing the same tune on a fiddle, to young guys with long hair and beards, playing the same music but with many different instruments and in manner more like the Rock bands of the sixties and seventies. This made the younger audience much more interested and from there was a huge influx in young musicians experimenting with the music of our Irish culture. It has now become the norm in Ireland and around the world, many people don't understand the effect the 60's and 70's Folk and Rock scene had on it. Personally I love the jigs and reels played with guitars, bouzoukis, mandolins and uilleann pipes but my main love is multi-level vocals. Give me anything with multi-level vocals and I'm happy. Probably why I love the modern Folk Rock group Fleet Foxes so much :)
How are the locals' reactions and thoughts to your sound?
They really seem to like the ballad type stuff but when I play songs on the Irish drum (the Bodhrán) it really gets the Mauritian audience interested because they see how similar it is to the Ravanne (and generally think it's a ravanne) and when they see how I play it they tend to be intrigued by how a ravanne is being played with a stick and how it's being played effectively sideways. Outside The Irish, I mix my set up completely so it's a lot of eclectic Rock and Folk mixed with some of my Irish stuff and some acoustic renditions of modern, more tasteful (in my own opinion) stuff. This appeals a lot to the expat crowd, and of course, Black River has a large expat community so I need to play to my audiences tastes. Generally this gives me the opportunity to play lots of random stuff from different genres so I enjoy this and doing this has also helped me to develop my set list considerably.
What do you think about The Irish pub/restaurant concept on the island?
Javed has done a very good job. The place looks great, he has managed and marketed it well. I was sceptical at first when I heard there would be no draught Guinness and no pork which I thought was pretty odd for an Irish theme bar but I suppose he needs to cater to his clients. Hopefully the distribution issue with Phoenix will be sorted in the near future and we'll have a place in Mauritius to have a cold, creamy pint of Guinness :)
What does music mean to you?
As I mentioned above, it is interwoven with all of life. Whether it be the design/
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