Honesty and passion to the fore as Jinx gets set for free Galway concert

Date Published: {J}

Every day, people can be heard venting their discontent with the current state of Irish society. Many are disillusioned and angry with the government, and voice this on call-in radio shows. But you’d be hard pressed to find any modern Irish music that taps into these feelings.

That is, until you encounter Jinx Lennon. The Dundalk based punk/folk troubadour has been shining an unflattering light on Ireland since back in the boom times and will doing just that when he plays a free show in Róisín Dubh on Friday, October 1. Given his fired-up stance on things, how does Jinx feel about the Taoiseach’s now-notorious night out in Galway?

“I’ve a vision of a fella, he probably grew up with loads of people there,” says Lennon. “I’m just thinking of the mindset of Fianna Fáil people in a certain part of the country. They do what they like and they see other people doing what they like; they probably think there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe he still thinks that way: ‘to hell with the rest of them, this is just the way I am, this is my way of doing things’.”

Jinx feels that a “moral compass has gone wrong” with our leadership but is not in the form to offer any sympathy.

“Of course it’s not good enough to have someone like that leading the country,” he says about Brian Cowen. “But the problem is, on the international scale, it’s done so much damage. People internationally see that Irish people take it, and people will not stand up for themselves.”

Jinx feels that the populace is guilty of misdirected outrage instead of actually taking a stand.

“The thing that really annoys me is what people get excited about in this country which is basically, sport,” he declares. “People will kill for sport. You get Facebook things being sent, there were 30 or 40 groups traumatised by that match where the French guy had the handball incident. People really got forceful about that and started opening up and I’m thinking ‘there something wrong with the way people think in this country’.

“The politicians in this country understand that,” he continues. “That’s why they go to all these matches and make sure they’re seen. Cos it’s like ‘we’re all one big nation together’. We can’t be one big nation when one man’s getting €300,000 and the other fella can hardly afford the ticket to go to the match.”

But Jinx Lennon’s music is not just about getting angry – it’s about getting uplifted. He comes across as a performer determined to shake us out of our malaise. This is very much the ethos behind the title of his latest album, National Cancer Strategy.

“It’s all about erosion of self-confidence in the last few years,” he says. “It’s all about the tension stirring beneath the surface; people are really, really angry. There are loads of things in this album about mindlessness and things going awry. As it progresses it’s about keeping sane and there’s uplifting songs towards the end.”

Jinx Lennon approach to songwriting is akin to that of a novelist, in that he concentrates on little kinks in personalities to create characters.

“I’m very interested in writing songs about individuals who find themselves totally alone in a situation that they’re not used to and have to get out of,” he says.

Over the course of National Cancer Strategy we encounter a woman having road rage on the dual carriageway, a couple breaking up, a man fighting diabetes and adults neglecting their aging parents. Lennon explains why he goes to the darker side of society in his songs.

“It’s almost as if people feel they’re going to live forever and nothing wrong is ever going to happen to them,” he says. “Some thing can go wrong; there are danger spots waiting for people, unknown to themselves. And the whole media thing gives people the impression that everything’s going to be grand and we’re all living in a very safe society. I like to see what happens when some switch is turned – ‘life’s not that at all. What’s going to happen to me, how am I going to cope here?’.”

While Jinx has established a loyal fan base through relentless touring, he still remains an artist with cult appeal. Building on that following is something he is always keen to do without compromising his punk-meets-preacher approach.

“My job as a songwriter is to get the stuff out there,” he says. “As long as people are talking about and giving it a bit of press, that’s great for me. My whole thing is about getting more fans on board, as much as possible.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.