Patience pays off as Joe Furey & Hayride launch debut album

Date Published: {J}

Joe Fury & the Hayride, a band at the frontier of good-time American roots music, play Monroe’s Tavern on Sunday, October 2. The following weekend, on Saturday, October 8 they celebrate the launch of their debut album, Hey Hey Hey! with a show in Campbell’s Tavern, Cloughanover.

Although the band’s rockabilly, bluegrass sound has been a fixture on the live scene for a while, Joe didn’t want to rush into recording. Now that Hey, Hey, Hey! is here, though, the singer is delighted.

“I’m very proud of it, the musicianship on it,” says the Hayride’s front man. “It’s got good reviews from everyone – apart from my mother! There’s just one song on it she’s not keen on. Then again, she said ‘I don’t like every Elvis song either’.

“It took five or six years to get where it is now. And eventually, if you stick at it and you move along, it’s like a business – you get established. Then you start finding the right people to play. And the right people were there.”

The Hayride consists of Eddie Walsh on lead guitar, David Clancy on lap steel and pedal steel guitar and Simon Farrell on bass. Brian Caffrey is the drummer, but Jamie O’Neill was the sticks man while Hey Hey Hey! was being recorded. Although these are all accomplished players, it was necessary for them to grow into the American roots music that Joe specialises in.

“It’s about knowing the music,” says Joe. “They have to get to know the music. Otherwise, you hear the difference.”

Rather than give his friends music to listen to, or send them off to search obscure parts of the internet, Joe plays the pieces he likes directly to the band.

“If we’re doing versions of songs that are 60 years old – I would know the air to the tune, so I would give that to them rather than the original,” he says.”We make the whole thing our own.

“I never actually refer to the originals of anything. I don’t actually listen to music that much. In the sense of when I’m in the car, I wouldn’t have the radio on or anything.”

Joe was determined that the Hayride’s first album would capture the raucous, toe-tapping atmosphere the lads create live. This can be difficult, as modern recording techniques mean that instruments are recorded separately, and layered over each other to create a big sound.

“Well, I don’t like that,” Joe states flatly. “Four of us went into Gavin Povey, he’s over in Wicklow. We went into his studio for three days and we recorded everything live, like we were at a gig. I think you can hear it in the album; it’s got a live element to it.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.