Spotify success paying off for soulful Ciaran

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

Hailing from Aghagallon in County Antrim, up-and-coming singer/songwriter Ciaran Lavery will play Monroe’s Live on Sunday, November 8.

Lavery has racked up over 14 million plays on Spotify, and is in Leeds at the time of the interview. His success on the music-streaming site is paying off on this UK tour, it seems.

“This is my first time in the majority of these places,” he says. “I can’t complain so far, the crowds have been great, the rooms have been really good. I suppose it’s always surprising to walk into a new town or city and for people to be aware of my music, and be willing to spend eight or nine pounds.”

Ciaran’s music will appeal to fans of Damien Rice, and it also has the rawness and soul of John Martyn. The song that’s really put Lavery on the map is Shame, a tune that accounts for the lion’s share of his Spotify plays. Its success, however, is a welcome surprise to its writer.

“It’s been going crazy for a while now, and there’s no real let-up with it at the minute,” he says. “For a while I kept my eye on it, and I’ll pop in every now and then to see if it’s still going. I always reckon at some stage the momentum is going to die down, but it seems to be still snowballing. It’s mad figures, I never really expected that song to take off. I never considered Shame as a single. I like the vibe, but I never considered it as a radio song – the numbers fairly racked up!”

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke is among the established performers who has been famously critical of how little Spotify pays artists, but Ciaran doesn’t necessarily feel the same.

“In my opinion, it hits artists more who have maybe been going a longer time,” he says of its payment methods. “Maybe they’re more used to that market where sales were strong, whereas for me, someone who’s still unsigned and up-and-coming, it’s great because if there is money there and it racks up. It’s not a massive amount, but it’s enough to put me into a position where I can do things like this. It allows me to have the money to be able to come and tour over here [in the UK], or head over to Germany next month. It’s enough to keep the cogs turning. I can’t complain at the minute.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.