Emmy could be route to fame for Irish pair
American road trip doc earns Black Donnellys’ Dave Rooney and Dave Browne coveted award
Did you hear the one about the two Irish pub gigging musicians that headed off to chase the American dream and ended up winning an Emmy in the process?
I thought it was a complete wind-up at first, I must confess.
The 48th Daytime Emmy Awards on June 25 might’ve been mega big news in the good ole US of A.
Yet it’s a bit of a sad joke how two Irish winners on the night have received little or no media coverage back in the old sod.
The Black Donnellys duo Dave Rooney and Dave Browne scooped an Emmy for their madcap American road trip rockumentary entitled An Irish Story: This is my Home.
They took the coveted National Academy of Television Arts and Science (NATAS) prize in the Outstanding Achievement Documentary category.
It’s strange how there hasn’t been so much as a dicky bird here about the award-winning movie, which is receiving glowing reviews Stateside since its release on Amazon.
After all, we Irish usually like to make a big song and dance about any achievements made by ex pats on the international stage.
Speaking to me from beside the swimming pool at his condo complex in Las Vegas where the duo are the resident band at the popular Rí Rá Irish pub, Dave Browne told me on Whatsapp video: “It’s disappointing because I have been in the Irish music scene since I was a kid and I know loads of the journalists.”
We’ll save their blushes, but he then berated some well-known radio broadcasters.
He added, “I was just like, ‘At least just say f ***** g something (about the film winning an Emmy). I’m not looking for them to tell me I’m great.”
There’s definitely no sour grapes at play here. Dave is having the proverbial last laugh because he has now signed up for a second TV doc and there’s also a new album on the way with the drummer from The Cult and Santana’s old bass player.
This isn’t the first time Dave Browne, who is originally from Dublin 2, has made a big splash.
Dave first hit the headlines when he broke the world record for marathon guitar playing at Dublin’s famous Temple Bar pub in 2011.
“I played for 114 hours straight, nearly five days,” he recalled.
This worked out as being a phenomenal 1,372 pieces of music
“It was a killer. I had trained for it. I’d stopped drinking and doing all the other mad stuff. I lost a load of weight. I was mentally prepared for it,” he continued.
“It was brilliant because I had all the musicians from Temple Bar with me, all the boys that play around there.
“I also had some of the guys from Kíla, I had the Picturehouse lads, The Commitments lads, Nick Kelly was there. There was a load of people like that.
“It was really emotional when I got to the end. I couldn’t believe everyone came in because it was at eight o’clock in the morning. It was just brilliant to see it happening. But I was absolutely shattered.”
He even had to play longer than planned.
“The record was 100 hours. I was going to do 102. When I got to 98 hours the told me some guy in India had done 108 or 110 hours,” he recalled.
“Everyone rallied around. It was like a scene from Rocky. I broke the record and I still have it today.
“But coming to the last two hours my hands were so sore, my fingers were so sore. There’s so many rules: you’ve got 25 seconds between songs. For 20 seconds I’d put my hands into a pint of ice.
“I remember I was playing with Dave Browne with Picturehouse and he goes, ‘Do you know what you’re playing?’
“I said, ‘I’m working on muscle memory now!’ I was getting so tired.
“I finished the gig and I had a pint of Guinness, I had some champagne, a bottle of Corona and then I went home and I slept for 10 hours straight.
“My (future) wife was told, ‘Wake him up and feed him’. I had something to eat and then I slept for another 10 hours.
“And then I got up and I went on the beer for 10 hours!”
Why did he volunteer for such a torturous experience?
“It was the time of the recession. There was nobody gigging,” he explained.
“I’d worked with Ronnie Drew and I’d done stuff with Terry Woods from The Pogues. I’d done George Murphy’s album and tour.
“And I had a studio in Ashtown; it was a rehearsal studio and a recording studio.
“And nobody was doing f ***** g anything. I said, ‘I need to do someoriginally
‘‘
Everything was great. The cops stopped us a few times because we’d out-of-state plates but they were cool when they heard the accent.
thing here’.
“Now, I was doing the pub stuff in Temple Bar as well. I said, ‘I need to build my profile back up again’. I’d always wanted to do that record.”
It’s no exaggeration to say that it literally changed Dave’s life.
“The people who opened up this bar Rí Rá in Vegas, they’d seen the whole thing and they were opening up the bar and they asked me would I come over and open up the bar for them.
“I loved the place. And then when I was leaving they offered me a job. They said, ‘Would you come back and do it full time?’
“I went back home and I grabbed Dave Rooney and I said, ‘Get over here and let’s have a go at it’. And we’ve been the resident band ever since here. It snowballed from there.”
They then decided to go for another
record by doing the world’s longest gig for 15 days “with all the musicians in Vegas”.
They also penned the theme tune for the UFC return grudge match between Conor Mcgregor and Nate Diaz.
After all that, Dave came up with the rockumentary idea one night when he got chatting to a friend during a break between live sets at the Rí Rá bar.
“He was saying, ‘My son’s going to Utah tomorrow and that will be all 50 states’. I said, ‘Is that a thing?’
“I said, ‘Give me a minute’. I went into the kitchen and I Googled it and the world record was 50 gigs in 50 states in 50 days. I went, ‘Oh, man, this is f ***** g great’.
“So I came out on the stage and I said to Dave Rooney, ‘I have a great idea’.
“And he goes, ‘Leave me alone, man!’ I said, ‘This is a f ***** g winner. Let’s do America’.
“We had been talking about how we could go around America again. I’d been watching the documentaries about James Brown, Johnny Cash and Elvis where they’d gotten onto a bus and done all the states.
“I’ve always wanted to do that. But it’s so hard – money and blah blah blah. So, I said, ‘This is this the key. I have it: 60 gigs, 50 states in 40 days – another world record’. It took about nine months to put together.”
And apart from the usual glitch of breaking down, they didn’t have much hassle on the tour.
“Everything was great. The cops stopped us a few times because we’d out-of-state plates but they were cool when they heard the accent. The Irish accent is the best passport you can have,” he explained.
“I’d seen racism at its fullness alright. I seen that right in front of my face, not against me.”
But there was one dicey experience when they clocked a deranged lunatic with a gun at a motel on Route 66.
“We walked in and this guy was shouting, banging down a door,” he recounted.
“He said, ‘Where you from?’ I said, ‘We’re Irish’. He said, ‘You guys don’t f**k around’.
“I just seen he had a gun in his hand. I just said to Dave, ‘Walk!’
“We walked up to the counter (in reception) and I said, ‘Call the cops. This guy is blowing up at the moment. He has a shooter in his hand’”.
“The woman said, ‘We’ll send a night manager’. I said, ‘F**k the night manager – get the cops. Unless the night manager is Conor Mcgregor, don’t get anybody else’”.
They knew they were onto a real winner when the final film ended up being put on the ballot for the Grammys.
“We lost out due to the fact that we were up against ZZ Top, Frozen and the Beastie Boys. But getting into the nominations category was pretty cool,” Dave said.
They fought off another 100 movies to win the People’s Choice Awards at the Beloit International Film Festival in Wisconsin.
“We did six film festivals and the movie got standing ovations at every one of them. We did question and answers. We hung out with Kevin Bacon,” he stated.
Now, that brings a whole new meaning to the parlour game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, or Bacon’s Law as it’s also called, doesn’t it?
And what about back home?
“The mad thing about it is, every Irish film festival refused the movie,” he said.
He added that being snubbed back home had completely shocked their American film crew.
Dave was convinced their whirlwind journey was finally over after they won the film festival award in Wisconsin.
“I thought, ‘That was it’. It’s on all the platforms. It’s everywhere. Scientology want to buy it for a year off us to put on their platform, which has over 20 million subscribers,” he said.
“So, it’s clawing back money. It’s doing well. We’re getting good gigs.
“And then I’m playing at Rí Rá and the director Karl Nickoley comes in and he says, ‘Look at your phone’.
“It was a real rock ‘n’ roll moment. The place was full and we stopped the song and he said, ‘We’ve just been nominated for an Emmy’. Everyone cheered.”
There was no traditional Emmy awards night ceremony because of Covid, which meant the duo had to pick up their gongs at a makeshift red carpet event in Las Vegas.
“It was surreal. You try not to be a typical Paddy. So we went and we got hammered that night,” he said.
Hung-over, they almost missed the event. “Our collection time was half ten. We made it by 29 minutes past ten,” he said.
“And it’s all very formal, and ‘How are you?’ and all that. I said, ‘Honey, I am f***d! That’s how I am’.
“And she goes, ‘Oh my God! The smell of alcohol off you’. I could barely stand up. I had to make a speech.”
Dave Rooney dedicated the award to his mother who had sadly passed away only a month earlier. He understandably “broke down”, Dave Browne revealed.
The Emmy is a major gamechanger for them. They have already started shooting a new documentary entitled Through A Storm based around the Irish and 9/11 that they plan to sell to Netflix.
And they also are planning a new album with the drummer from The Cult, Les Warner and Santana’s old music director (MD) Benny Rietveld will play bass.
“He’s an incredible bass player and he’s become a friend as well. He’s helping me produce it and play on it,” Dave said.
Dave name checked a bunch of other musicians, like their trumpet player who has worked with Boyz II Men.
“They’re good guys and they’re great players. And then I have a gospel choir coming, that do all the stuff on the Strip, for a couple of songs,” he concluded.
“And then I’ve a couple of other people that I’m trying to get my hands on to come in and guest with us. It’s going to be good fun”
We certainly haven’t heard the last of The Black Donnellys. Watch this space…
■■For further information about The Black Donnellys check out their website theblackdonnellysband.com