‘Playing live is more alluring than ever’

Music with Eddie Rowley

IRISH folk-rock band Scullion, who played at The Sugar Club, Dublin last week, have some new recordings and more special shows lined up for 2017.

Scullion grew from a chance meeting in the late 1970s between its two main founders, Philip King and Sonny Condell.

As a band, they started rehearsing and writing in a small apartment above a chip shop in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

This led to appearances at various Dublin haunts, including the famous Meeting Place in Dorset Street, before branching out into the world. They have been on a musical expedition since then.

“We have played in back rooms, front rooms, bar rooms and bedrooms, flatbed trucks, concert halls, The Albert Hall, and everywhere else in between,” says King.

“The urge to sit and play in some of these rooms, especially in Ireland in 2017, is powerful.

“The exchange that happens when engaging live with an audience is more alluring and vital than ever in this age of virtual connection.

“We have an amazingly diverse musical language on this creative island and many of those strands have been woven into Scullion’s musical DNA.”

It’s a mystery to the music industry why Condell and King never made their millions from such perfect pop songs as ‘Oh Carol’, or wrote off a pair of sizeable mortgages on the back of ‘Eyelids into Snow’.

Scullion’s anthems also include ‘Down in the City’ and ‘John the Baptist’.

Condell, the creative core and inspiration for the band, continues to invent and innovate.

He writes music and songs that are powerful, poetic, soulful and joyful.

He is one of Ireland’s most enduring creative artists and with Robbie Overson and King creates the signature sound that is Scullion.