All that hard work starts to pay off

Seán Needham's not as young as some other singer-songwriters, but his background helps give him an edge, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.

Four years ago Seán Needham wasn't at the bottom of Ireland's singer-songwriter pile. He was underneath it. Back in Ireland after fact-finding missions in Europe, the US and Australia, the Donegal man began to mooch around Dublin venues such as the International Bar and Whelan's, breeding grounds for the hopeful singer-songwriter. He found himself surrounded by the likes of Paddy Casey, Damiens Rice and Dempsey, Mundy, Gemma Hayes, David Kitt and others. His travels abroad meant he didn't really know who they were; he was surprised, therefore, to discover that some had signed, or were on the cusp of signing, with record companies of varying size and worth. Those that hadn't signed record deals were at the very least nudging into the mainstream. Needham? He was an obscurity with an itch to write songs and sing them.

He backpacked around the world for various reasons: he'd just been let go from his high-paying electronics job with a wave and a wodge of severance pay; the way he tells it, he had spent several years in a job he disliked but tolerated because, ultimately, he hadn't worked up the courage to embrace full time the things he loved the most: writing and performing.

So he drifted from one country to the next, trying to focus on what it was that he yearned for. Events crystallised during a flight four years ago. "It was a very turbulent flight," he recalls, "and it made me realise that I should do what I really wanted to do. I remember thinking, if this plane does go down what am I going to regret not doing? It was a real wake-up call, realising that I wouldn't have left anything behind for people to remember me by." Next stop the International Bar and its home-from-home atmosphere for aspiring songwriters. "It was an exciting time, bouncing ideas off each other. The small room would be packed full of musicians, so you'd be scrutinised by your peers. It was a steep learning curve."

Not so steep, however, that Needham was unable to keep up. Although most of his better-known contemporaries are younger than him - Needham is in his early 30s - he had, inevitably, experienced more of a structured working methodology. So while several of the singer-songwriter set went about their art in a typically haphazard manner, Needham's forays into the world of the struggling busker and artist benefited from his former life's diary-driven schedules.

Another thing happened, he says, that copper-fastened his transition from wannabe to something more realistic. "I was down in Cork, attending a gig, and two people who were unconnected with each other, at separate ends of the night, said to me that I should be on the stage playing. When I drove back from Cork the next day I started making phone calls to get a band together. That's when I got really serious about it: I took singing lessons, I recorded a four-track demo and I started looking about for support slots."

The result of Needham's assiduous hard work has just been released: his début album, Loosely Based On A True Story. Like its creator, the record is surprisingly amiable, slightly confessional, a bit of a laugh and rough around the edges. Yet it's also a record that infiltrates just when you least expect it. He doesn't shy away from serious topics, either: alcoholism, prostitution, the status of non-nationals and the perilous state of his love life are his staples. Stylistically, too, Needham is different: he steers clear of earnest tub-thumping, replacing whingeing indignation with a sense of clarity and reason.

"When I started writing songs it was all, oh baby, I'm so sad, why did you leave me? You're the greatest - that kind of thing," he says, smirking at the memory. "I like love songs, and I've written a few relationship songs, but as a songwriter it gets a little bit boring. I feel I have a social conscience, so I like to approach a serious subject from time to time, and that happened around the time I was recording the album. Tackling a serious subject is fine, but it's not that I'm pushing my opinion down people's throats. I'm just raising the topic for discussion, if people want to talk about it."

Needham's gift for a handy melody, his singing style - it's more Nils Lofgren than any other Irish singer one cares to mention - and his concentrated work ethic conspire to make him worth your while. He says that he makes ends meet through as much full-time gigging as possible (he foresees that his one-day-a-week job at Youth Reach in Tallaght, where he teaches maths and computing, will have to come to an end soon) and that he's so new to the game he's not sure what to do sometimes. Incredibly, he is still without a publishing contract.

There's no big budget behind him at the moment, either, which can only act in his favour. "The idea was to prove myself in Ireland, even to the point of finishing the album, so I've got to get out there and plug my music and the record, collect e-mail addresses, keep in touch with people. It's hard to co-ordinate a tour, but we try." Rightly, he is looking beyond Ireland, noting the successes, moderate or otherwise, of the likes of Rice, Hayes, Kitt, Casey and Dempsey. He is very much aware, also, of the superb touring network in European countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Germany.

Needham's curly-haired head is, frankly, buzzing with ideas and looking forward to anything that life throws at him. Priorities, however, are paramount. "The two things going through my mind at the moment are making sure this first album gets heard and coming up with songs for the second one."

Loosely Based On A True Story is distributed by RMG. Seán Needham is at De Barras, Clonakilty, Co Cork, on Sunday and the Cellar Bar, Galway, on Monday.