WITH Paddy Dennehy and The Red Herring you know you will get a show, not just a songwriter singing about his feelings but a whole show with a stage set, a full band with cello and trumpet, some extra backing vocalists and of course, The Red Herring aka Johanna O’Brien who shares the vocal duties with Paddy.
Dennehy’s songwriting has shades of Tom Waits and Randy Newman and Louis Armstrong but mostly you get the boundless enthusiasm and intensity of Mr Paddy Dennehy himself who gives every fibre of himself to the live performance.
Surprisingly then that The Red Herring moniker was born out of necessity and Dennehy’s stage fright, he told The Limerick Post.
“I couldn’t speak on stage. Johanna O’Brien has always been very charming and a very good singer. I gave her a title of The Red Herring so she could do all the in-between songs introducing and talking to the audience. She is the first person I play new music to. It is great to have someone to tell you, ‘Ah! That’s actually a bit shit!’. Not many would do that.”
Fear causes no problems for Paddy today. The band played weekly over the summer months taking in Longitude Festival and multiple sets at Electric Picnic and any place else that would have them.
The current EP ‘Once Upon a Night’ is a record that reflects the early years of the 25 year-old’s music. Other material such as ‘Feed The Full’ and ‘Hard Times’ will get an official release in 2017.
‘Hard Times’ made its national TV debut when Paddy Dennehy and The Red Herring played The Late Late Show recently.
Did the appearance on the iconic talk show change other’s perceptions of Paddy who works as a fulltime National School teacher in Cork?
“We did The Late Late Show and a kid came into my class the following Monday and shouted, ‘I saw you on the Toy Show !!’
“A second later he was asking me to tie his lace.” (laughs)
“The Late Late opens up a lot more doors, in that people may see you as that guy who plays a bit of music but now people put in a new bracket saying, ‘Oh, you’re actually a musician! Which I’m still getting my head around, to be honest.”
Paddy takes time out in the evenings and holidays to do gigs wherever the opportunities come from and record in their management’s studios in Ballyhane Studios in Tipperary where the band have all the time in the world to work on their music.
Jack O’Rourke and We Cut Corners are just two other acts that ply their trade as fulltime teachers while finding the time to create evocative music that strikes a chord with audiences.
Does Paddy have to limit his touring and release promotion for the mid-term breaks?
“That makes no odds to me, he laughs, I don’t sleep much anyway. I just love gigging. Things get to me a lot quicker when I don’t have an outlet like gigging. It kind of evens me out!”
Paddy Dennehy and The Red Herring play Dolan’s on Friday December 23.
