An Interview with Ireland’s David Howley

Photo Courtesy of David Howley’s Official Spotify

Bryce Russell | Art & Entertainment Editor

On March 13, 2025, Irish born singer, songwriter, and guitarist David Howley took the stage at Sears’ Recital Hall in the Jesse Phillips Humanities Center for an intimate concert filled with stories of his life and his unique mix of Irish, American, and contemporary folk music. Before the show, I was lucky enough to get to sit down and have a talk with him about his upcoming album, his past influences, and the connection between Irish folk music and American folk music.

If you’re interested in listening to Howley’s music, here is a link to his Spotify page.

Flyer News: You have influences from both America and Ireland, obviously. What are a few artists from both places that you see in your music?

Howley: I think I was lucky that my dad sort of started this whole connection thing in my brain when me and my brother were very young. We had a tape recorder outside of our bed at night when we would go to sleep, I’m talking ten years old and younger, and our dad would make these mixtapes that were a mixture of American folk and Irish folk, and sometimes even American country. We would listen to Dylan, Garth Brooks, CSN&Y, and Tony Rice, but on the same tapes were interwoven songs by the Chieftains, Paul Brady, and Andy Irvine, so I think from a young age our dad was unconsciously showing us a connection between the two. When you are listening to them on the same tapes and you’re going from American folk songs to Irish folk songs, we started to put that stuff together pretty quick. My dad was primarily a country fan, guys like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, but we grew up playing trad music (Irish traditional folk). If I were to name my trifecta of musicians that have influenced me the most, I’d say Paul Brady and John Martyn, but also like Joni Mitchell and Tony Rice. I had this cross section of music I was listening to a lot, and particularly when I picked up guitar at 13 or 14, that’s when I really took off on that stuff.

Flyer News: So you see a connection between Irish music and American music?

Howley: For sure, but also over the years I’ve also seen more connections between America and Ireland. We can talk about the music and talk about the styles, but it’s also the people. It’s how we are and it’s how we act. It’s the small little parts of us that are connected. When you’re in the midwest you can notice some of the same cultural signifiers that I grew up in Ireland with. Sort of an openness and an invite in. I think that’s what fuels that musical connection too, the people.

Flyer News: How has living in Nashville and now Boulder, Colorado affected your music?

Howley: It’s affected it a lot actually. I love living in Ireland and I love Ireland as a place. I think I was sort of born a traveller in some ways, I was born to be outside of my comfort zone and pick up things. Music is a compassionate art, it is meeting someone else’s heart in the middle, if you travel with the same idea you can end up in a lot of very cool places. I moved to Nashville maybe 10 years ago, and I think immediately I had this crisis of faith because everyone there is so good when it comes to the level of guitar playing, the level of songwriting, the level of singing. It made me work really hard. I moved away from Nashville to Boulder, and I love the mountains because of where I grew up. It’s also a really good balance of my lifestyle as a musician, because touring and travelling is great but it can be hard on the body, but Boulder is a pretty good place to live as a musician. In terms of the music connection too, Boulder has a really great bluegrass and Americana scene. I think that’s been really good for me as an Irish player, because I’ve learned a lot from the Bluegrass-heads around town. I’ve learned a lot of tunes, I’ve learned a lot of style stuff, and it’s fun to cross that over into what I do, and then also be able to share the Irish stuff (with them). It’s fun to be in the US because I get to take the little gifts I have and trade it with (the musicians) here.

Flyer News: I know you have a new album coming up. Do you think your new album is different from your first album, or is it more of a continuation of that one?

Howley: When I was making the first album, I was also producing the final We Banjo 3 album, so kind of what happened was my mind was split in two different ways. What I’m finding with the second album is that I think I’m making more of a complete work. I’ve found a new way to sort of introduce the Irish parts of my playing to this indie-folk kind of sound. To me, it’s like contemporary Irish folk music. Again, I’m a big fan of Paul Brady, and one of the reasons was that throughout his career he had things like “Arthur McBride” and “Mary and the Soldier,” but he also wrote “Steel Claw” for Tina Turner. He had a really big, like, arc in his career. I’m really inspired by the idea of being able to span that gap. I also really like the people I’m working on this new album with, which is different from the last. The first album was made during the pandemic, and I was alone in a small studio in the mountains of New Hampshire in the snow.

Flyer News: Does your setting impact the music you make?

Howley: Between 2020 and 2022 I made that album in New Hampshire. Then I moved back to Ireland and lived in a small cabin in the Kerry Mountains for about 18 months and I wrote much of the second album there. The new album has a lot more energy and life in it, and I think that’s because I was out there playing gigs and back out in the world. I feel like in ways, music is a living thing. At least for me, where you make it and where you write it has such a massive effect. The first album coming from the mountains and the snow during the pandemic, kind of in isolation, made some of the songs sort of feel that way. The second album feels like a more full spectrum album. I was back in Ireland, there was a lot more of that Irish trad that I grew up with weaving into the music that I really enjoy, but still holding firm to the contemporary folk approach.

Flyer News: There is kind of a big boom with Irish musicians getting popular over here, with artists like Kneecap and Fontaines D.C. seeing a lot of attention. Outside of just trad music, a lot of Irish bands like the Cranberries and Thin Lizzy have seen a lot of popularity in the US. Is there something particularly about Irish musicians that you think makes it popular?

Howley: I think there is something inherently in Irish music is that Irish trad is a music of oppression. The reason Irish music was so important to Irish people for so long was because it was essentially banned. So, Irish music has this strange effect of being lively and heartfelt but also has this power behind it often. They have a sort of resistant nature to them. I do wonder if the reason Irish music is sort of slipping into the forefront, particularly with bands like Kneecap and Lankum, is that that is what art does. Art is kind of a transportation device for people when things get hard or things get tough, they want to go to something that elevates them out of what they are going through in their real life or to fuel them in their lives. Music is such a deeply ingrained thing in our culture, and I think it will be. 

Flyer News: How did your time with We Banjo 3 prepare you for your solo work?

Howley: The band was like my entire life. I was about 18 or 19 when I started the band with my brother Martin and NAMES, and the NAMES were older than me and Martin so they sort of guided the ship. Being the frontman of a band, things can get pretty wild, so at a very young and sensitive age I was on the road with guys that were older than me and smarter than me, so they kind of kept me between the hedges. I also learned so much. The music industry, you are kind of everything. I learned how to take on these different roles. Being in We Banjo 3, it made me aware of the immensity of the work that wasn’t just writing songs and performing. That is sort of the gift you get to do after putting in the work to make it happen.

Flyer News: What are your go-to two favorite ballads and tunes.

Howley: Oh, that’s great. I don’t know if it counts as a ballad, but John Martyn’s “Couldn’t Love You More.” There’s a version of that on YouTube of him playing that alone on stage in the 70’s and I think that is like my “desert island” song. Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” is another one of my favorite songs. For the tunes, when I was a kid, this banjo player named Gerry O’Connor, he had this tune called “Funk the Cajun Blues,” and I probably listened to that 700 times. As a 12-year-old kid in Ireland playing trad tunes, this banjo player came out with this album that has this wild sounding piece on it, and you can’t imagine how disruptive it was to trad music at the time. And then another one I just love playing is “Salt Creek,” I think that’s just a great jam tune that everyone should know.