Meet the artist: Rua Rí

You may be familiar with this young musician who has been up to the Duncairn to perform a few times already. He was also the focus of one of our In Focus episodes a year ago, which is still available to watch online. Rua Rí has been a member of the Duncairn Creative Collective since its beginning and has built a long-standing relationship with the organisation.

Recently, he played at the Duncairn for the first ever free lunch time gig series “Tea Cofee and Jams” which gave us the chance to have a chat.

Let’s start from the beginning, who are you? 

I am Rua Rí, I am a folk singer from Cork. Ruari is my second name and I chose it as my stage name, separating it in the middle just for the craic.

How did your music career started?

I always played music since I was really young because I had to. I really enjoyed it but I had no choice. I played the violin. In secondary school it wasn’t cool to play, my friends decided it wasn’t cool, so I gave up for a while. Then when I was 13, 14… that’s the age when you discover different groups and I found out about Oasis and others. That’s when I started rediscovering music and I started playing the guitar. They’re not my main musical influence but I loved them, I still do, I found them at an age when you discover rebellious music and it makes you go wow!

I played other people’s songs for ages. My game was to build up a long enough set so I would go busking around my city. And that I did for a while. And I wrote a few songs and decided to do that instead and it’s what I do now.

My main influences are mostly folk and country. I’ve been told my music sounds a bit like Nick Drake. I like all the classic lads, like Fionn Regan and others… guys that pick the guitar with their fingers. That’s my kind of thing. That’s what I’m trying to do.

You are part of the Duncairn Creative Collective. What’s your experience as a member?

I love it! It’s a weekend where artists get together and collaborate. I’m really bad at collaborating, because I write really slowly, like over months, and I’m very critical of myself. When they put me in a group I nearly feel bad for the group because if I spoke to people the way I speak to myself it would be…

Harsh?

Yeah harsh. And it’s counterproductive. So being in the presence of other people makes me not do that. My process works for me but it’s all Nos, a series of no until it’s a yes. While with the group you have to kind just … if it’s someone else’s idea and they’re really fond of it, you can’t just say “no, I think it’s terrible”. I rarely do because everyone is brilliant but it’s also less pressure because at the end of the day it’s not just my song, it’s all of us – which is never usually the case for me.

And it’s great to hear the results. On Friday we come in, we have a chat and get to know each other. Saturday you get to work, and Sunday morning you get to work and show everyone what you have created over the weekend. Once I got paired with trad musicians. I got to play my songs while the trad band decorated them, they put a trad spin on my music and it was really fun.

I love coming up here for the collective. It’s a great way to meet and connect with people, other musicians, from various parts of Ireland. So we can help each other, if you go play somewhere you know people who can support you and so on. It’s not a competition, we are all in the same boat.

You can follow Rua Rí on Facebook.