Interview with Ian Byrne of The Elders
In advance of this weekend’s Fairfield County Irish Festival the Stamford Advocate has an interview with Ireland’s Ian Byrne, frontman of Kansas City’s The Elders.
It’s pretty much the same story that Elders fans, especially those in Kansas City, will be familiar with, but even in a telephone interview Ian Byrne has an engaging way of telling a story he’s told a thousand times and make you want to read to the end.
“My wife is from Kansas City and we used to own some properties along the east coast of Ireland and her family use to come over every other year and rent this house that I was born in,” Byrne recalls. “So that’s how I got to know my wife. We met when we were like 12 or 13 years old; childhood sweethearts and all that stuff.”
And of Ian joining The Elders, it’s like Bono seeing Larry Mullen’s notice on the board at Mount Temple school:
“I was in Kansas City one day at this little Irish festival and a band called The Elders was playing and I was listening to them lads and thought, ‘These fellas are very good,’ ” Byrne says. “One day my wife came home and asked me do I know a Brent Hoad, a fiddler with The Elders. Apparently, our two daughters played on a soccer team together at school and one thing led to another.
“Their lead singer was leaving the band at the time and they called me and said, ‘We’d like you to come in and do a guest spot on our next CD.’ So I went in and met the boys and sang a song on their album and that turned into two songs and then three and the next thing I knew I was on the whole album.”
Soon after, it was decision time for Byrne.
“They pitched it to me if I’d like to join the band and get back on the road and I said, ‘No. I’m too bloody old. I did that years and years ago,’ ” he says with a laugh. “I thought about it and talked about it with my wife and my now-teenaged children and they said, ‘You were always meant to do it. Why don’t you give it a go?’
And why don’t you give Sean Spillane’s whole article a go?
More Elders Stuff
• Browne’s Anniversary Irish Street Fair
• The Elders & Enter The Haggis in Ireland
• Kansas City’s Contribution to Ireland and Folk Rock
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