The Martin Staunton Band
The Martin Staunton Band, featuring Ballinasloe songwriter Martin Staunton, is a six-piece band based in Dublin. Band members include Aoife Ruth on organ and vocals, Emma Staunton on saxophone and vocals, Grainne Foster on piano and violin, Noel Doherty on drums, James Kemp on bass and Martin Staunton on lead vocals, guitar and harmonica. The music is an eclectic mix of jazz, country, soul and rock & roll. Songwriter.ie cornered Martin recently for an interview.
Originally from: Eyre Court, on the border of Offaly and Galway.
How long have you been writing?: When I picked up the guitar at 12, I dabbled a bit but I started writing songs around 15-16, bits of songs and that kind of thing.I started to write a lot of songs around 18
Do you write words or music first: Differently at different times - mainly together. Sometimes you might write a song together and then you mightn't like the music and so you might do different music to it and keep the same lyrics, you know - that kind of thing.
Thoughts on the local scene: We'd like to do a bit more around the country. It's hard to - even in Galway there's a lot of cover bands, there's not many original bands. There's very few venues that cater to original music. [Outside of Dublin] there isn't much of an original music scene, it's not half as big as Dublin. It's a pity in a way, bcecause it's hard to get your stuff out there.
Things are going well: We made a single there last summer and released it and a few radio stations started playing it and then Ray Darcy started playing it on Today FM and he's been playing git ever since and we've been on the show playing live. It got to number 15 with a bit of help from Ray Darcy and that kind of thing.
Comments on your writing process: I basically write songs and bring them to the band. We might work on the structure and stuff and that might change, sometimes it can stay the same and sometimes it can change drastically.
