Takamine

The Shane Walsh story begins in the Irish heartland, City of Limerick, where the child-rebel divided his formative years between chasing his elder brother with a tennis racket and gargling along to his Father’s favorite Hank Williams records.

It’s fair to say the influences of the Irish mystic and classic American rock and roll run like a river through the music of the rising singer songwriter. 


Once he’d traded his tennis racket for a guitar, Shane found himself again chasing his brother, this time to the star laden streets of Los Angeles. “It was the furthest point West I could go without falling off the face of the Earth”, muses Walsh.  “In a way it felt like a rite of passage.  My brother had done it; I had to do it, sort of thing.  I wanted to ask questions and find a few answers.  Could I live my own American dream, y’know?”


Within six weeks, Walsh had caught the attention of one of the country’s premier music tastemakers, KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, who offered Shane a snippet of studio time to make his first professional recording.  “I met Chris whilst getting merry at a bar and told him I had a show the following week”, says Walsh.  Said ‘show’ was actually nothing more than one song at an open mic.  As good as his word, Douridas came to see the young, Irish troubadour play but ended up missing the performance.


“I was economical with the truth”, laughs Shane.  “It was an open mic after all but I thought there would be no way my name would get pulled out of the hat to go on first: it was.  When Chris got there I had already played but explained the situation and ended up busking for him outside on the street.  That’s where I got my first break.“


Two weeks later, Walsh was in the studio cutting five acoustic tracks live in half an hour with Chris.  One of them (‘Never let You Down’) wound up going into rotation on KCRW thanks to the DJ.  “The next thing I knew that track was placed on the ‘Roswell’ TV series by a lovely girl that heard it on the radio”, finishes Walsh.

In 2007 he appeared live in session on KCRW’s New Ground.  His first official release on iTunes entitled KCRW Presents: Shane Walsh, duly followed.

Cut to 2011; Chris Douridas continues to be a fan, Shane’s songs have been licensed by Fox, MTV and Fuel TV and he’s even opened for two of his heroes, REM’s Peter Buck and The Psychedelic Furs’, Richard Butler.


Watch this space for Shane’s debut album which is due out later this year.