Mick Flannery

Mick Flannery (born 28 November 1983) is an Irish singer and songwriter.

His debut album Evening Train resulted from his time spent studying music and management at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa in Cork.

It featured tracks which had previously won Flannery two categories at the International Songwriting Competition in Nashville, Tennessee.

He was the first Irish musician to win in this event.

Flannery signed with EMI Records in 2007.

That same year he was the subject of a programme called Mytunes, broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on 29 November.

Flannery's second studio album White Lies was released on 12 September 2008, achieving a top ten position on the Irish Albums Chart.

It later went platinum and was nominated for the Choice Music Prize.

He performed on RTÉ Two's Other Voices television programme in 2008.

This appearance led to increased interest in Flannery's music in Ireland.

The Irish Times placed him at number forty-six in a list of "The 50 Best Irish Acts Right Now" published in April 2009.

Also that year Flannery won Best Irish Male at the 2009 Meteor Awards.

Influences include Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.

Flannery grew up outside Blarney, County Cork.

Coming from a family with a keen musical interest, Flannery was introduced to folk and blues music at a young age.

My mother's side were big into music, more than my dad's side.

My mother is a singer and she plays the guitar.

She recorded an album of her own actually two years ago.

And it was her brothers and sisters that kind of got me into music.

[...] At those family nights there was a good bit of Tom Waits, a bit of Dylan.

Most of the singers would be female, my aunts, and they would sing Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell.

Flannery cites an encounter with the music of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana as a direct influence on his desire to become a musician.

Seeing Cobain perform "The Man Who Sold the World" on MTV Unplugged he promptly purchased a copy of MTV Unplugged in New York.

He soon bought the album Blonde on Blonde as well.

Flannery claims to have written his first song at the age of fifteen.

His first completed song was called "Mad Man's Road", a tale of a murder which took place on the road in which he lived.

He has been dismissive of his earlier material, referring to it as "tripe".

However, he is keen to express his fondness for stonemasonry and its position alongside his music: "I wasn't going to sit in a room and write songs seven days a week and live on bread and beans. I liked doing stonemasonry as well".

He still does it on an occasional basis: "We wouldn’t be carving gravestones or anything. We’d do the fronts of houses, entrance walls, stuff like that".

While undergoing a music and management course at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa in Cork, Flannery commenced writing the album that would become Evening Train, an eleven-track concept album about the exploits of two brothers.

His original intention had been to write a musical but this endeavour proved unsuccessful.

Before its release Flannery and a friend who worked alongside him in the stonemasonry business embarked on a three-month trip to the United States, living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Flannery spent his time performing in New York.

His sister was present for one of the months and assisted him with organising his performances.

Evening Train was received positively by critics in Ireland and the United States.

Reviewers noted its "astute and sophisticated lyrics", its "strong, imaginative melodies", its Tom Waits sound.

The RTÉ Guide later said, "His voice was like Tom Waits meets the howling of a grizzled freight train hobo".

entertainment.ie reviewer Lauren Murphy described it as "an album dripping with maturity, poise and potential" and that "the most astounding thing" was his age of 21 years.

In 2019 this album premiered as a musical by the same name.

In June 2019, as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival, The Everyman and Rosa Productions presented the world premiere of Evening Train, a new musical inspired by Mick Flannery's acclaimed concept album of the same name.