Niall Breslin could well be in New Zealand playing on the Irish rugby team, but his music took him in another direction
A tale of two lives for Bressie
Edwin McGreal
Life could have taken a very different direction for singer Niall Breslin. If it had, he could have been with the Irish rugby team in New Zealand on Thursday, September 22, basking in their victory over Australia the previous Saturday. Instead, he was drinking cans of stout on the streets in Cork in broad daylight.
Two very different extremes indeed but not quite ‘where did it all go wrong?’ either. Breslin’s choice to part company with Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’arcy and Co at Leinster has proven quite successful too.
As the lead man in Mullingar-based The Blizzards he made a name for himself in the pop/rock scene, and now he’s out on his own as Bressie, he’s very content with the direction he took away from Landsdowne Road.
And as for what he terms the ‘knacker drinking’ in Cork? Easily explained.
“I was in Cork on Arthur’s Day and the pubs were just selling Beamish so we had to go and buy cans in Spar and sit outside on the street and toast Arthur,” he tells us, laughing at the memory. “It wasn’t the same as drinking in the pub but we drank Guinness at 17.59pm so that’s all that matters.”
He’s not one of these former sports stars with ‘if only’ regrets about their time at the top. He was on a professional contract with Leinster from 2001-2004 as a second rower and played a lot of first team rugby, but made a decision at the time to leave – and it has turned out to be a good one.
“I would have played with a lot of the current Irish team and I knew they were going to turn out to be incredible. For me though, as a player, rugby became too mechanical once I went into the professional set-up. The magic of it kinda left me. It was just me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m rugby’s biggest fan and I’m a massive Leinster fan. It is nice to say that I was once involved with a Leinster team that achieved so much.
“But I’ve no regrets, absolutely not. You choose your route in life and I’m quite happy with what I’ve done. You get what you put in and I put a lot into this (music),” admitted the 6’6” singer/songwriter.
The Blizzards were a catchy, lively band formed from a group of close mates from Mullingar, and their two albums marked them out as one of the more popular acts to emerge in recent years in Ireland.
But individual circumstances changed, some band members became fathers and The Blizzards have dispersed for now. Breslin expects them to re-form for a third album in good time, and the split was perfectly amicable.
Initially he worked in production after The Blizzards dissolved but he’s out on his own now as Bressie. While he clearly misses touring and working with his Mullingar friends, he has had more of an opportunity to mature as a musician and songwriter on his own.
“It is a different direction (going solo). There’s absolutely no point in me making a solo album and making it sound like The Blizzards because what is the point? I wore my influences heavily on my sleeve in this album. People said it is a lot ‘poppier’ but I never shied away from the fact that my favourite genre of music was pop music,” he said.
Breslin is very strong and passionate when it comes to discussing politics and identity in Ireland. He admits that his move to live in London two years ago was a bid to escape from an Ireland he no longer recognised.
“People often think that because you’re a musician that you’ve no right to have a viewpoint on how the country is being run. I’m very political and very patriotic. I absolutely adore Ireland [but] I hated this country when we had money. It doesn’t suit this country, never will.
“I’m not completely naïve and going to blame the politicians and the bankers. A lot of people were stupid. Guys working in a thirty-grand job thinking they could buy a house worth half a million, it was ridiculous.
“We’re the type of country which is used to tough times and I think we pull together and we’re better in tough times. Ireland needs to become a society, we’ve been an economy for far too long. I’ll do anything I can for someone, within reason, but this every-man-for-himself mentality, that’s what scares me.”
This willingness to speak out is evident in his new album ‘Colourblind Stereo’. In the track ‘Animals’, for example, the singer shows the anger he felt after hearing his father’s army pension was being cut by 20 per cent. He reckons that Irish people are too willing to take things lying down, but, as he plots his way through Ireland as part of the tour that will bring him to Castlebar this month, he sees shoots of hope. The album itself is encouraging of that – it’s ‘a very optimistic record’ according to Breslin.
Optimism can be infectious, and judging by the very favourable reception that ‘Colourblind Stereo’ has received, it seems Bressie’s debut solo album is infectious too.
Bressie will play in The Royal Theatre, Castlebar, on Thursday, October 13.
