Mundy Interview: Folking Cool

Jenni Stalmach talks comebacks, busking and Shane MacGowan with Irish singer-songwriter Mundy.

“I’ve always believed that my songs were good enough to get to number one,” declares Mundy as he recounts the success of his third album Raining Down Arrows. Released in 2004, the record reached number one in the Irish album charts and achieved platinum status in the singer songwriter’s home country. This year has seen the release of Strawberry Blood, the long-awaited follow-up to his best-seller.

Strawberry Blood has been described as Mundy’s most accomplished disc to date and is his first record to get worldwide release since his debut Jelly Legs. “This album is a lot more poppy than my last records,” he says, “The songs are very strong lyrically and musically. I definitely get more back from Strawberry Blood than I do with Jelly Legs.”

Mundy – whose real name is Edmund Enright – started his music career as a busker on Dublin’s Grafton Street. Influenced by Tom Waits, Dylan, REM and the Pixies, he honed his musical talents by performing at open-mic nights in the city centre. “I was only about 18 or 19 when I started busking,” he says, “I was able to meet so many different people. We all used to get together and go to this singer-songwriters bar called The International to perform”.

It was at The International where Mundy met his manager Dave O’Grady and began to establish his recording career. “I met Dave through Hazel O’Connor,” he explains, “gave him a demo and very quickly he got a lot of positive responses from publishing companies. It was there that everything started”.

Mundy is huge in his native Ireland and his debut single To You I Bestow was featured on the soundtrack for Baz Lurhman’s blockbuster Romeo and Juliet. Despite his early success, Mundy was dropped from major label Sony shortly after the release of his debut album. “I was gutted because I felt that I was really starting to take shape,” he says, “When I got dropped another 40 or 50 bands did too. The record label was doing kind of a spring clean. I was told that singer-songwriters weren’t sellable at the time”.

After being dropped by Sony Mundy contemplated giving up his music career for good but decided against the idea because “You always write songs about giving up”. Mundy’s response to Sony was to set up his own independent label Camcor Recordings.

“At first I thought how do I do this on my own? How do I run a business when I have absolutely no experience?” he says, “I was skint by this point but it doesn’t cost a lot of money to register a record name. To finance the label I went on the road and saved the money. I built up my confidence slowly but surely and I realised that there were a lot of people in Ireland that hadn’t seen me play that really wanted to”.

Mundy is perhaps best-known for his collaboration with Sharon Shannon on the Steve Earle track Galway Girl. The song was Ireland’s most downloaded track of 2007 and 2008. The pair were introduced to each other by Luka Bloom after a Sinead O’Connor concert. “I invited Sharon as a special guest to play Galway Girl with me when we were recording my DVD Live and Confusion,” says Mundy. “All of a sudden people started ringing into radio stations asking them to play it. It was never released as a single but it became a bit of a phenomenon on its own. It was one of those lucky freak accidents”.

On Strawberry Blood Mundy has again collaborated with a number of big-name acts. On his favorite track Love is a Casino, he teams up with fellow Irishman and hell-raiser Shane MacGowan. “Shane was great to work with. He’s completely unique; I’ve never met anybody like him. Years ago when the song was a demo, I thought, ‘I can definitely hear Shane MacGowan in this song’, It kind of had a Johnny Cash feel to it,” he laughs, “So I rang him up and went over to his house, we stayed up drinking all night and he agreed to come in and record the track the next day”.

Asked who he would like to collaborate with in the future Mundy replies, “There are millions. Nick Cave would be one, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, I love Wilco as well, Flaming Lips, Bonnie Prince Billy, there’s so many people out there”.

This summer Mundy will be busy promoting his new album with a number of tour dates across the globe: “I’m going to be in the UK and New York in September and then Australia in October. I’m all over Ireland at the moment, I’m playing a big festival here called the Electric Picnic, I’ve got a good slot at that.”

Last summer Mundy made his debut appearance at Glastonbury both as a performer and a festival-goer. “I don’t know why I’m not playing Glastonbury this year perhaps it’s because I didn’t have the album out in time. I hope that I will be doing it next year. Glastonbury blew my mind; it was great because I was a Glastonbury virgin”.

The Sunday World described Mundy’s new album as being “a tonic for difficult times”. Whilst many artists have taken to singing about politics and current affairs Mundy has avoided these topics and created an uplifting and lighthearted album. “A lot of my heroes wrote about the war or current affairs but I just find it too obvious to write about stuff like that,” he says, “I like to write what’s in my own tiny little mind rather than in the papers. I try to avoid what’s corny and obvious but people don’t enjoy clever stuff. I’m always fighting against that maybe I should try to embrace it”.