Matt: 1:26

Hello listeners and welcome to our St. Patrick's Day episode. Today we have a very special guest to share with you. His name is Seamus Kennedy. Seamus is a world-renowned Irish singer, songwriter, and performer. If you've ever met or interacted with Seamus, you know you can't help but be entertained and to laugh. He's a fantastic human being who I've had the pleasure of seeing perform many times. If this doesn't get you in the St. Patrick's Day spirit, nothing will. Without further ado, let's get to our conversation with Seamus. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Seamus: 1:56

Hello. Hey, this high-tech stuff has me baffled.

Matt: 2:04

Seamus, I'm Matt. Thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you. I'm going to give my friends an opportunity to introduce themselves as well. I think we all feel like we've known you. We've all been at your shows together on many occasions here in Bethlehem, but I'll give them an opportunity.

Rob: 2:19

Yeah, hi, I'm Rob.

Seamus: 2:20

Nice to talk to you in person. Hi, Rob. Is that a job occupation?

Andy: 2:25

Or no time.

Various: 2:30

Yeah.

Siobhan: 2:31

I love it.

Various: 2:32

Hi, Seamus. I'm Chris. Hi, Chris. Is that short for Christopher or Christian? Christopher. Ah, very good.

Siobhan: 2:39

Yeah.

Various: 2:39

The bearer of the price.

Siobhan: 2:41

Oh, yeah. He is. He is. Um, I'm his wife, so that's why I can attest to that. But also I am Siobhan. So nice to meet you.

Seamus: 2:49

Nice to be met.

Andy: 2:50

Hi, Seamus. I'm Andy. We've met a couple times. I'm actually one of the band directors at Freedom High School. So we met before my students uh performed at Celta Classic the one time and chatted.

Seamus: 3:00

Oh right, yeah.

Andy: 3:01

It's been a couple years though.

Seamus: 3:03

Didn't we do a show together in uh the ice house at one time too?

Rob: 3:08

Oh that I actually sang with you many, many years ago in the ice house with the Freedom High School choir. Right. Yeah. Good choir.

Matt: 3:18

Thank you. That was a couple of years ago. Yeah.

Rob: 3:21

Just just a just a snitch. Probably like 2003. I had hair and abs.

Matt: 3:31

I wanted to tell you this story very early on when my dad and my stepmother were together back 2003, 2004. You played at Godfrey Daniels in downtown Bethlehem.

Seamus: 3:41

Sure.

Matt: 3:42

And I told my dad that I would absolutely embarrass him while speaking with you. He sat right in front of you in a god-awful sweater of some sort and did the barley moe with a bottle of wine. And apparently you you were teasing him for most of the show. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

Seamus: 4:00

Mercilessly, if it was wine. Yeah.

Matt: 4:02

That's we were glad he he always tells that story as he had to go to a bar after to sober up.

Seamus: 4:13

I love it. Great festival as well.

Andy: 4:15

Yeah, we've certainly all been to your shows at Celtic Classic, both the uh kid-friendly and adult versions. Yes. Multiple times.

Matt: 4:24

Multiple times.

Seamus: 4:25

Were you there the night that uh I was in the uh tavern in the glen. There's about 1,500 people in front. And I do a thing periodically where some young fellow will come up and uh tell me that he wants to propose to his girlfriend. And how can we make that happen? And I have a routine where I say, look, okay, here's what I'll do. I'm gonna look for a volunteer to come up and do the unicorn song with me on stage with all the actions and so forth. And uh you're gonna be that volunteer. So I'll get you up on stage. I'll ask if you have a friend who wants to do it with you, and you say, Yeah, my girlfriend, here will you call her up? So he gives me her name and I call her up, and I said, Then then you take out the box with the ring in it, you drop the one me, and you propose, and that's uh that's how we do it. And I've done it many, many times. So this particular night at the Celtic Classic, they uh got the kid up on stage, and uh I said, Do you have a girl who would a girlfriend who'd like to do this with you? He said, Oh yeah, my girlfriend's here. Called her up and got the ring out, dropped the one me. Uh, will you marry me? And she said, Hell no, turn on the stage. Uh the audience has jaws just dropped everybody. And you could hear the oh going all around the room. And he's standing there staring at me, and I looked at him and said, Hey, still want to do the unicorn?

Andy: 5:58

Oh classic. Oof. Yeah, did he stay up?

Seamus: 6:02

No, he says, I better, I better get after her. But it was he wasn't gonna catch her, she was booking. She was booking the other thing that she yelled, you know, I hate surprises.

Siobhan: 6:13

Oh man.

Seamus: 6:15

Oh boy. I think it was better he found out earlier than later. Yeah, yeah.

Andy: 6:20

But I feel like he should have known by then. Yeah.

Siobhan: 6:24

Woo!

Andy: 6:24

Yeah.

Seamus: 6:25

It was match made in Bethlehem.

Matt: 6:30

We weren't there. I know I wasn't there that night. I was there, though. There was one concert where the train came through like five times when you were playing it every time you would stop and play the train song, and it was hysterical.

Seamus: 6:41

Oh, I worked that into my routine though. I I expect that train to come through.

Matt: 6:47

I also saw you the um year after your memorable for all the wrong reasons performance at Jack Frost, uh, up at Jack Frost.

Seamus: 6:56

Oh, the tornado?

Matt: 6:57

Well, yeah, we saw you the year after the tornado.

unknown: 7:00

Yeah.

Matt: 7:01

Was this? No, I haven't heard this. Seamus, would you tell us that story? Because it looks like Andy doesn't know that one.

Seamus: 7:06

Well, I was uh playing, I was I've been playing this Jack Frost festival for many, many years, a ski resort in the Poconos. And uh the weather was turning sort of ugly, and I was on stage performing, and I had just told a series of jokes about New Jersey. I had a whole New Jersey routine that I did difference between uh a New Jersey girl and a catfish. Well, one's slimy with whiskers and the other one's a fish. And I got a whole series of them. All the Jersey people were booing and everybody else just themselves laughing. And uh a tornado hit the place. Just it was only a small one, but it just tore the tent right up, tent poles out, one guy got flung up into the air about 20 feet, hanging onto a rope, trying to hold it down. And uh afterwards a whole bunch of Jersey people came up and said, you know, God is from New Jersey, you shouldn't get it. So I wrote a song about it and recorded it. Yes. That was a good one.

Andy: 8:12

Oh my gosh.

Seamus: 8:13

I have that song on my phone. A flying into the air and uh cans of yingling, you name it. Yeah.

unknown: 8:23

Man.

Seamus: 8:24

It was a good one.

Matt: 8:26

Would that be one of your most memorable? I'm sorry, Andy, would that be one of your most memorable performances? Or what is your most memorable performance?

Seamus: 8:33

Oh, I had a couple. Um there's St. Patrick's Day, 1988. I played for President Reagan. Wow. In the pub that I was working in in Alexandria, Virginia, place called Ireland's own. And he came in with uh James J. Kilpatrick, a very well-known uh conservative columnist at the time. And they sat and they had dinner. The whole thing was set up, by the way, by one of Mr. Reagan's team. Not us not the security guys, but one of the guys that write speeches and stuff for him. And they because he used to come in regularly. And so the president and James J. sat right beside the stage and just got into the performance and participated. They he was doing the actions for the unicorn and everything. And after I had finished, I called him up on stage and gave him a microphone, and he did about 10 minutes of Irish jokes. He was very good. He was like somebody's favorite uncle, you know. Wow. Very ovuncular man. That's amazing.

Rob: 9:36

What a great story. Yeah.

Seamus: 9:38

Still didn't make him a Republican, though. Really nice man. And then the I I played for the Pope. Which Pope? 1979. Uh J2P2. JP Deuce. Yeah. Yep. Played for him in 1979. He came to the States and he was in Washington, D.C. And he was doing an appearance at uh Trinity College. It's a girls' university. Oh, sorry, women's university forget. And uh the uh the lady who was the dean of students there was the sister of the owner of the Dubliner pub in DC, where I happened to be working at the Pope was there and he came walking down the aisle, and people were approaching him and reaching out to be touched and everything. And uh my son, who is well into his forties now, was a 10-month-old baby at the time. So I just dropped the guitar and ran down and handed him my my son, my baby son, and he kissed him and gave him back. And I just realized if that I don't know if any of you are Catholics, but my son is now a uh first degree relic.

Andy: 10:51

He is, yeah. Did you get to did you get to lead communion with the barley mole?

Seamus: 10:57

Oh no, you don't you can only do the barley mole with beer, not wine. I'm sorry. It's written into the words. Yes.

Andy: 11:07

Here's the blood of the savior. The blood of the barley mole. Okay, he's in the catholic.

Matt: 11:16

He's been a Catholic, he's our the company, the brewer, the bookie, the slavery, the dreer, the daughter, the landlord, the landlord, the landlady, the barrel, the after I'll gown the afkin, on the court putt, pine put, have a pine jill, put, half a jill, quarter jill, nippick, another bramble.

Seamus: 11:29

Yeah.

Matt: 11:29

Well done.

Seamus: 11:30

Tell you what, I don't care what they say. Brainwashing works.

Andy: 11:36

That's right. Matt is a product. Yes.

Matt: 11:39

I took that song back, and we used to do that as a drinking song when I was in college, and that's how we would warm up for our parties.

Rob: 11:45

Yeah. At night. Yes. That's a good song. It's an old It's a great song. Pub song, actually.

Andy: 11:51

So yep. I do love hearing the the rogue diplomats perform it now.

Seamus: 11:55

Oh, those guys do a good job. They really do. And they're nice lads too. They really are.

Andy: 12:00

Yeah, I went to I went to college with Nate. They've been going quite a while. Yeah, I remember there was a Celtic Classic where my friend Katie, who's married to one of the other guys, I ran into her Celtic Classic and she's like, Oh, you gotta go see my husband's band. They're playing whatever one of the little tents. And I'm like, Oh yeah, sure. Figure they'll just be whatever group, and I was really impressed.

Seamus: 12:19

Yeah, and they started by just uh busking on the street in Bethlehem while the festival was going on.

Siobhan: 12:25

I love that.

Seamus: 12:25

Yeah, that's great.

Siobhan: 12:26

Yeah.

Seamus: 12:27

So and then they uh then they asked to uh for a shot and they got it. Yeah.

Andy: 12:32

So speaking of Bethlehem, you've were you at the original Celtic classic? Like were you there when it first started?

Seamus: 12:38

No, I missed the first two. And then it was everyone after that, except for the COVID years.

Andy: 12:44

Right. So so how wild has it been to see it evolve from probably some pretty humble beginnings to what it is now?

Seamus: 12:54

Well, most good festivals do that. They start from humble beginnings. Next thing you know, they're they're huge, and people are coming from all over to go there. Another one of my favorite festivals is uh Esther's Park in Colorado.

Rob: 13:07

Oh man, I'm sure that's beautiful.

Seamus: 13:09

It's stunning. It's always the the weekend after Labor Day weekend, and the Rockies are absolutely beautiful. Uh yeah, you're at 7,500 feet, so you have to get there about uh three days early just to catch your breath. Wow. It's marvelous. And that's a beauty. That's a Highland Games and Irish festival.

Rob: 13:28

So it's cool. It it does affect your ability to sing then being an altitude.

Seamus: 13:33

Yeah, you have to um you have to breathe differently.

Rob: 13:36

Wow. Yeah, I I I hike a lot at altitude. I've never tried to sing at altitude. So I now you gotta do it.

Siobhan: 13:42

You gotta hike and sing.

Rob: 13:43

Now I gotta hike and sing at the same time.

Andy: 13:45

Clearly. Well, when we were when we were down in Hawaii and we did that first hike, that I forget where it was, but it went up h altitude. That was my first time like really being at an altitude, and it just affected just walking. It was crazy. So I I can't imagine singing.

Seamus: 14:01

Well, you can get altitude sickness. Yeah. Sure.

Andy: 14:03

They had signs all over down there that said, you know, altitude altitude sickness is a real thing. Yeah, it's not a joke, for sure.

Seamus: 14:09

One of the things that surprises me about Estes Park is the uh it's the Highland Games as well, so you have bagpipe competitions, these bands coming from all over the US, and a bunch of them come from Scotland and Europe as well. They're up there blowing into bagpipes, marching and playing the pipes at the same time. It's it's incredible. I don't know how we don't have pipers dropping like flies. Yeah. A piper dune.

Rob: 14:37

What movie's that from?

Siobhan: 14:39

I don't know.

Rob: 14:39

Is that how I married an axe mite murder? It was the Mike Myers.

Seamus: 14:43

Piper Dune, Piper Dune.

Andy: 14:47

But I I would imagine the less air pressure would even like affect how the bag fills and squeeze out, even, right?

Seamus: 14:54

No, I don't think so. I think they're their lungs fill the bag and then they squeeze it out, but it's them filling their lungs. Sure. And then and then the walking as well.

Matt: 15:07

Sure. Yeah. I mean and we can all appreciate the difficulty marching. I myself taught marching percussion for 17 years, Chris. Uh you've been teaching for over two decades. Yep. Um and Andy uh marches. Well, go ahead.

Andy: 15:22

Yeah, I uh I well I teach at Freedom High School, so I work with the marching man there, but I've also obviously been doing it since high school, and I'm also in the uh Army National Guard band, so I do quite a bit of marching with them as well. Cool. Yeah, we're all musicians. I haven't. I I do a lot of penny whistle playing. Uh I picked up a chanter uh oh gosh, back in college, but I never really played around with it much.

Seamus: 15:47

Right. So the high school doesn't have a pipe band.

Andy: 15:50

No, Liberty, Liberty High School, the other high school here in Bethlehem has the pipe band. We have uh Fife and Drum Corps at Freedom.

Seamus: 15:57

Close enough. Yeah, yeah.

Chris: 15:59

Similar it makes a good pairing, you know, having the different styles, cross town, good rivalry, uh, you know. And and both are are you know, we respect each other's crafts. Um like I I've always been very impressed with a bunch of high schoolers playing bagpipes. It's it's not an easy instrument to learn and to play. So see a bunch of high schoolers do it is is always year after year impressive.

Andy: 16:26

And up until recently over there, they were self-taught as well. Yeah. So like there was there was no like the teachers over there didn't have any knowledge of how to play bagpipes, so it was just passed down, you know, very oral tradition of freshmen would come in and the upperclassmen would teach them how to do it.

Seamus: 16:42

That's great. Yeah. That's a real tradition. Yeah. But do you guys, do the five and drum court, do you have a an elderly gentleman with a bandaged head limping along?

Andy: 16:53

Not anymore. Apparently, originally they had a fifer, a drummer, and a somebody carrying the the the flag, um, the colonial flag, and they would be bandaged, and that's how Freedom High School would lead their parades. That was at the front, and then the rest of the band behind it.

Seamus: 17:11

Those three guys out front.

Andy: 17:13

Yeah. Yeah. I think they called it like the spirit of 76 or something like that, but yeah. Yeah.

Seamus: 17:18

And a red coat behind them with a musket and a band and push up.

Andy: 17:24

Motivating you to finish the parade quickly. Right, yeah. Back to the boat. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard the story a couple times, but uh I'd love to have it on the podcast here. Could you tell us about how you got your Guinness guitar?

Seamus: 17:37

Yeah. There was uh a Guinness rep who used to come to uh a lot of my performances. Guy, this is actually from Dublin, and he said, I noticed that you do a lot to promote Guinness, you know, because I was doing the barley mo with Guinness all the time. And I would always ask specifically for a Guinness. He says, Can we do anything for you? And I said, Well, you see how I have the uh the tri-colored guitar here? I'd I'd like one with the Guinness logo on it, so they paid for it, they got me one. Wow, that's awesome. Then I got Guinness and I sold it to a friend of mine who's performing, uh Jimmy Farrell, and he plays with the Irish Rebels. And you can find him on the street outside the Hotel Bethlehem at the festival every year. Oh, okay. He plays the Guinness guitar. We'll have to find it.

Andy: 18:24

I didn't know that was passed on. But you you also you used you at least used to tell a story about, which was obviously not the real story, about drinking a certain amount of Guinness to get it.

Seamus: 18:34

Oh, geez, you don't believe everything that's done.

Andy: 18:38

I didn't believe it, but I just wanted to hear it.

Seamus: 18:41

I have no idea no idea what I did.

Andy: 18:45

I say I had to drink the story you used to tell was that they had a program similar to the Pepsi Points, where if you drank a certain number of Guinness, they had a catalog that you could buy things out of, and you had to if you drank something like 400 kegs of Guinness or something like that, they'd send you a guitar, and then you would end you would end that story by saying that was the hardest week of your life.

Siobhan: 19:13

So good.

Seamus: 19:15

People come up to me nowadays and ask me to do comedy routines that I was doing 40 years ago.

Rob: 19:20

Yeah.

Seamus: 19:20

I can't remember what I had for breakfast that morning.

Rob: 19:23

So I have a question for you, Seamus. Did you intend to get into music or did you intend to get into comedy? And like which were you trying to get into? And then how did that kind of mold into what what you wound up doing with both?

Seamus: 19:37

Neither. Uh studied languages at college, University College Dublin, uh French, Italian, uh, Irish. And I wanted to be an interpreter at the United Nations. And what happened was I was out here in the US back in the late 60s, and I always had a guitar with me, and I ended up in a pub playing and singing, and the owner offered me a gig and paid me for it, and that was it. That was the downfall right there. Didn't finish college, didn't end up as an interpreter, and uh became a full-time performer.

Chris: 20:16

Wow.

Seamus: 20:17

Cool.

Chris: 20:18

What uh what pub was that? Do you remember?

Seamus: 20:22

In New York City. It was a man called John McAliers. John was from Tyrone, and I at the time I was playing Gaelic football and hurling in New York City, and after the games, myself and a couple of the other lads from the team would go into John McAleer's pub. I had my guitar, a cheap ass guitar, in a pillowcase. I just took it out and we're sitting around the table drinking pints again beer and singing. And the crowd just got bigger. So he noticed that they were coming to hear me. So he said, Would you like would you like to do this on one of my off nights, like a Monday or something? I said, Sure. So we did. That's amazing. That's awesome. Wow. What happens when you're planning something else?

Matt: 21:08

Yeah, that's true. Uh there was one night, uh, actually, that I was planning a uh drink with Chris and Siobhan. I believe you two were there for this. It was at St. James Gate, used to be at the casino in Bethlehem. It was the the the Sands Casino, and now it's the the Wind Creek. But we were sitting there and we had seen you at Celtic Fest earlier that night, and all of our sudden, to our disbelief, you walked in with your guitar and walked up on stage, and we couldn't believe that we were like three tables away from you performing. So we have no idea how that happened, but we were very happy for an encore performance.

Seamus: 21:45

I have no idea how that happened either. I don't think I was booked there. I think I came in to get up and stage with a friend of mine who asked me. Might have been Jerry Timlin or somebody like that, but uh I don't think it was supposed to be just me.

Matt: 21:59

That's I always wondered if that was a booked performance, if it was spur of the moment. No, I was asked by some other performer to join him. That was, in my opinion, one of the best uh local pubs for a long, long time. And they took it out probably ten years ago at this point, and I practically wanted to hold a funeral for it when they did, but Yeah, you should have.

Siobhan: 22:19

Yeah. Yeah, you need it needed an Irish wake. That would have been better than a funeral.

Matt: 22:24

I there well, there were several things akin to Irish wakes that happened there.

Seamus: 22:28

Um what's a really weird thing? The the wake, the Irish wake always occurs before the person is buried, before the funeral. The wake is the usually the night they die, uh they're they're laid out by the undertaker. That's when you have the wake in the house. And over here, a wake is more of a memorial service after they're buried.

Siobhan: 22:51

Yeah.

Seamus: 22:53

That's wrong.

Siobhan: 22:54

Yeah.

Seamus: 22:56

Let's get back to the original one.

Siobhan: 22:58

Yeah, I agree with that for sure.

Seamus: 23:01

Yeah, the one after the funeral should be a memorial service. But I'm not going to change the American way of doing things.

Matt: 23:11

So this is a drinking podcast. You have talked a lot about Guinness. I'm curious. One, is Guinness your favorite beer overall, or do you have other types of beers or drinks that you enjoy uh before performances, after on a regular basis, that sort of thing?

Seamus: 23:28

My two favorite uh beer style drinks, uh Guinness is one, and uh Scotch ale. Any Scotch ale, like old Chubb, for instance. Good stuff. They're the two best. That's that's what I prefer.

Andy: 23:43

I really love, and these guys know it. Uh Brewworks in Bethlehem does uh Bagpiper's Scotch Ale Celta Classic every year, and I always try my best to buy as many bottles of it as I can. Absolutely love it.

Seamus: 23:58

I like that brew works. That's a really good brewery.

Matt: 24:00

It's a great place, yeah. Do they have the Scottish tilt lifter as well? That was there for a long time. I'm not familiar with that one. Maybe it's a different brand I'm thinking of.

Rob: 24:09

Is that Wirebacher?

Matt: 24:11

Maybe it was maybe it was Wirebacher.

Rob: 24:13

I mean, a lot of the local places around here will lean in, like around Celtic Fest time, they'll lean into that and and do some kind of a Irish style or Scotch style brew. But I think that that the kilt lifter was Weierbacher.

Matt: 24:29

And also in the spirit of a very famous song that somebody joining us sang that I remember hearing on the radio when I was 18, 20 years old, somewhere in there.

Seamus: 24:38

Which song was that? The Barney Moe? The Scotsman.

Matt: 24:41

The Scotsman.

Seamus: 24:42

The Scots Mo, I thought I thought you were talking about Scots beer.

Matt: 24:46

Well, I mentioned the kilt lifter, so that got us here.

Seamus: 24:49

The first four steps of uh making beer or homebrew is exactly the same as the first four steps of making whiskey. So, you know.

Siobhan: 25:00

Love it.

Andy: 25:04

Yeah. Yeah.

Seamus: 25:04

Fair enough. Do you guys get to the red stag? Yes.

Andy: 25:09

Yeah. Absolutely.

Seamus: 25:10

Granny McCarthy's, yeah. McCarthy's.

Andy: 25:13

Yeah. Um they're they're actually now hosting sessions on Tuesday nights, uh which they haven't done for quite a while. It's being hosted by um oh I'm blanking on the band name now. One of the local one of the local Lee High Valley Irish bands. Oh, okay. Gosh, I can't uh Burning Bridge Clearly. It might be Burning Bridge Clearly. Yes. Yeah, okay. Oh poor man's gambit. Poor Man's Gambit, that's it.

Siobhan: 25:38

You got it. Look at that.

Andy: 25:40

So speaking of last time I c had a conversation with you, we were talking about um some new groups that we've heard, and it really seemed like you were on the pulse of the new uh Irish Celtic music scene. I was wondering if there's any up-and-comers that you're that's on your mind recently. Uh do you mean here or in Ireland? Oh, all all across. All the above. Okay. I actually recently heard a Japanese group which was surprisingly good. Apparently, Irish music's very popular in Japan.

Seamus: 26:09

Huge. They have a huge uh St. Patrick's Day parade in Tokyo. And uh by the way, the Japanese love bluegrass music. There's so many wonderful bluegrass bands from Japan too. Yeah. Yep. Uh I did the Milwaukee Irish Festival two years ago with a great Japanese band they were uh performing. Can't pronounce their name, unfortunately. Picked an Irish name for themselves. Well, they were really good instrumentally. They they did everything correct. The reels and jigs, fiddles, accordions, barons, you name it, the whistles, they were just excellent.

Andy: 26:44

Cool.

Seamus: 26:45

But do you guys have a name as a band?

Andy: 26:47

Oh. Well, we're not in a band, those two are.

Siobhan: 26:53

We are.

Rob: 26:54

In in one way or another, we've all performed together over our lifetime. But currently, Matt and I perform in a three-piece acoustic band, local bars and breweries and stuff. We do that playing mostly cover songs, and uh it's it's a lot of fun. You know, maybe once a month is what we shoot for, and uh the third member doesn't do the podcast with us, but uh he certainly plays music with us.

Matt: 27:18

Absolutely. We've been in Rob and I have been in bands together in and out for the better part of 25 years, I think at least. Almost three decades at this point. Yeah, it's been a it's been a while.

Andy: 27:30

So their band is called the Reconnect. I do mostly classical stuff aside from performing with my students, which we do all kinds of stuff, but uh the majority of my performing's been with the Pennsylvania National Guard band, and I also have a brass quintet. I'm a tuba player, so I have a brass quintet here in the Lehigh Valley called East Coast Sound Brass Quintet. Um Siobhan's a singer.

Siobhan: 27:52

Oh yeah, I'm a singer um and I perform locally, but uh I have made guest appearances with Rob and Matt before. Not not well with Reconnect once or twice, but also when we were in Matt's Attic um years ago, we were two, we were workshopping couple names and we were Attic Attack for a second, and then we were Ginger and the Bread Men for a little while because I was the front woman. Um, but I sing locally with uh a couple local groups, including the Allentown Symphony Chorus, which is wonderful. I love being part of that. It's there's a lot of great opportunities in the area for vocal music, which is really awesome.

Seamus: 28:29

Are you a contralto?

Siobhan: 28:30

I'm I'm actually a Soprano one. Okay. In fact.

Seamus: 28:35

I was just judging by your speaking voice.

Siobhan: 28:37

Yeah, no, I try to keep it low-key for the podcast. That's kind of what it is, but I have a good range. You know, your voice.

Seamus: 28:44

Yeah, she does, yes. Yes. Be careful with that vocal fry. That gives you low.

Andy: 28:50

It does. Yeah.

Seamus: 28:52

You'll end up sounding like Paul Robeson. Or Lucy Ball, who was a battle near the end of her days.

Andy: 29:02

She was also a big smoker too, if I remember correctly.

Siobhan: 29:06

That I am not, thankfully.

Matt: 29:08

Seamus, did I see online that you are taking a trip to Ireland next year? I think I saw a travel with Seamus advertisement.

Seamus: 29:16

I've been doing it for 36 years. Oh wow. I bring tour groups over. And then I try to get them back again. The less important part.

Andy: 29:27

Convince them to go home.

Seamus: 29:29

Sometimes it's difficult, you know.

Siobhan: 29:31

I bet.

Seamus: 29:32

Yeah, but I've I do it every year. I've got two groups going this year, one in April and one in October. That's really neat. We have lots of music and lots of fun and lots of shoplifting. That's wonderful.

Siobhan: 29:44

What a good combination.

Seamus: 29:46

Oh, yeah. You get your Christmas shopping done.

Siobhan: 29:51

Perfect.

Seamus: 29:51

October's perfect for that.

Siobhan: 29:53

And April, even better. Yeah.

Matt: 29:55

I'm I'm gonna put Rob on the spot here and make him tell the story of the shirt he's wearing. Oh. And where you got it and what we were doing.

Rob: 30:01

Go ahead. That's fine. Yeah. So so in 2004, we uh the Freedom Band traveled to Dublin to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. And uh we, even though we were 18 and legally allowed to drink in Ireland, we were not supposed to drink because we were on a school sanctioned trip and we were not of age. Uh but Matt not supposed to is key. Matt Matt and I decided, uh, well, and one of our other friends, Mike, uh, who was also there with us, uh, decided, you know, we didn't know if we would ever get back to Ireland. And how could we possibly go to Ireland and not go to St. James Gate and and do the tour at Guinness and Jameson and and uh and sample their wares. So uh I bought this rugby shirt um from the Guinness uh shop after we had had a pint illegally, according to our school, and I can tell that story now because I am 40. On St. Patrick's Day. On St. Patrick's Day, yeah. You were legal by Guinness's standards Irish That's true, and I'll drink to that.

Matt: 31:04

There we go.

Seamus: 31:05

God bless you for keeping my countrymen employed.

Siobhan: 31:10

You were really doing a good deed, clearly. That's what it was.

Andy: 31:13

I I can tell you my my story of Guinness in Ireland. I've never I've only been in Ireland for about two hours because I was on my way to Scotland and we had a layover in Dublin. So while we were in the Dublin airport, I was saying, similar, you know, this might be the only time I get to Ireland. I'm gonna get myself an Irish local Guinness while I'm here at the airport. Seamus, the airport was out. Out of Guinness? They were out of Guinness. How does that happen, Seamus?

Seamus: 31:46

The Belfast solution is I I would have called in a bomb threat. I'll tell you how it happens. Many American military aircraft land there, and the guys all come in early in the morning, and they all have a pint to Guinness, and they drink up all the stuff that we're supposed to get.

Siobhan: 32:12

There it is.

Andy: 32:14

I I did have they had a uh Guinness had a a porter, I think, that that I had instead, which was delicious, but it wasn't what I was going for. Well Guinness is a porter. Is it a porter or a stout?

Seamus: 32:26

It's both. The stout is a porter, porter is a stout.

Rob: 32:31

Not all stouts are porters, but all porters are stouts. Okay. Guinness had uh a light that's true. I just wanted to say it.

Seamus: 32:38

Yeah. You know, they they didn't just make the dark ones, they they made a couple of light ones as well, like harp.

Andy: 32:45

Yes. Right.

Seamus: 32:46

Yeah.

Andy: 32:47

There's smithics as well, right? Guinness owns Smithics. Yeah, Smithicks is one of my favorite beers. I love Smithics.

Seamus: 32:54

Uh yeah, if you ever get to the brewery in Kilkenny, it's a lovely tour of the brewery to see how it's made, and then you get a sample afterwards in their sampling room. Uh yeah, Smithicks is a real good beer. Don't call it Smithwix. No, no. Don't worry, we know better. Yeah, we're wise enough. Yeah.

Matt: 33:11

I always enjoyed your joke of what uh what sound does an Irish seal make? Harp, harp, harp, harp, harp.

Siobhan: 33:18

Oh, geez. Way to do that.

Seamus: 33:24

My old joke's coming back to haunt me. Right. That's part of the the the way I did used to do the Wild Rover was instead of the clapping four times, no nay never, to have them all shout harp, harp, harp, harp.

Matt: 33:38

Yeah. I know that um we've had you for a little while here, and I'm very appreciative of you joining us. I did have uh a final question for you today. Uh, we've all taught music in some way, shape, or form. My daughter just started playing violin. And uh the question that I had for you is you've had a very long, sustainable music career. What's the biggest lesson or words of advice you would have for younger musicians?

Seamus: 34:02

Younger musicians. Something I never did, and something I really wish I had. Learn to read music, but also learn to play by ear. Great advice. Yeah. Read music. Everything I do is by ear, but I wish I had learned to read music.

Matt: 34:21

I certainly appreciate that. I have I have drummers' ears when it comes to music. I can hear pitch, I can read music not very well, but I wish I knew a little bit more. I appreciate the rhythms. I can well, I can read rhythms, yeah. I can read rhythms. It's when the notes start moving around the page, things get trickier for me.

Rob: 34:37

That's okay. You also can't see color, but you've done okay.

Matt: 34:40

But every episode, we have to bring up the fact that I'm colorblind.

Seamus: 34:43

Right. Well, I don't think you need the uh color sight to read music because I mean they're just black and white dots. That's fair. It works perfectly for him, yeah.

Matt: 34:54

Yes. I found my niche.

Seamus: 34:56

Pete somebody asked Pete Seeger once, can you read music? He says, Yeah, but not enough to spoil my plane.

Andy: 35:03

That's a great line.

Matt: 35:06

Love that. Love that. Seamus, thank you very much for joining us today.

Seamus: 35:11

It's been my pleasure. Thanks for asking me. And I suppose I'll see you guys up at the classic this year. Oh, absolutely.

Rob: 35:18

We'll come out and have a beer. Yes.

Seamus: 35:19

Oh, definitely. I'm gonna hold to that.

Siobhan: 35:22

Yeah.

Seamus: 35:22

Perfect.

Siobhan: 35:23

Cheers.

Seamus: 35:24

Thanks for joining us.

Siobhan: 35:25

Thank you so much.

Seamus: 35:26

James, thank you.

Unfiltered Studios Guy: 35:28

This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information.

Matt: 35:39

For this episode's boozy quote, an Irish toast. I drink your health when I'm with you, I drink your health when I'm alone. I drink your health so often I'm starting to worry about my own. Would you like to suggest something for us to drink? Give us some feedback or have your brand featured on Matt and Friends Drink the Universe? We would love to hear from all of our listeners. Please check our episode descriptions down below for links to send us to text, support the podcast, and visit our merch store. To keep up with our latest news or share your stellar tips with us, please like and follow Matt Friends DTU on Facebook, Instagram, Text, TikTok, Twitter, Blue Sky, and Reddit. For more information about the podcast and links to all of our episodes, please visit www.metfriendsdetu.com. That's MattFriendsDTU.com. Cheers, friends!