‘You have to market yourself to a point of nearly embarrassment’ – Mundy talks crowdfunding, ageing, and upcoming US tour

Mundy will take part in a Q&A and perform at IMRO for Culture Night on Friday September 21.

Mundy - Edmond Enright - on stage

Aoife Kelly

Having kicked off the year with a tour of Asia, followed by a summer performing across Ireland, and an upcoming tour of the US it seems Mundy is busier than ever.

It has been a 22 year stretch since the Offaly singer songwriter announced his arrival on the scene with Jelly Legs -  the album that spawned To You I Bestow, which featured on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrman’s stunning Romeo + Juliet - and 18 years since he departed the label that released that phenomenally successful debut.

In the intervening two decades he has manned his own ship, from setting up Camcor Records to release his sophomore album, 24 Star Hotel (boasting July, the track that has become synonymous with the Irish summer), to crowd-funding on Pledge for his sixth studio album, the self-titled Mundy, which he released in 2015.

However, while there may be six albums in his canon, it has not been plain sailing manning this ship of his, as the recession kicked in and he shouldered – and still does – all his own admin in relation to touring, gigs, his website, albums and the rest.

Mundy

“I’m one of these people who, at the start of the recession, I was trying to set myself up when the whole thing collapsed and I had to make some big decisions in order to keep the ball rolling for the family and all that,” he tells Independent.ie  “I ended up taking on a lot of the jobs myself and it was good to kind of do it, and learn how to do it, but it was definitely time-consuming.”

Between the admin and parenthood – he’s a dad to two young children (aged 8 and 6) with his wife Sarah Deeny - it has also become more difficult in recent years to find time to be creative.  His last album released in 2015 and, while there are plans for an EP next year, there’s a US tour to tackle in the meantime.

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The 43-year-old has previously spoken about the ageing process and the demands of parenthood and how they impact on his confidence in himself and his ability to create.  However, he says he’s “feeling better about myself than I have in a while”.

“I guess there’s a bit of caution [when it comes to writing] and I suppose, I don’t know, with age comes a little bit of doubt.  You don’t have as much time to take care of yourself and look in the mirror as when you’re a younger person.  All of that sets in a little bit of kind of self doubt,” he says.

“I suppose when you write a new song and know it’s a good one it deletes all that stuff that goes on in your head.  When you’re an artist you’re quite susceptible to these little demons that follow you around the place.  That’s part of the gig I guess.  But I’m feeling better about myself than I have in a while.”

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He elaborates, “Having kids and a family and all that is quite demanding.  Your body changes as you get older, you have to make twice as much money in half the time.  I’ve found parenthood magical and all that but you’re facing up to real adult challenges.  So, you really have to make time and space for yourself.”

And when he does make it into the studio he finds it difficult to escape the distractions of the digital age; “[It’s about] learning to put the phone away, turn off the WiFi – you can’t write a song when you have beeps going off all over the place.”

With songs like To You I Bestow, Mexico, July, Gin & Tonic, and his cover of Steve Earle's Galway Girl (which spent became the biggest single in Ireland in 2007 and 2008), he could dine out on his back catalogue for eternity, but he's always forging ahead.

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The Mundy album of 2015 is a stunning piece of work, produced by Youth, who also produced Jelly Legs back in the day, but it was a labour of love for Mundy, not so much creatively as on the business side. He crowd-funded on direct-to-fan platform Pledge Music and found the process “hard work”.

“The Pledge people were great and all that, but really have to go out there and market yourself to a point of nearly embarrassment,” he says.  “It’s very needy.  If you don’t know how to do it... there’s a way of doing these things."

He quips, "I don’t know what to do without being very transparent, ‘Buy the f**king album and I’ll get it to you.  I need the money right now, otherwise it’s not going to come out!’”

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He says he didn’t quite suss out the right approach.  However, his fans were undoubtedly delighted by the range of items and experiences he was also offering for sale to raise cash, from guitar picks to signed posters and handwritten 'July' lyric sheets, to paintings and guitar lessons.

“I had a few things where you could buy house concerts or go and hang out with me for the day around Dublin city.  I sold a few little paintings, lyric sheets.  I got very slutty after a while,” he laughs.

PledgeMusic encourages artists to research in advance the time and effort involved in fulfilling offers for fans, as well as any sales tax that may apply, and the eventual tax on the income the artist will be reporting.  Mundy found the process more laborious than he expected.

“There was a lot of admin to it, because every single penny had to be documented and everything sent out on time and I actually had to get somebody in to help me to keep it all ticking over,” he reveals.  “All of it was taxed as well which was a kick in the arse.  I didn’t know that before I started.”

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It’s not surprising he’s taking a slightly different approach with the new EP, which will be as stripped-back venture.  He’s been trying out new material at shows across the country this summer and it has, he says, been going down really well.

“I’m trying to do something very simple, just to showcase what I can do on my own.  A lot of people like to hear me on my own,” he says.

He’ll also get the chance to test it out in the US on his upcoming tour, which takes in Seattle, Washington, Portland, LA, Kansas, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Boston from early October.

“Kansas is good for me, and New York, but take somewhere like Weymouth in Boston – I’ve never been there before but it’s sold out already.  That was the one gig I thought, ‘No, it won’t sell’ but I guess we’re not in the city, we’re in the burbs, and I’m noticing as I’m getting older people are less likely to go into the city unless it’s for a big event.  Even my age group – late 30s, early 40s – they need to get babysitters, they need to be home early for work.”

He’s back in Ireland for University Concert Hall Limerick on November 8 and a Christmas date at Whelan’s on December 29.  He’s also one of the ambassadors for Culture Night, and will be interviewed and perform at Irish Music Rights Organisation in Dublin, joined by the legendary BP Fallon, Fangclub and Stephanie Rainey.

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“I’ve not been before,” he says of Culture Night. “But it’s great, especially for people down the country to maybe see stuff they weren’t even aware was happening in their local area.”

For tickets to Culture Night at IMRO featuring Mundy email events@imro.ie and for more information on this and other Culture Night events taking place on Friday September 21, check out the website: www.culturenight.ie