Pa Sheehy

It wasn’t just Covid-19 and lockdown which made 2020 a year that Pa Sheehy is unlikely to forget. After a decade fronting the Irish chart-conquering Walking On Cars with over 170,000 album sales, 364M streams and years of touring the globe, he decided last July that it was time to leave the group. “When lockdown hit, the level of peace that came over me was something I’d never felt before. I slowed down and stopped thinking of the next song and the next gig for the first time in ten years. It was a chance to re-evaluate everything. Was I happy with where I was? I tried to convince myself I was and that I should be grateful, but it became apparent after some time that I wasn’t happy and it was time to make a big decision.” “There was no bust up or other big drama; it had just run its course” he explains. “Following all those years of being in a band, I wanted to be able to totally do my own thing, which has been very liberating. Walking On Cars was an amazing period in all our lives. The people of Dingle were with us from our first gig in a local bar, two albums later and we had toured all across the world, played to 14,000 people in Dublin’s 3Arena; and performed before Kendrick Lamar at Electric Picnic to 35,000 people singing back every word. So all in all, we did good.” Speaking about his first solo release ‘I Saw You At A Funeral’ released in June: “This is a song I find easier to sing than talk about. I didn’t want to give this part of my life too much attention because I was doing my best to focus on the good things in my life. But every time I sat down to write a song, it was always the first thing that jumped out of me’ Pa Sheehy’s ability to dig deep and give voice to the human condition reaches new heights. ‘The Art Of Disappearing’, the Irishman’s debut solo EP, is due for release on 24th September, which, contrary to its title will once again place him in the full glare of audiences far and wide. It packs a hefty melodic punch with choruses destined to linger long in the memory. Talking about his latest single ‘Róisín’ ’Pa Sheehy said: "How many times can you let down the one you love before they say goodbye? Pa has never chosen his words as carefully as he does on ‘Róisín’, an impassioned love and lust song that literally couldn’t be any closer to home. To make a long story short “when I went to college I had it all! Captain of the local soccer team, I had a little car and a beautiful girlfriend. Róisín. Fast forward 18 months. I didn’t play sport, dropped out of college and I had made it impossible for Róisín to stay. Why? Alcohol. I loved what it gave me and I put it before everything and everyone. I never labelled myself an alcoholic, but after going to a bunch of councillors it became obvious that I was. A reluctant me did everything I could to keep tabs on it but after spending my rent money on a piss up and couch surfing around Cork I finally asked for help. Everything I had was gone. I spent a month in a Rehabilitation centre. The first one to visit me was Róisín. I stayed sober for a while but in the end we had decided to call it quits, not because of a lack of love but I couldn’t put her through this again. I was lost, so was she. This song is a gift to her. Some people deserve to have their name sung from a stage.” What Pa wants more than anything else now is to be able to perform his new songs live. Following the announcement of his first Irish Headline shows this September and October he says “There’s an actual ache that comes from not being able to stand up in front of a roomful of people” “What’s kept me going is knowing it would happen again and when it did, that it will all make sense.”