"I think I was about 16 when I first picked up a guitar. I'd had lessons for everything from the recorder to the accordian but nothing had really appealed to me too much until I was at a party and someone was busking some songs - and getting a lot of attention from the ladies!

No surprise then that I was able to bang out a few tunes for the post-leaving booze-up! I'm from Cobh, in Cork, and headed to Dublin after my leaving for college and a change more than anything else. New sights, new sounds, new faces. Big smoke and all that I guess to an extent. I'd started busking in college to help pay the rent and gradually got into the singer-songwriter thing and built up a little bit of confidence (still doing that). I'd been writing songs since I first picked up a guitar and I had a few together at this point but didn't feel ready to throw myself into the whole thing fully, and I had to work for a while to pay back college loans and all that.

So I got myself a job. Still doing that too. It pays the bills though. For buying music gear and getting the ball rolling this time round. I was in a band or two. No, actually only one, before I decided I really wanted to do things on my own terms, so when I'd got the loans paid off and a bit of money saved up I have to say it was nice to be able to go out and spend a years savings on a 16 track - much better than a holiday!

I demoed stuff from there - pretty basic, because I was doing it in my rented room, paranoid about having the other people living in the house hear the stuff and not having the slightest notion what, to begin with, or how, I wanted to get me on tape. Still trying to get the head around that one. I did a few support slots, Ruby Sessions and that, and then I kinda got stuck a bit.

Recording was a handful for me - frustrating because I wasn't hearing on tape what I was hearing in my head - and for some reason I ended up doing a night course as well. Basically a year went by where I did almost nothing… So then I got back on track a bit. I'd a good friend, Steve Fanagan, that I'd met in college and was into the idea of working with the songs I'd written to try and see where we could take them." - Bill Coleman