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Whilst viewing Love Yourself Today, Ross Killeen’
s tremendous new documentary on Damien Dempsey and the power his music and message exerts over his fans, We started thinking about David Balfe (For Those I Love) and the transformative impact his debut album has also had on people. What if we could bring these two together? They are both from Donaghmede and there’s an overlap in their upbringing, their message, their outlook on life and the profound resonance their deeply personal experiences has on their devoted fans. They exude passion and integrity. What if they spoke to each other and we merely facilitated it, gently steering proceedings, silently observing? They agreed. And it happened on a Saturday morning in Marsh’s Library. It turns out they are even both from the same estate in Donaghmede. And this was the first time they had met in person. From the warm embrace upon first meeting to the exchange of mobile numbers at the end, we know that, though this may be the first we hear of these two together, it won’t be the last. What follows is an edited transcript of the wide-ranging conversations they had and the questions they came armed with for each other. We’ll steer you through proceedings, so pull up a chair. Whilst we are arranging interior shots in Marsh’s Library, Dempsey and Balfe swap tales of local characters and places familiar to them both. Then we get on to how Damien first came across Ross Killeen. It was through 99 Problems, his short on an ice cream van man named Pinky. DB: “I remember Pinky as a kid and he’d always be telling me, ‘All of the other icers are a load of bollocks and I’ll show you why.’ And he’d take the ice cream and fill it up and then he’d turn it upside down and say, ‘If it doesn’t stick, it’s a load of bollocks,’ And every other icer we’d go to, we’d turn it and just loose it.” Then Dempsey informs Balfe that Killeen’s grandad was a famous billiards player and he lights up. DB: “I’m a big pool fan. The biggest thing I’m looking forward to all is year is I have tickets to the Mosconi cup in London.” This is an annual nine-ball pool tournament and if you want to hear more about this and his sporting pursuits listen in to David’s chat with Second Captains. DB: “I’ll have to talk to Ross about this. Snooker fans would laugh at it in terms of it being a joke.” David talks about still kickboxing in Donaghmede and Damien wonders if it was in The Ryano. We never establish whether it is. DB: “You boxed?” DD: “Yeah, it was more a hobby to me. I had the guitar, writing songs and a way of keeping the bullies away.” DB: “Do you still train at all?” DD: “I still do a bit with the brothers, bleedin’ giants.” There’s a laugh over this given Dempsey’s stature and how he towers over Balfe. They briefly chat about their favourite pubs – The Raheny Inn for Dempsey and Peadar Browne’s for Balfe, mostly because they are family-run. Then we get back to Donaghmede. and you’re not going anywhere so it’s a very strange trend of anti-authoritarian behaviour to go down the avenue of love and beauty.” DB: “2005, Chanel College, Mick Phelan, English teacher had you in.” DD: “Were you in the class?” DB: “I would have been.” DD: “I know Mick, Jaysus Christ.” DB: “I don’t remember a whole lot.” DD: “I was too nervous back then. None of the kids would have known who I was. I think the teacher was more of a fan.” DB: “You had an evangelist in him because he used to print out the lyrics and hand them out around the class. I specifically remember Mick having a print out of Negative Vibes and handling it around and breaking that down under the same guise that you would try and break down Sylvia Plath or whatever you had in Chrysalis, the English book. He understood at an early age that in order to get through to a bunch of lads in Coolock you needed to speak to them in their language, in a way that they felt connected to. That would have been the idea of bringing you in in the first place.” DD: “I remember I wasn’t ready for that. I was really nervous…Lack of self esteem and not much confidence in meself at the time. Mick was brilliant really wanted to show the kids that you can be an artist from these places, a working artist.” This brings us around to talking about how bringing the world they came from is something intrinsic to both of them. Demspey still lives in Donaghmede while Balfe is currently in Rialto. DD: “We have a great community in Donaghmede, if you go to Dunnes Stores all the girls on the check-outs will talk to you. That’s why I’ve come back to there. It’s like a womb for me. I think David nailed it. You’ll never hear a better song about Donaghmede than Brendan. There were tears in my eyes when I heard that song. He nailed the beauty of it and the other side of it. DB: “I don’t know how to reflect anything else. I’m not a gifted enough storyteller to write fiction so I don’t know how to reflect anything other than the life that I’ve been very lucky to be born into. And when it comes down to that reflection of beauty against that reflection of violence and poverty which we more often see on a headline basis, I think both of those narratives play against each other, certainly in my music and listening to Damo’s music I would say it’s there also. “Part of the reason why we associate certain areas with these terrible tragedies is it is very rare that you can write a positive headline, it doesn’t grab attention. It’s very difficult to find a way to concisely describe the beauty and the collective worth and the connection between communities, neighbours, families and friends but it’s very easy to say this thing happened. “Reflecting that beauty comes naturally, maybe when I was younger I tried to do it a bit more defiantly, but that’s because when I was younger with the music my friends and I were trying to make, we were trying to rally against that media narrative. We were younger, we had a lot more anti-authoritative thread to our personalities and that was coming out as a reflection of love and beauty. What we were seeing and being told was violence, limitations At this stage Dempsey reaches for his sheet of questions. He was going to write them down the pub “but I said don’t, be fresh, write them at your fucking writing table ya prick!” It’s very difficult to find a way to concisely describe the beauty and the collective worth and the connection between communities, neighbours, families and friends but it’s very easy to say this thing happened. DD: Did you ever think or feel when younger that poetry was the domain of people not where you were from? DB: “No, and I’m very lucky that’s that the case. When I first got interested in the written word and what it could do and communicate, it was encouraged by my uncle Darren, he gave me a lot of access to Irish songwriters who spoke in the same colloquialism, spoke stories about the same world that I lived in - Seán Millar, for example, he gave me The Bitter Lie on CD when I was very young and that came at the exact same time that I was first feeling enthralled with the written word. That alone allowed me to accept that this was something that could be representative of my life and done in a manner that didn’t shy away from colloquialism, slang and the way that I have learned to communicate in all of its black humour and pacing. When I got older I got exposed to a wider poetic vocabulary. Darren used the local word to convince me that this was a path to communicate.” DD: “That’s great, just that one person in your life can change everything.” Now it’s time for Balfe to reach for his notebook and drop his first question. DB: “I’ve watched the film a few times now and one of the things I was struck by is how people seem to have these spiritual moments at your shows. And when I look at it, I am trying to draw parallels between that live music experience and a more traditional religious experience where you can walk into somewhere, where there is a group of people standing in one direction, speaking in one direction, orating together in this swell. Everybody is going to that whether it is a religious experience or a music one, they are going to that carrying their own baggage, their own trauma and looking for a way to exorcise that. I was wondering what you can say about the spiritual experience of music and how that even fits into a broader history of Irish spiritualism and how music always fits into that from drum circles on to where we are at now?” DD: “Music is like when you meditate. When you meditate you feel the spirit inside you, you focus, you drop all the crazy thoughts. 18