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Tasty Side Dish from Donegal X-Press

By
Mike Farragher,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 4:09 PM
Updated Thursday, July 23, 2009, 5:48 PM

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THE Donegal X-Press has emerged as one of the premier Irish American roots rock groups in the country, with a reputation built on high-energy that audiences on both sides of the Atlantic are soaking up.

Brad Dunnells (guitar and vocals) and Jason Tinney (harmonica and vocals) began collaborating and writing songs in the late 1990s with the hope of rejuvenating Irish American music. Each band member has a musical side project in the works that take the musicians into areas of hip hop, folk and rock, and Dunnells and Tinney are no exception.

They have a group of their own called the Wayfarers, which was formed with the husky pipes of singer Laura Malkus that makes beautiful music within the tangled roots of American folk, rock, country and blues. Add a sweet Celtic fiddle in the mix for good measure and you have a winning collection of songs called Sorrow and Snakes.

"Lucinda Williams" has a galloping country shuffle masked in a funky backbeat, and it serves as a clever kiss-off to the slick country chanteuses that call Nashville their home lately. "If you're gunning for those bright lights that come with being a Nashville star/just keep being who you ain't/instead of being who you are," snarls singer Dunnells.

I spoke with Dunnells on the eve of his tour of Ireland about the new disc as well as the status of Donegal X-Press, which is one of this reviewer's favorite Irish outfits. Check them out at dxplive.com. Here's how the conversation went.

Congratulations on a great CD!

Thanks! I'm really proud of it. It took a long time to get together.

What took so long?

The songs were written, so we didn't really go into the studio without knowing what we were doing. We did enlist the help of some area musicians that had expertise on certain styles. I think that gave some breath of life from track to track. Of course, there's the money aspect.

What kind of reaction have you gotten from the CD?

We have gotten some nice reviews from some of the local papers, but it's always difficult to reach some of the national music periodicals.

There's one song on the CD, "Lucinda Williams," that seems to take a swipe at the wave of slick country pop stars like Carrie Underwood that seem to be everywhere. Is that fair to say?

Absolutely. I don't know if you ever watched the show Nashville Star. It has those contestants that are more and more Hollywood on their sound. I guess we could stay up all night and debate if that's a good thing or not.

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