Travel and performing is just music to Kieran Goss’s ears

Kieran Goss will have enjoyed Germany’s eleventh hour World Cup triumph. The Sligo-based acoustic songwriter has toured Mitteleuropa for years, routinely selling-out 1,500 capacity venues from Dusseldorf to Dresden. He has, in some ways, become an honorary German.

“Last year I did 200 shows — of which less than 10 were in Ireland,” says Goss, 52. “It’s maybe 16 years since I focused on Ireland. If you speak to musicians, a lot will have the same experience. Overseas tends to be the bread and butter.”

While he’s far too humble to acknowledge the fact, Goss’s success in Germany is groundbreaking. Focused on the UK, Irish artists often give short shrift to bigger markets on the Continent, even though they generally welcome (and are less inclined to stereotype) music from Ireland.

“I’d love to say it was part of a big plan,” Goss continues. “Of course, it wasn’t. Before I made music I was a solicitor. I gave it up and travelled. Not because I had a goal of being big in Germany. I wanted to create some headspace — to find out what I wished to do with my life. Meeting people, learning the language… it was a natural starting point. Speaking the language, especially, opens a lot of media opportunities in terms of television.”

Does Goss ever wake up in hotel room in deepest Westphalia and wonder what, exactly, he’s doing there?

“I understand rock bands on the road thinking ‘Where the hell am I?’” he smiles. “We are slightly different. I tour with my wife. The fact is, we have managed to turn it into a lifestyle. Not just one that pays the bills, but which allows us to travel. I’ve always wanted to do this.”

He tries to carve out two months every year for respite — usually July and August (though he’s en route to Cork for a brace of gigs this week). The rest of the calendar is given over to performance.

“Once you are mature enough to set aside your ego, music is great fun. Anyone getting into it for the wrong reasons — whether that be fame or money — is in for a letdown. There isn’t much of either for most artists today. If you are in it for the music and the travel and to meet people… well, it’s fantastic. You get to stand at the back of a hall and shake hands with an audience who have made the decision to come out and buy a ticket or a CD. I understand I am lucky to be doing it.”

Goss was born in rural Co Down in 1960. He started playing pubs and clubs in Belfast, while studying for his law degree (gigging helped pay for college). His big break was as a writer rather than performer, when Mary Black recorded two of his songs for her 1991 album Babes In The Wood. He had a hit in his own right with the 1998 single ‘Out Of My Head’.

There have been darker moments too. In 2007 his wife was diagnosed with cancer, forcing the singer to put his career on hold. “We lived in Nashville at the time,” he recalls. “I received an invitation to tour with Don Williams in the UK, a market I’ve only started making inroads into recently. To capitalise on that I had a follow-up British tour booked six months later. Then Ann discovered she had cancer. We returned to Sligo and took two years off. However she is now 100% in remission and seven years clear. And we’ve started touring the UK again. Things have worked out okay.”

Kieran Goss plays The White Horse, Ballincollig, Cork, Saturday and The Grain Store, Ballymaloe on Sunday. He also appears at Boyle Arts Festival, Friday July 25.