Jack Lukeman on the Half Moon, Kildare's rock prowess, and playing with Jools
In an Irish music scene fuelled by hype, Jack Lukeman is an anomaly. When the Athy, Co Kildare singer broke through in the mid-1990s it was thanks to word of mouth. Starting at the Da Club off Grafton Street in Dublin and then later, the Half Moon in Cork, he became a sensation one convert at a time. Nearly 30 years on, Lukeman continues to inhabit a world of his own devising, with music that segues from crooning pop to heartfelt acoustica and with a fanbase that has stayed by his side through times happy and sad.
“It started in the Half Moon at the back of the Opera House,” says Lukeman, taking time out from a busy national tour celebrating 25 years in music that will include a visit to his old Leeside stomping ground at Emmet Place on April 1.
“It was literally just the backstage area. It was really cool, like something out of a Baz Luhrmann movie – Moulin Rogue or something. This was with the Black Romantics – a big eight-piece band, with accordions and fiddles and all that. It took a while until I could play the Cork Opera House. It was a great achievement, I felt. It was pretty much word of mouth. In Dublin, I was playing the Olympia by the same method. People would hear about it and come to it. Now you see it online before you go. That’s why I try to mix the setlist up as much as possible.”
The fans were still with him during lockdown– the most extensive period he had taken away from touring since the early 1990s. His feelings about that period are conflicted. It felt weird to be away from his audience. At the same time, he needed a break. Through his 20s and 30s, life had come at him at full speed as his interpretations of the music of Jacques Brel and Scott Walker – later supplemented by original compositions – took Irish music by storm.
“I went from the Da Club to the Olympia pretty quick. And to the Point,” says Lukeman (real name Seán Loughman). “That was my first album. I was always in it for the long game. I knew I was going to do odd things that I enjoyed myself. Metropolis Blue [his 1999 debut] was a big epic cinematic album. The next one was very much of the time, sampling, using all the electronic stuff. And the one after that was a four guys in a room acoustic type thing. It’s changed as it has gone along.
"The thing was to do all the music genres. All genres interest me. There are ups and downs – it’s easy to lose an audience with an album. You usually gain people too. It definitely was a galvanising thing, doing the live streams and that. People were thinking about the years gone by.”
After lockdown one of his first major shows was at 3Arena last November. It was hugely emotional, following, as it did, the death of his string arranger Derek Cronin, who passed away unexpectedly in February 2022 at age 50.
“I used to duet with him remotely on the live-streams. He was going to do the gig at 3Arena. I still had the video footage we’d made during lockdown. And so I was able to do two songs with him virtually on the massive screen at 3Arena. His family were there. As I was doing it, everyone did that thing of holding up the phones with the lights. I was floating in outer space.
"Phones, for all that we complain, are pretty wild things. All that stuff was made possible by that. He died suddenly: it was one of those things. You obviously have to be sensitive about something like that. But he’d been booked to do the gig – it had to be done.”
Lukeman's new tour follows a circuit of the UK in the company of Jools Holland. “Touring the UK, he heard my stuff. I got some support slots. I’ve been supporting him for a good five or six years. Playing marvellous places like the Royal Albert Hall. You get get up and sing along with him at the end. It’s been great to get to know him and all the band: it’s a 30-piece music machine. It’s a lovely big old family. That’s been a thrill. I’ve met so many great people. The last tour, before Christmas it as great to hang out with Vic Reeves – Jim Moir to use his real name [who has also been playing with Holland].”
Lukeman grew up in Athy, Co Kildare – which has the distinction of being one of the rock capitals of Leinster. It also gave the world the arena band Picture This and is the ancestral home of Stone Roses guitarist Mani and Johnny Marr of The Smiths.
“The water from the River Barrow… I don’t know what it’s doing,” he says. “They’ve done this great thing of ‘Made In Athy’. I have a song called Garter Lane, about a laneway just beside the castle in Athy. You could either go to school the short way or you could go down that way. I wrote a song about it on the Universe album.
"They put up a plaque and gave me a bit of a party. They did that around the town with Johnny Marr and Mani. Loads of people have plaques up. It’s a great town. I have fantastic memories of growing up there. It had all the things you want growing up. There was always a great music scene in Athy. Bands would come and play in our school. The Intoxicating Rhythm Section – they had a bit a Jesus and Mary Chain look – would come and play in our schools. There was always music.”
- Jack Lukeman plays Cork Opera House on Saturday, April 1
I’ve been reading a few different books. A friend of mine, Martin Clancy, just published one, Artificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem. It’s about the future of music. He knows what he’s talking about. The whole AI thing is fascinating. It’s funny – I’ve done the whole thing of using AI to write one of my songs about death. But the human brain can still outdo it. The human brain and spirit is still alive. However, there’s no doubt but that AI will be fooling people. And doing a lot of work.
I’m back in on The Sopranos. I caught a show halfway through the series. Now I’ve gone back to the beginning. It’s so funny – so much dark humour. The characters are fantastic. I remember New York around that time – I was living there on and off during the late 1990s. It reminds me of that as well.
I go to gigs as much as possible. I love watching other people play. I went to see Judy Collins at St Patrick’s Cathedral. She’s 80-something – her voice is so beautiful, so angelic and powerful. I got back into her music during the lockdown. She has a song called Morocco – it has such beautiful melodies.
I like the Eamon Dunphy podcast. He doesn’t mince his words. It isn’t sensationalistic. Just old-fashioned journalism. He has Johnny Giles and Liam Brady on – guys who know what they’re talking about.”
