'A great, genuine talent and a lovely man': Tom Dunne on Glen Hansard

I'd known Glen since the 1990s and watched him emerge through his brilliant band The Frames 

Glen Hansard performing at Live At The Marquee in  Cork. Picture: Darragh Kane

I’m devastated by the news of Glen Hansard’s untimely passing. I’d known him since the mid 1990s. He was a star, simple as. A great, genuine talent and a lovely man. He lit up the room, made all situations more interesting. But it was all about the music. All roads led to music.

The Frames were the beating heart of a thriving DIY, mostly Dublin-based music scene in the late 1990s. It also included Turn, Mic Christopher, Bell X1, Damien Rice, Paddy Casey, David Kitt, and Damien Dempsey. The Frames world attracted foreign talents too, and the likes of Josh Ritter and Erin McKeown were invited in and welcomed with open arms.

But The Frames were the North Star. With one album for Island already under their belt — 1990’s Steve Albini produced Another Love Song — and a mid-decade deal with the then hugely influential ZTT records, they were more revered on that scene than U2 or any other band.

Their career had been interrupted by the Glen’s success as Outspan in The Commitments. The hit film had made stars of the entire cast and made Glen’s music career look like a side project. The Commitments was simply too big a juggernaut to compete with.

Glen Hansard, on left, in a scene from The Commitments.

Its success may have been what led to that ZTT deal. ZTT was at that point the label to be with, and Trevor Horn was seen as the best producer in the world. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ABC, Propaganda, The Frames. They seemed like odd bedfellows. The launch of the album Fitzcarraldo was more an escape than a release.

I got to interview Horn. He seemed uncomfortable talking about them. “The Frames need to find their audience.” he told me.

I’ve always remembered those words. I didn’t doubt for a second that they would find that audience. And with the release in 1996 of Revelate the search began in earnest.

Dance the Devil in 1999 coincided with start of my Today FM show Pet Sounds. It became a mission statement for me. There was an undeniable snobbery against Irish bands. Mercury Rev were the darlings. I thought The Frames were easily as good. I weighed in.

It was the beginning of a very happy time. The Frames felt like our secret band. Jedda Downey, who produced the show with me, would book Glen and band for interviews and sessions at every hands turn. We trusted Glen so much we’d let him suggest who to get in next. That was how we met Josh Ritter.

The live album in 2003, Set List, recorded in Vicar Street, set out The Frames magic for all to see. That bond with the audience, the musicianship, the gorgeous songs. This can only go around the world, I thought. And it did, but not the way I thought.

It was during a session for The Cost in 2006 that Glen told me about Marketa and John Carney. John had left The Frames to pursue a career in film. The Frames had gifted him a camera. “He’s making a film,” Glen told me, “I’m going to be in it!” 

The film was Once and the next time I met Glen a song from it, Falling Slowly, was Oscar-nominated. Glen told me how they’d work the circuit. “You go to these stars' houses and sit downstairs like staff. Then after dinner they wheel you in and you do your song.” It worked and someone I knew won an Oscar.

Glen stuck by his friends. When Mic Christopher died tragically in a fall in Amsterdam Glen and Mic’s sister Maureen weighed in to enable the completion of Mic’s album Skylarking. The lengths he went to help Fergus O’Farrell, the Cork musician of Interference fame, are legendary, at times literally blowing air into his lungs.

O’Farrell’s song Gold also featured in Once and in later shows Glen would go to great lengths to get his then very ill friend onto stages like Radio City in New York. He did this because he believed in their talent, and he was right to. The difference between obscurity and life changing success is arbitrary in this business.

He was harder to meet after the Oscar win. I missed our chats. He’d become a dad, something I’d have loved to talk to him about. His music had taken him on such an incredible voyage, as we’d always known it would. This is an awful loss for family and friends obviously, but for fans too. The loss of a talent like Glen’s takes away a little bit of all of us.