Given how he got his sonic start, musician Michael Darcy might have found himself a contemporary of “Weird” Al Yankovic.

“I learned the accordion first,” Darcy shares with Celtic Life International Celtic Life International. “It was unavoidable being from Kilmihil in West Co. Clare – we were surrounded by traditional music growing up and I remember playing a weekly trad session in Kenny’s pub in Lahinch back in the summer of 1997 when I was just 12 years old – something that likely wouldn’t be legal nowadays for children to play in pubs!”

Luckily for Weird Al, Darcy found his true calling in the arms of another instrument.

“Once I discovered Irish folk legend Christy Moore, I immediately wanted to learn the guitar. Slowly but surely, my poor accordion was put to one side. I was enthralled by his ‘Live at the Point’ album that came out in the 1990s, and I wanted to learn as many of his songs as possible. He is still my hero to this day.”

Darcy made his way across the bog in 2010 at 25 years of age, landing in Toronto on the other side. He would then cross paths with Dan MacDonald, James McEleney, and John Murphy – whom he affectionately calls The Atlantic Tramps – and start plucking out tunes together.

The group took off in the 2020s, building a solid fanbase while touring Celtic festivals across the US and Canada and releasing a few albums.

“It was a real honour to get nominated for both a Canadian Folk Music Award and an Ontario Folk Music Award back in 2023 for our previous album, Down to the Roots. Going out on our first US tour with the band a few years ago was also a highlight, after years of threatening to do it.”

Darcy’s Irish influences continue to inform the band’s music, though they have added other styles to their repertoire.

“With the addition of John Murphy’s tenor banjo playing on our new album (Homemade) our sound leans more on the Irish folk/trad style, but there will always be a North American influence in our music. Our bassist James McEleney comes from a bluegrass background, while our fiddler Dan MacDonald brings a bit of East Coast flair from Cape Breton.”

Fittingly, the new recording lives up to its name.

“This was my first attempt at home recording,” Darcy admits. “I made a little studio in my house here in Paris, Ontario, and then I got stuck into the nitty-gritty details of how to actually do it. Once the band and I had our parts recorded, I then passed it over to Mark Westberg and Ivan Rosenberg, who mixed and mastered the album – they really got it over the finish line, and I am delighted with the end result.”

So are the fans, according to Darcy. Online response to the new compilation has blown the band away, and it has been getting good radio coverage both in Canada and back home on the Emerald Isle.

It is, believes Darcy, an acknowledgement of his artistic evolution.

“My confidence has grown as a songwriter, and I am more careful selecting songs that I want to sing, no matter when or where we are performing…”

“The best songs are the ones that come quickly and effortlessly. When an idea or a line hits you, it is best to strike while the iron is hot. If the bones of the song aren’t there after 20 or 30 minutes it’s probably not worth a curse, at least for me.”

When he and the Tramps hit the road over the coming months, Darcy and his peers will have plenty of feedback on the new material.

“Having an audience is always handy that way,” he chuckles. “If the crowd have invested their attention and energy into the music and the performance, then the band will feed off that and send it right back into the audience. That’s when gigs become magic.”

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