The Irish Rovers were first formed in 1963 and have been entertaining audiences ever since.
Whether it was their sold out concerts, the hit songs, or their hit television series, the group has been a household name to millions of Canadians and fans across the world.
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Co-founder and lead singer George Millar chatted with Quinte News/The Lorne Brooker Show, ahead of what is expected to be a sold-out show at Belleville’s Empire Theatre on Thursday March 6 – TICKET DETAILS HERE
He discussed their origins:
Audio Player“We got together, Jimmy Ferguson, myself, my cousin Joe, and then year later Will (Millar) joined us. We said to ourselves let’s give it a year out of our lives and see how it goes and see what happens. That’s where those 60 years have gone. We just keep saying ‘ah, we’ll do it year by year’ and I suppose as long as the people still want to see us and hear us, then we’ll keep doing it as long as we’re able.”
He says despite performing hits like “Wasn’t That A Party”, “The Unicorn”, “Black Velvet Band”, “Whiskey In The Jar”, thousands of times, it does not get old, nor should it.
Audio Player“If it does, than you shouldn’t be up there doing it in the first place. When you have a song like The Unicorn, which little kids to this day, who were not even born when the song was a hit are still singing it, you can never get tired of doing it. Like I say if you do get tired of doing it, than you bloody well shouldn’t be on stage.”
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One of the difficulties of performing over many decades is changing, maturing, and going with a newer sound. Millar says there can be a happy medium between what you are successful at and growing.
Audio Player“You have to as a band, you have to grow a wee bit, but at the same time, you have to realize what you’re good at doing. In our case, we were fairly good at doing traditional Irish-type songs. Then when we started writing songs, Will (Millar) and I, we also wrote on that same genre, of sounding like an old Irish song. When someone says to me ‘Where did you get that song? Where’s that from?’ I say ‘Oh, I wrote that song’ and they say ‘Oh, I thought that was like one of those old hundred-year-old Irish songs.’ Well that is absolutely great when I hear that because that’s what we were trying to do.”
Millar is also quite aware of the importance of “Wasn’t That A Party” to fans of the former Belleville Bulls. It was the song played after every win.
Audio Player“We actually were invited to one of the hockey games with the Belleville Bulls quite a few years ago now and they did play that song and we got a really nice applause when we stood up. It was quite an honour for us for them to be playing that song. It was great, they treated us royally.”
The full interview with The Lorne Brooker Show and Quinte News can be heard below.
Audio Player
