Foy Vance Tickets

Short Biography

Usual tags such as ‘singer-songwriter', ‘folk-soul', ‘troubadour' are perceived with a considerable amount of cynicism these days, especially since the music scene has been saturated with middle of the road artists, marketed as such by traditional record label formulae. Someone with a discerning ear and trust in their own taste should be able to spot who's the real deal and who's not.

Leaving tags aside, Foy Vance operates in his own parallel universe. His music is an evolving journey, a constant search for artistic expression captured in the moment, operating well away from industry standards.  Surely you'll hear echoes of Otis Redding, Richie Havens, Tom Waits and Van Morrison in Foy's music, legends he's already being compared to and definite influences. An ever so modest Foy will laugh at these comparisons, but then again that's what makes him so special. With his distinctive, cracked, soulful voice and a skill to write profound storytelling songs, Foy Vance belongs to a calibre of artists that stand the test of time, irrespective of trends or fads, delivering heartfelt songs about the human condition that everyone can relate to.

Foy Vance arrived into the public consciousness in the summer of '05 with the release of his widely acclaimed debut EP 'Live Sessions and the Birth Of The Toilet Tour'.  A series of gigs that saw him support such diverse artists as KT Tunstall, Pete Townshend, Joss Stone, The Spinto Band, Tegan & Sara and Taj Mahal, led to two sell out nights at Ronnie Scott's, and these confirmed Foy's status as an outstanding emerging talent.

These shows amassed a dedicated fanbase and gained the Bangor born Foy support and admiration from his peers, including nine times Grammy Award winning Bonnie Raitt, who invited him to support her as ‘special guest' on her 21 date UK/European tour in April '06

An overwhelming response from US and Canadian audiences, due to the airing of two of Foy's songs ('Homebird' and 'Gabriel And The Vagabond') on the cult networked TV drama series Grey's Anatomy and a showcase at SXSW, led to a huge demand for the release of 'Gabriel And The Vagabond' in the US, and the inclusion of 'Homebird' on the Grey's Anatomy 2 Original Soundtrack album.

In June 2006 Foy released a second limited edition EP 'Watermelon Oranges', which was supported by various live dates including Wireless, Oxegen, gigs with Dave Matthews, and an appearance with Pete Townshend and Martha Wainwright at Joe's Pub in New York as part of Pete and Rachel Fuller's ‘In The Attic' sessions.  Now ‘Homebird', from one of those sessions, is one of the tracks on the ‘Attic Jam' compilation album released in February  '07 as an exclusive itunes download featuring The Magic Numbers, Razorlight, Fratellis, Zutons and Flaming Lips amongst many others.

December 2006 saw Foy's 'Indiscriminate Act Of Kindness' being chosen as the sound-bed to the Great Ormond Street Hospital TV commercial for their Christmas appeal and Foy headlining a string of UK dates.

In-depth Biography
Though he spent most of his formative years in the grim surroundings of 1980s Belfast, singer/songwriter Foy Vance's musical vision is the product of an entirely different sort of nervous tension -- the cross-racial friction, harmony, and disharmony that gave rise to jazz, blues, and soul in the American South, where Vance, the son of a traveling church minister, spent the pivotal first five years of his life. Drawn particularly to the spiritual aspect of those music forms, Vance took his cues from the likes of Otis Redding and Nina Simone, adjusting his own guttural singing style accordingly, and his distinctive Northern Irish lilt finds an obvious point of comparison in similarly styled compatriot Van Morrison. Musically, Vance draws as much from the British folk tradition as he does American music; this influence manifests itself in the rhythmic, invariably alternately tuned, acoustic guitar style that is almost as prominent a melodic voice on much of his work as piano or vocals.

Vance was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland, in 1974, but his preacher father packed the family up and moved to Oklahoma, deep in the U.S. Bible Belt, shortly after the birth of the family's youngest son. Traveling around the poor churches of the South, Vance developed a keen interest in music from a very early age; he observed soul, gospel, and blues up close, and this interest was facilitated by his musical father, who taught his son to play some basic acoustic guitar patterns. By age five, the family had returned to Northern Ireland, settling in Belfast, but Vance retained his interest in American music, and expanded his scope to include folk, rock, and pop styles. During the '90s, he spent time as lead singer with Belfast soul troupe Soul Truth, but eventually returned to the acoustic guitar and fell into the role of a singer/songwriter.

In 1998, shortly after marrying his fiancée Joanne (a noted visual artist), Foy was offered a residency in a bar on the Canary Island of Lanzarote. Barely two months later, he had an on-stage epiphany while during one of his regular lyrical improv sessions, resulting in the line: "Jesus is coming like a thief in the night." The following morning, he found out that his father had suffered a sudden, fatal heart attack the previous night. From that point on, the songs flowed a lot more freely; within eight months he had assembled enough material for four albums. It would be another five years before he issued his debut commercial recording, by which point he had become a celebrated live performer all over the U.K. Released in August 2005, the six-track EP Live Sessions & the Birth of the Toilet Tour was recorded in various lavatory stalls across the U.K. and Ireland; Foy found the studio a sterile environment in which to record, preferring instead the unique acoustics of the cubicle. In 2006, two of his demo recordings were picked up for use in the hit U.S. medical drama Grey's Anatomy: "Gabriel and the Vagabond" and "Homebird," the latter forming the foundation for his second EP release, also entitled Homebird, in June of that year.

In July of 2007 Vance issued his debut album, Hope, in Northern Ireland via Wurdamouth Records. It was recorded in a cottage deep in the Mourne Mountains in his native County Down, and was co-mixed by producer Tchad Blake (Tom Waits, American Music Club). Shortly afterwards, Vance inked a deal with Rubyworks Records, the Dublin, Ireland-based label that launched Rodrigo y Gabriela onto the world stage, and a release of Hope in the Republic of Ireland followed in September of 2007. As of October 2007, Foy Vance was working on his second studio album with producer David Holmes, the man behind the soundtracks for the Ocean's Eleven film series. ~ Dave Donnelly, Rovi