‘Nothing to lose’

LAUNCH John O’Grady’s new project Jog Club to play Townhall

Last May John O’Grady handed in his notice to a job he loved so he could give song-writing his all.

Running a team of telemarketers at international charity Concern, John had a musical itch that simply demanded scratching.

Despite the Ballyconnell native starring in the long-running hit musical ‘The Night Joe Dolan’s Car Broke Down’, there was no guarantee John would enjoy similar success for his own original music. The reaction of his loved ones reflect the gamble he was taking.

“I think everyone was a little bit concerned - they were all ‘Ooh, are you sure you want to do this?’

“They all kind of said is it a midlife crisis? And I said, ‘I don’t know if it’s a crisis but it’s definitely mid-life.’

“I said, ‘yeah feck it, I’ve nothing to lose.’”

John’s mother had a different response when told he was quitting his job.

“My mother is probably the most suspicious person in the world and knows me the best - the very first words out of her mouth were: ‘You were sacked weren’t you?’

“’No, not this time mammy’,” he says laughing at the memory.

Instead of jumping straight from the nine to five grind into song-writing, John and his partner took a little time to themselves and travelled. Aside from weekend city hops around Europe, they visited Germany, Croatia, France.

Creatively speaking the break proved worthwhile too.

“I’d go off on my own in the mornings with a notebook and pen and have a coffee and start writing down thoughts - or somebody would walk past a window or a train would pass and you’d get an idea for lyrics or a melody and stick it down.”

John found that, when it came to song-writing, he could try too hard.

“When the dust had finally settled - when I had left the job and was sitting down on a Monday morning, going: right I have to actually come up with some songs now - it became real very quickly.”

“What I discovered was, if I tried to force it nothing would come out, so I just threw caution to the wind and started enjoying myself - going out to see gigs - playing little local acoustic gigs myself - I found that was a much better way of getting the creativity going in terms of song-writing.”

Less than a year after setting off on the new career, John has adopted the stage name Jog Club, has an album titled ‘Crash Course in Ambition’ ready to go, and a concert lined up to launch it in Townhall Theatre, Cavan this Easter Sunday.

The first single from the album is ‘Mountains of Kong’, which shares its name with a range first charted by cartographer James Rennell in 1798.

“It is about an imaginary mountain range in Africa which was on cartographers’ maps and atlases for about 100 years and yet the mountains never existed!

“He tracked it the whole way across from east to west, just underneath the Sahara - it’s all the way across,” says John. “It’s like, hmm what was he looking at? When you delve into it, nobody can seem come up with an answer to what he was mistaking for a mountain range.

“I thought it was a cool metaphor for getting lost in yourself, and sometimes you see things that aren’t there.”

Another song has even quirkier origins. Having dreamt he wanted to be a train driver, he saw an Iarnród Éireann job advert and actually sent off his CV.

John had to wade through aptitude tests and multiple choices on various train scenarios and got through to the fourth round.

“To be honest I was only doing it for the craic. Then it stared to snowball! Oh shit I’m through to the next bit. Alright, they’ll twig me at this point - Nope, I’m through to the next stage,” he says and reckons he only fell at the last hurdle.

“I was in the top five per cent, but not the top one per cent!”

He recorded the songs between studios in Kells and Dublin, and to bring them to life on stage he has enlisted quality musicians. He describes it as having a “singer-songwritery feel” and by the time you read this his second single Superstar will be available on Spotify too.

For the Townhall gig John, who also plays guitar, will be joined by a fiddle player, lap-steel, base and drummer.

Of course John is principally known for his portrayal of Joe Dolan in the musical, a show he expects to perform again in the future. The Celt wonders if the link will help or hinder his original music? He thinks it’s “too early to say”.

“To steal one of the lines from the Joe Show - ‘I’m playing a part.

“If people come to this show thinking they’re going to get Joe Dolan, then they’re wrong. This is very much John O’Grady and me doing my own thing and trying to put a stamp on who I am. ”

What’s John’s ambition for the album Crash Course in Ambition?

“The hope is that people will enjoy it, and if they don’t enjoy it there will be no hard feelings,” he says with a laugh.

While he’s only committed to his original music for less than a year, Jog Club is the culmination of many years honing his craft as a live performer and harbouring the dream of creating his own.

Catch Jog Club on Easter Sunday, April 9 in the Townhall Theatre. See townhallcavan.com for tickets.