Does Clarinbridge hold The Voice of Ireland?

AN 18-year-old South Galway man had Sharon Corr on her knees recently when he serenaded the Louth singer song-writer on RTÉ’s hit programme The Voice of Ireland.

John Gaughan is well-known throughout South Galway having started song writing in his early teens.
“I am constantly writing songs and have been writing since I was 14 really. Then I started recording them at home and busking. I have been busking for the last few years on Shop Street in Galway.

“It built my confidence and I got a great response from people too. It was really great for building experience too, you know, before I was allowed into pubs and clubs,” he said.

That experience stood to John as he wowed judges in the blind auditions of The Voice of Ireland with a confident performance of the very well-known and well-loved Someone Like You from Adele.

“It was a risk but it worked. When the song first came out, I listened to it a few times and thought it was really good. Then I though ‘what can I do with it?’ and put it onto the acoustic guitar and started playing it at gigs and busking and then put it up on YouTube and at the minute there are more than 18,000 hits on that video.

“It is a song I love and connect with very deeply. I can show the emotion through it. It is so overplayed that I thought not many people will try it. I suppose it is the reverse psychology thing. Bressie [Niall Breslin, a coach on the show] made the comment that it was an Adele song and everyone hears that and goes ‘ah no’ but I got three coaches to turn around and they obviously like it,” he said.

The blind auditions involve four coaches, accomplished in the Irish music industry, each choosing 12 singers based solely on contestants’ voices. So impressive was his performance, that Sharon was not the only judge to press the ‘I want you’ button and turn her chair around to see the young Galway man perform.

Former Westlife singer Kian Egan, and British singer Jamelia, were both eager to get John on their team. After a very theatrical request from the former Corrs’ violinist, John opted to join Team Sharon and according to the singer-songwriter, the choice was not a difficult one.

“Sharon was the coach I wanted going into the competition so to get that reaction from her was out of this world,” he explained.

Sharon is a Grammy nominee and Brit Award winner and was a member of the successful Irish group The Corrs, which happened to be made up of her siblings, from 1990 to 2006 before becoming a solo artist.

“I would know Sharon from the car really. When I was growing up, dad would have had all The Corrs stuff on in the car the whole time so I grew up listening to Sharon and the guys so when I heard she was on The Voice, I thought it would be a great opportunity to work with someone I grew up listening to so when she turned around and wanted me on her team I was delighted,” John added.

But is working with Sharon all the young musician had imagined?

“She is bang on. She is so down to earth, you wouldn’t think she has toured the world and sold 40 million albums. She is absolutely brilliant. It has been really good having her as a coach. She has given me great advice and told me to use emotion. That was what she really liked in my blind audition so she told me to keep using that and it has been really helpful,” he outlined.

“I haven’t had much interaction with the other judges but I have seen them around and Bressie is one tall lad. I stood beside him and I know I am small but wow! All four of the coaches are really nice people and the other guys are very happy to be working with them so from what I can see, they are all really nice,” he added.

John will be back on television in the few weeks where he will compete in a battle with another person on Sharon’s team.

He will perform as part of a duet with the coach only selecting one person to proceed to the live shows where the public get to vote on the winning acts.

The Clarinbridge man is currently studying for his Leaving Certificate but says the additional time spent on the show is not proving too hard to manage.

“The filming for the show is irregular. It is on and off so that helps in a way because I am doing the Leaving Cert and I have to spend as much time as possible studying but when I am up there, I am there with a group of like-minded people and it is a great atmosphere to be in as a musician,” John outlined.

When he is at school, he puts in long hours in supervised study not getting home until after nine on some evenings.

“I think the good thing about doing the study is that when I come home, home is home and I get to just kick my feet up and relax. I might play a bit of guitar to chill out but it depends really on how late I am. That is the main benefit of doing all that study, it means when I get home, all the study is done. I don’t have parents putting pressure on me to go into my room to study.

“I want to do a course in Dublin next year, some of my friends have already done it, songwriting in Brighton Institute of Modern Music in Brighton (BIMM) in Dublin. I would love to do that next year and work as hard as I can to get as many points as I can to get a place in the college,” he said.

For John, the feedback has been very positive. “It has been absolutely incredible. All my friends on Facebook and Twitter from the day it broadcast and the day that people found out I was on it, it has been crazy. I broke over 1,000 followers on Facebook that day and then messages kept coming up all over my page with good wishes and it was brilliant.

“I didn’t put the phone down for about two days I’d say but it was great. Everyone has been great and I have to thank them for all the support and hopefully, if I get through to the live shows, they will keep the support up,” he concluded.

The Voice of Ireland is broadcast on RTÉ ONE at 6:30pm on Sundays.