Member Type: Songwriters and Composers

Faye O’Rourke is a singer, songwriter, composer and producer with over fifteen years experience in the Irish and international music scenes as front-woman of Little Green Cards, Soda Blonde and as a solo performer.

With Little Green Cars, Faye produced the gold selling Absolute Zero in 2013 and Ephemera in 2016 and completed multiple US tour and world tours, including performances at Coachella, Lollapalooza, Radio City, New York and on ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’, as well as being longlisted for BBC Sound of the Year 2013. In 2014, Faye won a ‘Irish Tatler Woman of the Year Award’ for Music and U Magazine’s ‘30 Under 30 Award’ for Arts & Entertainment in 2017.

Soda Blonde have just recently been nominated for both the Choice Music Prize ‘Album of the Year’ 2021 for their critically acclaimed self-produced debut album Small Talk and for ‘Song of the Year’ for the song ‘Small Talk’. They are also about to embark on a sold-out national tour having completed a number of sell-out UK dates last year, including London and Manchester.

Faye is a passionate advocate of women’s physical and mental health as well as artist’s rights within the Irish music industry. She has curated and organised numerous events aimed at raising awareness for issues such as menopause (Konenki/Menopause Unmasked, 2019- for the Irish
Association for Cancer Research) and abortion rights (Imp Hour, 2017- for the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre ) as well as acting as an ambassador for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Faye has also hosted talks for First Music Contact on topics including ‘The Value of Art & Artists within the
Contemporary Irish Music Scene’ and written extensively for Hot Press Magazine on variety of subjects including politics and culture.

As a solo performer, Faye has performed with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and is a member of Irish Women in Harmony. Faye also works as a composer for TV and film, including the score for Mark O’Halloran’s award-winning adaptation of James Joyce’s An Encounter last year.

Ray Harman is a Film and TV composer and songwriter. He has scored films and TV shows such as “The Young Offenders” (both the 2016 feature film and the 2018 TV Series), “The Farthest”, “Love Hate”, “One Million Dubliners”, “A Dark Song”, “Inspector George Gently”. Before working in film, he was guitarist and songwriter with Dublin band Something Happens.

Tom is most renowned for his time as the lead singer and co-songwriter in the Irish band Something Happens. They signed with Virgin Records in 1987 and achieved significant success, boasting two number one Irish albums, sold-out Irish tours, numerous foreign tours (including 14 in the US), and a string of hit singles.

Around 1996, he transitioned into commercial radio and hosted “Pet Sounds” on TodayFM. This show aimed to showcase Irish music alongside top-notch international acts. His “Tom Dunne’s 30 Best Irish Hits” album series gained immense popularity during this period.

Following that, he spent five years hosting Talk Radio on Newstalk before returning to his music show, which he currently produces and presents from Monday to Thursday, airing from 10 PM to midnight.

Tom continues to perform live shows with Something Happens, and he has expanded his musical horizons by touring with Fiachna O’Braonain from Hot House Flowers. Additionally, he offers a one-man show featuring a mix of old and new stories and songs. Tom has also ventured into presenting music TV shows and has a prolific career as a music writer.

Brian’s music career started at the age of 16 when he and Damien Rice started playing music together in school. This led to them forming the indie band Juniper and then later Bell X1, with whom Brian recorded four records and toured the world extensively between 1996 and 2008. In 2006, Brian formed The Cake Sale, a band featuring an eclectic collective of artists such as Paul Noonan, Lisa Hannigan, Gary Lighbody, Nina Persson, Glen Hansard, Gemma Hayes and Neil Hannon to raise funds for Oxfam. Brian also established and operates Oxfam Ireland Publishing who administer the rights for ‘The Cake Sale’ which is still generating royalties to this day. In 2008, Brian parted company with Bell X1 to pursue a career as a film composer and moved to Berlin where he converted an old factory in Kreuzberg to a studio complex which would become home to the heart of the Berlin film music scene. It was here that he collaborated with fellow studio residents Dustin O’Halloran, Hildur Guõnadóttir, Rutger Hoedemaekers and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson on numerous Film and TV scores. While in Berlin, Brian also founded Caravan Music who provide bespoke music for advertising. In 2016, Brian was a central collaborator on Starboard Home, a project which culminated with two live shows at the National Concert Hall and the release of a critically acclaimed album. This led on to Brian producing Declan O’Rourke’s album ‘Chronicles Of The Great Irish Famine’ later that year. In 2017 Brian moved back to Ireland with his family and built Treehouse Studios where he continues to write music for Film and TV as well as his own solo work. Brian released his solo piano record ‘Imbrium’ in March 2021. He is a vocal advocate for creator’s rights in the digital world, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, a member of the Royalty Free Music Working Group at the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance and a founding member and chair of the Screen Composers Guild of Ireland. Brian lives in Wicklow with his wife Layla and their three young kids.

Bill Shanley is one of Ireland’s top guitar players. His unique style of playing has kept him in good company and established him internationally through touring with and contributing to albums by Ray Davies, Mary Black, Paul Brady, Eleanor McEvoy to mention a few. He has been The Kinks’ Ray Davies musical director for over 12 years. Co-founding Cauldron Recording Studios in 2000 which successfully operated in Dublin for 18 years, Bill is a prolific producer and composer working with a wide range of new and established artists. To date he has composed and released two solo albums on his own Cauldron Music label, ‘Fingerpainting’ and more recently the acclaimed ‘Midnight Mission’.

He began his career as a folk singer in Dublin in 1971. His professional debut was as the opening act for Planxty’s first Irish tour. In the ensuing years he moved through different phases and forms of music, from Trad, Country, Rock, and Contemporary, and toured the UK, Europe, and the US in a variety of different guises: doubling with Andy Irvine as a folk act on the European circuit in the early eighties, as lead singer with Moving Hearts, and lead singer/writer with Rusty Old Halo. The tours were interspersed with album releases (fourteen in total). In the late eighties he concentrated on song writing, capturing two BMI awards (1 million Radio plays and Most Played Country Song in the US in 1992) for his song ‘Past The Point Of Rescue’. Throughout the eighties he picked up two Hot Press and two National Entertainment awards. In 1985 he formed his own publishing company, Doghouse Songs and oversaw the collection of royalties until signing with Peer Music London in 2001. Wearing a non-musical hat, he spent seven years on the Executive Board of the Kilkenny School Project while his daughters were in attendance; four of those years as Chairperson of the Board. In 2008 he did a course in Psychotherapy, qualifying in 2012. In 2016 he recorded his 15th album, ‘Homeland’ for the Celtic Collections label. (“But ‘Homeland’ also represents a further evolution of his music and shows him to be both a singer and songwriter of considerable depth, range and adroitness.” Sean Smith Boston Irish Reporter). His songs have been recorded by numerous artists: Moving Hearts, Christy Moore, Dolores Keane, Ronnie Drew, Mary Black and Delbert McClinton. He continues to write and tour and is set to record his latest album in June If COVID restrictions allow.