Mags GarganSinging sensation Nathan Carter talks to Mags Gargan about faith, country music and Christmas
Country superstar Nathan Carter is riding a rising tide of success with the revival of the popularity of country music in Ireland. However, this comes after nearly 10 years of hard work gigging in pubs around Ireland and England as a teenager, when his peers considered country music uncool, and he says he feels “blessed” to now be able to make a living out of something that he truly loves.
Nathan spent his childhood years in Liverpool and grew up in a family with strong Irish roots, his parents originating from Newry in Co. Down, and he says “music and dancing came naturally to my family”.
Nathan is the eldest child of three and the first grandchild on his mother’s side and he says he was “very much spoiled”. He continues to have a very close relationship with his nan, who was “the one who really pushed me to get into music”.
Accordion
“I used to be taken to watch all the Irish bands play from the age of four. I started to learn the accordion and competed in Fleadh Ceoils for many years.”
When he started secondary school at St Francis Xavier’s College, a Catholic boys’ school, he joined the local choir and soon became head chorister of the Liverpool Boys’ Choir. This brought the opportunity to travel the world performing and Nathan says the experience he most “treasures” is singing for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
“I was only 11 and what an experience! I have never been back to Rome since but I would love to get back some day. It was something I will treasure for rest of my life. I got to see a lot of the world with the choir. We went to America and different places in Europe and sang in a lot of lovely cathedrals – I think we sang in 50 cathedrals,” he says.
Nathan was also an altar boy for five years and sang and played the accordion at Mass every Sunday. These days he says “unfortunately I don’t get to Mass that much now because I’m generally getting in at 5am on a Sunday morning from a gig, but faith has always been a big part of the family way of life”.
Trips to Ireland to compete in Fleadh Ceoil’s became a regular feature of the young Nathan’s life during his early teens, resulting in All Ireland medals for solo singing and in accordion, all at just 12 years of age.
Nathan became a member of the Liverpool Ceili band, playing accordion and piano, and he soon began playing solo gigs around Liverpool and London and playing occasional shows in Ireland.
“I left school at 16 and started playing in pubs and clubs by myself, just me and a guitar. I got a lot of experience musically and I found out the hard way what gigging was like,” he says. “Sometimes there were only 4-5 people there to play to, but it was all a good learning curve I suppose. I moved to Ireland when I was 17 and started the band and I have been gigging with the band in Ireland ever since.”
The 25-year-old has recorded five albums and two DVDs, and with his album Where I Wanna Be in 2013 he became the first country act to have reached number one in the album charts in Ireland since Garth Brooks over six years before. This was followed by two more number one albums with the Wagon Wheel Live Show in 2014 and Beautiful Life in 2015.
But it is the blockbuster song Wagon Wheel, taken from his album of the same name in 2012, which has been his biggest hit so far and the catalyst of his meteoric rise in fame, with over a million hits on Youtube alone.
However, Nathan’s first ever gig was in a home for elderly people when he was just 12 and it was organised by his nan. “She also got me my first gig in a pub in Liverpool called the Liffey Bar and she would drive me around to gigs because I was only 16 and couldn’t drive. Still to this day she comes to sell the merchandise when we are on tour,” he says.
Nathan describes his grandmother as the typical Irish nan, “forever telling me I need to eat more and trying to feed me”. “She is 75 but she thinks she is 22. She is very good fun to be around. She is one of those people who is the life and soul of the party,” he says.
In his busiest year ever Nathan has been touring Ireland for the last few months, performing a number of sold out shows and releasing a new DVD and CD of a live gig recorded in the Marque in Cork during the summer in front of around 5,000 people. He will be continuing his tour in the New Year, but he is enjoying a well-earned break this week to spend Christmas with his family.
Christmas
“At Christmas I always head back to my mum and dad’s house in Liverpool,” he says. “This year I am lucky to have a week off after a mad busy schedule right through to December 20.” Nathan will share a full house with 16 family members on Christmas Day, between grandparents, parents, siblings and cousins. “We go to midnight Mass and we get up early on Christmas morning to see my cousins opening the presents. We normally leave my mum and sister to it because I am useless at cooking. I usually take granddad and my dad to the pub. Then we have turkey and all the trimmings.”
Nathan says while he does not go as far as wearing a Christmas jumper he does get into the fun of side of Christmas with the food, games and presents, but it is also a very meaningful family time for him.
“It means a lot more to me now because I don’t get to see my family that much during the year, because they live in Liverpool. I’d say I see them once every two months for a weekend or something. When I am touring England I would stay with my mum and dad every now and again, but Christmas is extra special and I try to make the most of Christmas,” he says.
Break
Nathan will follow his Christmas break with a two-week holiday in January in the US, prior to an exhausting spring schedule of tour dates in Scotland, England, France and Germany.
His life on the road travelling from town to town sounds challenging, but Nathan says he was “built to do it”. “I wake up every day and think about gigs and music. There is nothing else I would think about. It occupies so much of what I do. It is part of life,” he says. “The travelling is the hardest bit, but it is all part and parcel of the life of a musician on the road.”
Nathan did try other jobs when he was younger and not earning enough from his music, including working on a building site, but all he could think about “was the next gig”. “I am very fortunate that I am blessed to be able to do this career and can make a living from it. It is something I love doing,” he says.
Nathan has seen the country music scene change and expand in the last three years in Ireland. He himself has played a big role in the growth of its popularity, by attracting a whole new generation of fans with his energetic passion to perform his beloved country classics and creating an extremely loyal fan base of all ages.
Nathan was one of the guests on The Late Late Show’s recent country music special, along with Daniel O’Donnell, Big Tom and Philomena Begley – one of Nathan’s mentors when he first started performing in Ireland. It brought in the highest viewing figures of the year. The total audience reached over the course of the show peaked at a record-breaking 1.3 million, with over a half of all Irish viewers watching television at that time choosing to tune in.
RTÉ then capitalised on the popularity of country music with a series called Stetsons and Stilettos which followed Nathan on the road and explored the world of Irish country and its fans. Following on from this Nathan has been given his own television show on St Stephen’s night on RTÉ One.
“It is going to be my first ever TV show and I am delighted. I can’t wait and I will have a few special guests for the night. It is very exciting and hopefully the people will like it,” he says.
Nathan can’t quite pinpoint what was the source of the revival in the popularity of country music, but he thinks it speaks to the Irish on some level.
“I think Irish people definitely love country,” Nathan says. “When I kicked off my career country music was very uncool and no young ones would come and listen to it.
“I have seen it totally revive and at most of our gigs now most of the crowd would be under the age of 30 anyway. I think people in Ireland have a love for country music, even with the Garth Brooks thing last year it is amazing to think that Gareth Brooks can sell more tickets than One Direction, one of the biggest groups in the world.”
This seems a long way from when a teenage Nathan Carter was performing in front of four people in a pub in Liverpool, and no one needs to remind him of how lucky he has been to see his career develop in such leaps and bounds to make his shows the hottest tickets in town.
Pure country
“At the start anyone my age would have laughed at me singing country,” he says. “They would have been like, Johnny Cash, what’s that about, you know? I suppose the stuff I do is not necessarily pure country either, there is a mix of trad music because I am playing the accordion as well.
“I try and put on the most energetic show I can and I think that appeals to a lot of different ages. If you are putting on a show that is exciting and people want to come and see it, it all helps.”