Enda Mulloy of the BibleCode Sundays told David Hennessy about his Christmas single and going after Bono for the Christmas number one.
Enda Mulloy, well known from The BibleCode Sundays, has released the Christmas ballad, This Year for Christmas to capture the emotions of heading back home for the holiday season.
Following his debut solo album Notions in Midlife Crisis, the song is the second single from Enda’s forthcoming album due out in 2025, the first being 1993.
This Year for Christmas tells the story of an exile who sees his adopted town falling into disrepair and becoming increasingly unfamiliar, Enda sings of the escape he is longing for as he plans to head home for Christmas.
The tune has an Irish feel with traditional instruments including accordion, whistles, flute, violins and a harp.
Enda Mulloy says of his first Christmas single: “Even though I love the energy of London, I always hear the call of home over Christmas, and this song tries to bottle that feeling. “Here’s hoping I can give that lesser-known Irish musician Bono a run for his money for the Christmas number one.”
From Mulranny in Co. Mayo, Enda emigrated to London in the 1990s where he co-formed the well known London- Irish band known for songs such as Drinking All Day and Maybe It’s Because I’m an Irish Londoner.
The band have shared the stage with the likes of Van Morrison, Thin Lizzy and The Cranberries.
Batten the Hatches Down was the first taste of Enda’s solo work.
Enda told The Irish World: “I’m going after Bono. He’s had a good enough run of it now.”
What inspired it, was it those feelings of wanting to be home at Christmas?
“We were in the studio.
“My producer Michael Smith said to me, ‘Right, that’s it. You’re writing a Christmas single, an Irish themed Christmas single.
“I said, ‘What will I write it about?’
“He said, ‘I don’t know, you tell me. What are you doing for Christmas?’
“I said, ‘Well, I’m going home this year for Christmas’.
“And he says, ‘Well, there you go. Write about that’.
“That was it, and it’s exactly that.
“I haven’t been home for Christmas day since 2011 when the kids were born so I’m going home with the kids this year.
“It will be amazing.
“I’m going to take my girlfriend and Leah, my stepdaughter, is going with me.
“A lot of us are going over for the first time in 12, 13 years.
“It will be lovely.
“Talk about going home and making a big song and dance about it!
“Nothing like it, can’t wait.
“We have a tradition in our village, in Mulranny.
“The neighbours all congregate in everyone’s houses Christmas morning so I’m really looking forward to that and seeing everyone.”
It may be your first Christmas song on your own but it’s not the first one you’ve ever been part of, I’m talking of the time you and many more London- Irish musicians got together to do Don’t They Know it’s Christmas?
“We did that for charity. It was for St Luke’s Hospice.
“I had my father and my uncle Pat in that.
“My father has died since, my uncle Pat is still alive, but they were in that video as well.
“This is my first solo Christmas song, just to do something different. Why not?”
You have already released the single 1993 which was the first taste of your forthcoming sophomore album due next year. 1993 and This Year for Christmas are both share a reflective quality..
“They’re both reflective of Mulranny.
“They’re both Mulranny themed songs and the This Year for Christmas video has a lot of Mulranny scenes and people as well.”
The track features Lorraine O’Reilly who has done a lot of performing with Russell Crowe, Andy Nolan and Joe Cotterill of The BibleCode Sundays on whistles/ accordion and drums respectively, Kwaku Dzidzornu from Level 42 on percussion, Marco Viscito on piano, Jay Spicer on lead guitar, Ella Bradley on harp, Leah Foskett on backing vocals, Ben Gunnery on fiddle and Joe Moran on flute.
As well as your solo endeavour, was it also a chance to have some fun with friends?
“Exactly.
“That’s the whole point of it: Just creating music for the fun of it. I love it.
“And of course, trying to improve all the time, trying to think of new ideas.
“Michael Smith, the producer, is incredible.
“I have been working with him for years on BibleCodes stuff and all kinds of stuff. He’s produced all my solo stuff and he’s brilliant.
“We went to Dean Street Studios to record the keyboards and the guide guitar down there and Noel Gallagher’s famous Union Jack guitar was down there hanging on the wall. We played that.
“Ed Sheeran had been in there the day before, some craic.”
So if you had been a day earlier, you might have got Ed Sheeran on the track?
“Maybe I could,” Enda laughs. “Who knows?”
Although it was never your intention to go solo, do you feel your growing into it? Or how do you feel it’s developing?
“That’s a very good question.
“I just enjoy recording regardless of who it’s with.
“I do like recording my own stuff because I have a lot of autonomy on where it goes, not that it matters so much.
“It’s more expressive for me because it sounds more like the music that’s in my head.
“The lyrics are what they are and the melody that surrounds them, that’s how I’m thinking.
“And I never, if at all, change the melody that I initially write with so when I write a song, except for adding pieces here and there and maybe musical arrangements, the melody and the lyrics have never changed. They’re always the same and I like that.
“I rarely change anything lyrically or musically.
“Michael Smith will always add a little bit of his genius to it and he’ll produce it lovely.
“I can’t praise Michael Smith enough.
“He is an actual musical genius and his production is second to none.
“I mean that, he’s the best in the business.
“It’s only a matter of time before he gets the worldwide opportunity to produce a big name. It’s around the corner for him, you know.
“I think as I’m getting older, I’m getting more ballady.
“Most of the songs I write are about stories and there’s a simple message, it doesn’t have to be convoluted or complicated, and the lyrics aren’t as metaphorical as they used to be.
“There’s just a simple message.
“I think sometimes that’s better.
“Maybe it’s just a phase I’m going through.
“There’s other people who have asked me to write for them as well.
“I might get into that.
“But you can’t turn it on and off.
“Sometimes I sit down and write three songs in an hour and then another time, I can’t write a song for two months.
“Sometimes it’s just like that.”
What are your favourite Christmas songs?
“I like Slade, I like Band Aid, I like The Power of Love. That was a Christmas number one even though it’s not a Christmas song. Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood is a great track.
“My cousins in Cronin recorded a version of that.
“They did a brilliant version of it actually.
“My cousins did a brilliant version of that song which is almost as good, because Johnny’s got a great voice.
“Yeah, love that song.”
Looking back on the year of 2024 I remember seeing you and the BibleCodes at Scala as well as Trafalgar Square for the Mayor’s St Patrick’s concert..
“We did have some special moments this year.
“Scala was incredible.
“We had so much fun there.
“Also the Electric Ballroom (for ICAP), we had a fantastic night there.
“Electric Ballroom was amazing.
“Paddy’s Day in Trafalgar Square, we had a great gig there.
“We did Luton (St Patrick’s festival) and then we raced down to Trafalgar Square.
“It was great craic.
“Of course, we went to Mulranny.
“We played a fundraiser.
“That went down well and we managed to raise a good bit of money for that.
“That was a good trip.”
The BibleCode Sundays sadly had to cancel their planned Christmas party at London Irish Centre due to lead singer Ronan being admitted to hospital.
On this Enda says: “Ronan turned ill so it was best to pull that because we were just cobbling a band together and it’s not fair.
“People are paying for a gig, it’s got to be the band or not at all.”
It is 20 years next year since The BibleCode Sundays came to be although initially known as Sláinte.
After an album of traditional songs, they started work on an album of original material.
That was the time you started coming up with songs..
“So did Andy, and Ronan was always writing and we clubbed them all together.
“That’s how it happened.
“It just happened pretty much overnight.
“We recorded the Sláinte album, then Ronan had written Dockside Lullabies.
“He says, ‘I’ve got this song, lads’.
“And he played it and Andy said, ‘I’ve got about four’.
“And I started coming out (with songs).
“We started coming out with all these songs.
“Before you knew it, we had a string of songs and we had an album done, The Ghosts of our Past.
“We recorded it in less than ten visits to Panic Studios in Park Royal and then we had the big launch in the Galty.
“I remember we said, ‘No one will go’, we sold the whole place out and with the money we got from that paid for the Boots (or no Boots) recording.
“That’s how we did it.
“And we just kept writing and recording one after the other then.
“After that gig at the Galty, it was big talk around the flipping town: The Sláinte/ BibleCode Sundays gig down in the Galty, and the next night we were playing in The Laurels in Harrow Weald.
“There was only five people in the pub and after we finished the first song someone shouted up from the other side of the bar, ‘Are you Sláinte in disguise?’
“We thought it was the best craic ever.”
Are there plans for any new BibleCode Sundays music?
“No, nothing at the moment.
“I think we’ll be busy doing our own stuff for the meantime.
“Ronan has got his storyteller album that he’s got coming out next year so he’s going to be busy with that.
“I’ll be busy with my stuff, of course, and we’ll just see where it takes us, but we’ll probably do something in the future.”
But before then you’re going after Bono for the Christmas number one..
“That’s it. I’m coming after Bono now, that’s it.”
Don’t forget Bob Geldof, and Ed Sheeran although he would rather his vocals weren’t used on the new Band Aid version..
“See? He could have been on my one.”
This Year for Christmas by Enda Mulloy is out now.
For more information, click here.