Paul Fogarty (Aus)

Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Paul Fogarty started writing songs at 15 years of age and has written about 1000 songs since. He has recorded and released three independent albums in the past seven years since turning Pro in 2001.

Uniquely all 38 songs from these three albums Breathe (2001), Stagefright (2003), Born Naked (2006) have received radio airplay in Australia on FM and AM stations and networks in all capital cities and major regional centers.

Writing songs has always came naturally to Paul. "I never even considered it as a career. Like, when you make models of sailing ships ... it never occurs to you to be a sailing ship model maker".

“Writing songs was like brushing my teeth - a daily ritual. But then I woke up one morning and realized I already had more than 500 songs. I thought - maybe I am a songwriter after all. I hated working in normal jobs because it got in the way of my song writing so I quit working for a living and started playing gigs.”

Most of his songs come to him in his dreams (day and night) and are aimed at waking people out of the unconsciousness of everyday living. "Almost everyone I knew for the first 30 years of my life was only semi-conscious - especially me," he says. "Almost everything I write is about that in some way... the great waking sleep..."

“When I was growing up on the farm there was nothing going on. There were few trees, no mountains, no rivers. It was flat and still and ancient. Occasionally a bird would fly over head. Mostly it was just still, silent, empty space a spiritual thing. It gave you time to figure out who you were and what the hell you were going to do with your life.”

As a boy Paul filled up that space with daydreams, drawings, songs and poems. “The isolation I felt was a terrible thing but it forced you to face yourself. There was nothing else except you and the ancient nothingness, the silence, the space. Anyone who has been there knows that feeling”. Paul plays acoustic guitar, lap-slide guitar, piano, harmonica, 12 string guitar and foot percussion. More information at www.paulfogarty.com (English and Deutsch) and www.myspace.com/paulfogartysongs.

My band history closely parallels my personal history. See "introduction to band" above.

I play live and dead and sometimes comatose. I play usually 200 gigs a year in all sorts of showcases, festivals, bars, cafes, markets, dumps, dives, restaurants, radio stations and private functions. I started gigging in 1981 or '82. I love it when the audience is honest and open. Lots of special moments. I leave my body and float out through a window into a tall building up in the sky. Every room in that building is another one of my songs. Am I insane, doctor? Can you help me?

My musical influences are everyone I ever heard. The good, the bad, the dysfunctional. Mowtown when I was 12 (til now) cos once you have heard Stevie Wonder you know it is never gonna get better...just different. George Benson when I was 15. Bob Dylan when I was 25. James Taylor when I was 20. The Beatles when I was 7, 10, 16, 19, etc etc. Cat Stevens. Ryan Adams. Neil Young. Wilco. David Gray. Paul Simon. Townes Van Zandt. Lyle Lovett. Ben Harper.

A guitar. Another guitar. Both acoustic. A third guitar - a lap slide acoustic guitar. A harmonica. (A few, actually). A piano. A tambourine.

I have written about a thousand songs and need to get out more.