As soon as Kingfishr turned up at BST Hyde Park on July 8th 2023 on a very rainy morning, the rain stopped! If you have ever met the boys or have seen them live, you will know that their happy, lively personalities and outstanding music will probably always bring out the sunshine!

Even listening back to this interview I found myself smiling and laughing! Eddie (Edmond Keogh) Fitz ( Eoin Fitzgibbon) and McGoo (Eoghan McGrath) are just so much fun and an absolute joy to talk with. At festivals it’s often tricky to speak for long as schedules are so tight on both ends and I remember feeling really sad we couldn’t chat for longer. A more in depth interview will definitely be in the future!

Kingfishr are remarkable! This band are so special that now is the time to see them live! Emotive, passionate and powerful lyrically, vocally and melodically, Kingfishr are undoubtedly going to be headlining huge venues in the not too distant future!

Their debut single Flowers-Fire is so full on and in the best kind of way! A delicate start, the song builds into a phenomenal masterpiece of a song that is simply genius! In this one song, you can hear and feel the depth of the band, their potential to be something huge!

The story of kingfishr is somewhat of a dream! Asking them on how they began they say:

Eddie – basically we were all doing a masters in engineering in Limerick in University and we ditched that completely.

Fitz – We didn’t ditch it…

Eddie: We didn’t ditch it, sorry! We graduated! So we got degrees thanks to Fitz’ genius planning because we wanted to release songs early…

Fitz – We did ask loads of people if they thought it was a good idea to leave engineering and they all laughed so we didn’t!

Eddie: No, we graduated and then we wrote some songs over lockdown, so something good came from that I suppose! We released a song in April last year and that went well, it got on a couple of playlists on Spotify ( Flowers – Fire) . I remember Fitz coming in and he nearly took the kitchen door off the hinges in the house from sheer shock because that doesn’t happen, we were buzzin’ absolutely blown away!

Fitz – Everyone kept asking us “how are you submitting the song?”

Eddie: Somebody obviously took to the music on Spotify and decided to give us a chance. Then the second song did the same. Then management hooked us up with people who have presented us with ridiculous opportunities like this one (BST Hyde Park).

Next I wanted to know if it was just the three of them that write their material?

Eddie: It started between the three of us in McGoo’s Grandparents house in Tipperary. So we finished college, we moved out there and we started writing songs and playing around. As we have grown and got out in the world , we are dipping into whatever we can get our hands on.

When we started the band, all these mad opportunities just kept presenting themselves that were just so fortuitous

Fitz – everything we needed…..

Eddie – Oh my god it was insane

Fitz- …fell in front of us. For the first six months to a year especially! When we went and wrote our first song, within a week Eddie’s friend text us and said “our friend is opening a studio in town and is looking for people to go in and work with him”

Eddie – We were the first people in there. We recorded a song and then we said we needed a drummer, we then decided we needed a support slot. Following morning he rings us with the band we had been talking to to try and support. This was like a six to eight month plan and we thought “we can support this band, it will be fantastic”

Eddie – Hermitage Green are a big Limerick band, they are like the staple of that whole scene so we were like that’s the market to try and support them . We were having a conversation and then the next morning they offered us the support.

Fitz – every time we readjusted to a new six month plan….

Eddie – That six month plan was gone in two days!

Fitz – yeah!

Eddie – It was mad!

Fitz – We always talked about how things had to happen fast but we never expected them to happen this fast!

KingFishr were at BST Hyde Park supporting Bruce Springsteen on Saturday 8th July and were met with such a warm crowd! The band have had such an amazing summer playing various festivals and being on tour with the likes of George Ezra and more!

Their current single Headlands is a stunning work of art! A band that are described as Limerick Folk, the band bring so much beauty to the folk genre. Asking about the song Eddie says;

“It’s rather close to the bone and probably about as personal as a song we have written. I am conscious of the fact that people probably draw their own conclusions but it’s about growing up in Ireland and the difficulties that come with it, different families, dramas.”

“You know, I have never been to Ireland”, I told them’

Eddie – Hannah, this interview is over!

“Haha, I have always wanted to”, I continued

Eddie – Well we have a Tour in October..

I asked “where I should go in Ireland?”

Eddie- Galway, anywhere in the west coast is beautiful!

“Pa Sheehy (fellow Irish artist also at BST Hyde Park) told me Dingle is beautiful.” I explained

Eddie – Dingle is gorgeous yeah!

Fitz – Start off in Donegal and end up In Kerry, go to a Cork actually!

Eddie – There’s a road that runs along the coast from Donegal all the way down to Kerry.

Fitz – We do lots of photos and filming along there on the cliffs. Our video for Heart In The Water is out on the cliffs of the west!

Next I wanted to know what they had planned for the rest of the year…

Fitz – We have been doing a lot of writing left, right and centre. We have been doing a lot of gigs and stuff. We did a lot this summer. We have a few festivals this summer, Latitiude and more! We have an EP coming some stage towards the end of the year. In 2024, who knows?

The interview was over so quickly with my next appointment and theirs too, I realised that I barely, if at all spoke to McGoo, the master of the banjo which is an instrument I love hearing in songs so much! I am sure I will have that opportunity again! I hope so anyway!

As they mentioned above, Kingfishr have a tour in Ireland in October. Understandably, the tour is now almost sold out!

If you are on the fence on seeing them then take the leap and just go! Things are only going to get better and bigger for Kingfishr and we can’t wait to witness their incredible journey and hopefully we can come along to some of those stops and watch a great many show! With an EP hopefully being released at the end of the year, we can’t wait to hear what they have in store for us.