"A ridiculous family of genius, hilarious, irresistible music makers, currently crowd-surfing to the bar all over the great county of Yorkshire and beyond, into the venues and music festivals of the UK. Long may they rock... but gently"
Eliza Carthy MBE
Multi-Award Winning Folk-Musician
"Despite their plain and rather ordinary appearance, they are actually completely nuts. They are legends in their own tank-tops."
Fuzz Townshend
TV presenter (National Geographic's/Channel 4's Car S.O.S.) & former drummer
with 'Pop Will Eat Itself', 'The Wonder Stuff' & 'Nine Inch Nails'
"Oh man! You guys look crazier than us!"
Wayne Coyne
Frontman of six-time Grammy winners, 'The Flaming Lips'
MEET THE BAND...
SCOTT DOONICAN
Ringleader, Maker of Mischief, Jesus in a tank-top, Eejit
NAME: Scott Doonican
HAIR: Brown
FUNCTION: Vocals, Geetar, Ukulele, Banjulele, Kazoo, Omnichord, Crowd-Surfing
LIKES: Anything that makes him drunk, but doesn't give him a hangover
DOESN'T LIKE: Hangovers or sprouts (in either order - and certainly not together!)
FAVOURITE TREE: The Larch
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Handsome
AMBITIONS: To find something that makes him drunk but doesn't give him a hangover, to one day play the Royal Albert Hall in London.
STRANGE BUT TRUE: Although the Doonican's all love their stylish knit-wear, as a child Scott had a hatred of tank-tops because his mum made him awful home-made ones because she didn’t know how to knit sleeves to make a full jumper!
By a series of circumstances, none of which he is prepared to divulge, "until the book and movie rights are completely sewn-up," as he so eloquently puts it himself, Scott Doonican arrived somehow in Barnsley Rock City, and within the blinking of an eye had established himself as an intellectual, all-round athlete, celebrated man of opinion, and possibly the greatest entertainer of a generation, if not in the history of the entire planet. He is incredibly modest about it all too.
This quiet, self-effacing man, this deep, windswept and interesting individual, who numbers amongst his hobbies, a tank-top collection of breathtaking magnitude, has not changed a bit since the early days of the band. In a typical self-mocking way, he attributes his success to a natural talent and a lifetime of exceptionally hard work and dedication.
As The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican's outspoken frontman, Scott is a debonair and theatrical performer with a half thought-out plan and a mouth with a mind of its own. Can you trust him? To be silly, yes. To be a gob-shite, yes. To behave, hell no. Like a bus conductor standing in front of an orchestra with a spoon in one hand and a pint in the other, he is quite clearly here for a good time, not a long time. He claims to have formed the band in 2006, "to fuse the theatrical stage antics of Freddie Mercury with the comedy-folk of Mike Harding, in order to form the world's greatest band in knitwear".
He has led the band through four notable incarnations to date, and despite being the one constant throughout the band's history, he has also been a wreaking ball of energy, perpetually trying to ensure that he and his bandmates, "get where water doesn't". The hard work continues to pay-off, and Scott constantly reminds people, that he has no intention of retiring for many, many years. He has the best job on the planet and he loves his work.
"The band is everything to me. We built this up from playing little countryside pubs like we were playing Wembley Stadium, to playing festivals in front of thousands like we were playing Wembley Stadium. People say you are only as good as your last show, so I'm buggered if I am going to do a bad job... if they're there to see us, we'll give 'em a show they'll remember."
There is an element on uncertainty about all of the above, but the rest, as we say, is history.
Photo by Haluk Gurer
NAME: Alan Doonican
HAIR: Ginger (er... it's strawbery blonde, actually!!)
FUNCTION: Accordion & Keyboard Fingerer, Keytar Wizard, Ukulele Player of Ill Repute,
Silent Farter, Master Story-Teller, Eye-Candy, Vocals
LIKES: Festivals and easy access to a stage door
DOESN'T LIKE: Venues with rubbish parking facilities
FAVOURITE BICYCLE: The Raleigh Chopper Mk. I
HOBBIES: Has an extensive collection of Uri Gellar's bent forks
AMBITIONS: To give Donald Trump a decent hair-cut rather than a dead animal on his head.
STRANGE BUT TRUE: Alan Doonican is the only other Bar-Steward Son ever to be have been called Alan.
ALAN DOONICAN
Sex Symbol, Fashion Icon, Organ Tickler
Photo by Haluk Gurer
Contrary to popular belief, on a momentus day in 1978, Louise Brown was not actually the world's first 'Test-Tube Baby'. Unknown to to the general public, this pioneering medical advance had been given something of a 'test-run' by physiologist Robert Geoffrey Edwards & embryologist Alan Frank Eisenstein a whole twenty-six years earlier, in 1952. The early days of what would become known in the future as 'in-vitro fertilisation', was not the exact science that it is today. Nevertheless, two dizygotic twin brothers from the same mother and an anonymous donor from the Emerald Isle, were the product of these early experiments. The product of Mr Eisenstein's first petri-dish (labelled ALAN#1) featured some genetic abnormalities, and the second petri-dish (labelled ALAN#2) was placed in a cryogenic freezer for 16 years until more was known about how to correct the defects, and enhance the overall aesthetics.
As a result, Alan Doonican #2, was born in 1968 and raised by adoptive parents, pentecostal preachers from near Chesterfield in Derbyshire. He toured the southern hemisphere for most of his young adult life as an accomplished self-taught bra-unhooker, until his early thirties, when, as part of the all-star cabaret on a rather down-market cruise of the upper reaches of the Amazon, he was snatched, and subsequently sold to river pirates, as a white slave, to an organ grinder on a passing Spanish Man O'War. After a very daring and successful escape attempt, and with his organ only half ground, Alan managed to join a troupe of long distance accordion players who were working their way through art school. They later settled in Barnsley, where Alan spent many happy years yodeling, doing part-time modelling work for Kays Catalogue, and absorbing the intricacies of the piano accordion, an instrument on which he has since become something of a legend.
Sadly, his 'creator', Sir Alan Eisenstein passed away in September 2014, and, after the execution of his will, Alan's true-identity as the world's second test-tube baby, was revealed. After this shocking revelation, his predecessor, Alan Doonican #1 chose, at the funeral, to pass the baton (and his tank-top) to his newly-found younger sibling. On assuming his role in Yorkshire's hardest working comedy band, Alan #2 also took on the extra pressure of becoming the 'Eye-Candy of the Band' from that day to now, which is no mean feat, we can tell you.
The rest, as we say, is history!
Rt. Rev. J.R. DOONICAN III
He's a Royston Cowboy
NAME: Reight Reverend Jeremiah Rickenbacker Doonican III
HAIR: Black, long and wavy
FUNCTION: Banjo Plucker, Mandolin-meister, Mean Fiddler, Vocals
LIKES: Most types of chocolate bars / most types of nuts
DOESN'T LIKE: Any type of chocolate bar that has nuts in it
FAVOURITE 80s KITCHEN APPLIANCE: The Kenwood Chef
AMBITIONS: To reach the age of 50, jump straight in to a midlife crisis and start a nu-metal band with some fellow middle-aged saddo's
STRANGE BUT TRUE: In 2005, J.R. had the honour of making Charlie from Busted a Subway Sandwich. Footlong meatball marinara. Extra cheese.
Photo by Haluk Gurer
The Reight Reverend Jeremiah Rickenbacker Doonican III is on an evangelical musical mission to save ‘ar souls. Abandoned as a baby on the doorsteps of the Salvation Army in Royston near Barnsley, he was raised by a family of Kestrel-Rustlers in the nearby picturesque mining village of Dodworth. However, he didn’t follow in the footsteps of his somewhat wayward adoptive folks, but followed a far more righteous path.
From a very early age, it was evident that the young Jeremiah Rickenbacker (his momma called him J.R. for short, because she wasn’t so good at spelling) wasn’t like the other little lads at school. By the time he’d left infant school, and most of his friends were starting work as chimney sweep climbing boys, J.R. had already developed a mighty-fine dress-sense and a penchant for ponchos, ten-gallon hats, one-gallon ale-drinking vessels, sharp, snappy shirts and even snappier faux-crocodile-skin shit-kickers. However, when attending Dodworth Sunday School, even when he was knee-high to a gnat, from the minute he was big enough to pick up a fiddle, a mandolin and a clawhammer banjo (not all at once, obviously) this symphonious prodigy was both possessed and blessed by a divine force, from which music did majestically floweth in the years that followed.
And the Lord works in mysterious ways.
By sheer coincidence, in his 30s, J.R. met Scott Doonican at a folk festival in Wath-Upon-Dearne (a small South Yorkshire town Ze Germans had refused to bomb during the war because they figured that nobody would know that they’d been). Scott was trying to prop up the bar, and J.R. being a practical chap, as well as a tip-top musician, happened to have a spare prop. After searching his soul, J.R. knew that his spiritual place was to join Scott and his knit-wear festooned brethren on The Road… not the one to Damascus, but the one that took him beyond his little village homestead, in order to preach the gospel according to the Church of Heavenly Knitwear.
Can we get an Amen?
The rest as we say, is history, y’all.
Dr. MO-JO DOONICAN
Funk Soul Brother
NAME: Moses-Joelle Doonican
HAIR: Big and curly
FUNCTION: Doctorate in Being Smooth, majoring in Banjology and Mandolinistry,
with a Ph.D in Bass and Groove, Mixmaster, Vocals
LIKES: The sweet virtues of practising ‘safe funk’ (always wear a helmet, kids)
DOESN'T LIKE: Other people’s knees
FAVOURITE EPISODE OF TAGGART: Series 7 Episode 1 (Violent Delights)
AMBITIONS: To invent a way to irrefutably prove or disprove whether or not the light stays on when you close the fridge door.
STRANGE BUT TRUE: There are seventeen different reasons that Mo-Jo was banned from the Little Chef at Scotch Corner.
Photo by Haluk Gurer
Moses-Joelle Doonican, better known to his friends as Mo-Jo, is something of an enigma wrapped in a mystery. He’s got soul but he’s not a soldier (in his fridge he also has ham, but he’s not a hamster, either). Rumour has it that he sold his liver on the black market for a pair speakers, that he naturally faces magnetic north and that he sleeps upside down like a bat.
But beyond all the rumours, this much we do know… although born in Coolville in Ohio (population 452) Mo-Jo never knew his dad, who was rumoured to be a light entertainer who passed through Ohio on holiday from Ireland, but his mother upped and moved to Clowne in Derbyshire when Mo-Jo was just a baby.
Whilst attending Clowne School (the school uniform included a squirty flower and oversized shoes, which really wasn’t Mo-Jo’s bag), he formed a band with a school-friend called Joe (a psychedelic funk outfit called Moses, Joseph & The Dopeheads on Mopeds). On realising that the rest of the band were useless, he turned up one night at one of The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican’s rehearsals and rather coolly just pretended he’d been there for years.
Nobody noticed he hadn’t.
The rest, as they say is history.
DAVE DOONICAN
Ace of Bass
NAME: Thomas Rodney Dee Dozy Beaky Mickentitch Doonican
HAIR: From China
FUNCTION: Keeper of the Groove, Vocals
LIKES: 40Hz
DOESN'T LIKE: Not being called Tom. The word ‘colonel’ (why is it spelled like that!?). Oh, and Nickleback.
FAVOURITE TV CHANNEL: DAVE +1
AMBITIONS: To be Spiderman when he grows up
STRANGE BUT TRUE: If you bang your head against a wall, you can lose 150 calories an hour.*
* Disclaimer: Don’t try this at home, kids.
Photo by Amanda White
Everyone knows a Dave. Dave’s are reliable. Dave’s are basically a Great British institution (I mean there’s David Attenborough, David Bowie, David Beckham and Dave from Chas & Dave to name but a few). But is there a greater Dave than the one-and-only Dave Doonican?
Brother Dave is so great that they named a TV Channel after him. Virginia Grohl named her only son after him. David Tennant said that he based the tenth and the fourteenth Doctor Who on him. In fact, if Dave had been in McFly, he would have been kicked out by the other four for being too cool.
But what do we know about the man we affectionately know as “The Double D”. Simply put, he’s the punk-rock beating heartbeat of the our daft little comedy band, a low freq. freak, the bottom end, dominant sub, Minister of Thump, and above all, Dave is the reason that you are dancing.
He has spent years researching and studying in intricate detail all the necessary moves to become a bona-fide rock star and he knows exactly how to deploy them in the field. And yes, although we don’t plan to tell him, we know he’s not really called Dave, but we don’t care.
What a difference a Dave makes. The rest as they say is history.
Photo by Haluk Gurer