Really and truly, it doesn’t get much better for an up-and-coming musician than having a song from your first album on the soundtrack to one of the biggest blockbuster movies of the year.
And, that is exactly what happened to Mundy in 1996, when To You I Bestow featured in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
It was the best possible boost the young singer-songwriter could have gotten and following this he set to work writing for a second album.
But alas, the road to success is never straightforward. While in the process of recording this next release, he was dropped from his record label.
Not knowing that around 400 other acts were also let go, Mundy says his confidence was shaken.
“My ego was completely crushed after finishing up with the record label. I didn’t believe in myself, but I still had the urge to play music.”
Mundy managed to get the rights back to the songs he had been recording and decided to tour Ireland with them.
The album which was cold shouldered by the record label contained some of what are now his biggest hits, and at gigs there was a rip-roaring reception for the likes of July and Mexico.
“People were coming up saying, ‘I love that song, it’s such a good song’, it could have been Linchpin or one of those,” he remembers. “Then I went, ‘You know what, I’m going to put out an EP’, it was called The Moon is a Bullet Hole. I then put out Mexico and July as a double A-side, it just started getting loads of airplay. I said, ‘Right, I’ll release the album’. In 2002 it came out and it just flew.”
I sang it off a piece of paper and the next day I got all these texts saying people are going absolutely nuts about this song, but I had only read it off a piece of paper
To facilitate this second album, 24 Star Hotel, Mundy decided to bring everything back to basics and set up his own record label.
He wanted creative control over his music and himself. He named it Camcor, after the river flowing through his hometown of Birr, Co Offlay.
Having been scorned by others, 24 Star Hotel ultimately ended up going triple platinum in Ireland.
Galway GirlSix years later, Mundy – whose real name is Edmund Enright – received another great boost.
One day he found himself on Tom Dunne’s old radio show Pet Sounds with acclaimed accordion player Sharon Shannon.
As the episode was being recorded in Galway, he and Sharon decided to sing Galway Girl, even though Mundy didn’t know the song verbatim.
“I sang it off a piece of paper and the next day I got all these texts saying people are going absolutely nuts about this song, but I had only read it off a piece of paper,” he smiles.
Although the song was written and first released by Steve Earle, the Mundy and Sharon Shannon version put it on the map, making it an enduring anthem for not only the city of the Tribes, but Ireland as a whole.
At this time too, the singer-songwriter was putting plans in motion for a live album and Galway Girl worked very much in his favour.
“I had already booked in a gig in Vicar Street, which was sold out. I needed a special guest and all my usual compadres were out of town.
I rang up Sharon and asked if she would come up and we would do that song.
We threw that on at the end of the album, because it didn’t really have any similar style to the rest of my music.
“It just sky rocketed. We didn’t even release it [as a single] actually. Once you put something up on iTunes and enough people buy it, it gets into the charts.
"It just lifted off, we never even did a photo together. We won two or three Meteor Awards with it, most downloaded single and all this kind of stuff. Quite a journey.”
Anxiety issues
Professionally, Mundy has overcome the many hurdles one faces when navigating the music business.
Personally, he has also had to contend with anxiety, something he is happy to talk about.
Mundy first remembers feeling anxious in his teens and says it was after getting his record deal that he began to get really anxious.
“I remember when I left school, at 18 or 19, I couldn’t get out of bed one day. Actually for days.
Even though the musicians I work with are always really supportive and that, you feel a bit vulnerable going out there
"My mother couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I think that is your brain growing and accepting stuff. It takes a long time,” explains Mundy.
“In my late 20s I started getting it again, after coming out of a long relationship. That was when my album Raining Down Arrows went to number one.
"The audience started getting bigger and I just felt a lot of pressure, because I’m a solo guy at the end of the day.
"Even though the musicians I work with are always really supportive and that, you feel a bit vulnerable going out there.
“Especially if you are after breaking up with someone after eight years and the album is all about that. I remember supporting the White Stripes one day out in Marlay Park and I had an awful gig.
"There were like 10,000 people out there and the one person I saw out of the 10,000 was my ex. My heart hanging out of me chest, yano.”
Mundy has faced his challenges head-on and is now settled in Dublin with his wife and two kids.
For him, his emotions have always been the key to his song writing talents and his resilience the reason he has gotten through it all.
Read more
Mundy: You have to be honest about how you feel
Really and truly, it doesn’t get much better for an up-and-coming musician than having a song from your first album on the soundtrack to one of the biggest blockbuster movies of the year.
And, that is exactly what happened to Mundy in 1996, when To You I Bestow featured in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
It was the best possible boost the young singer-songwriter could have gotten and following this he set to work writing for a second album.
But alas, the road to success is never straightforward. While in the process of recording this next release, he was dropped from his record label.
Not knowing that around 400 other acts were also let go, Mundy says his confidence was shaken.
“My ego was completely crushed after finishing up with the record label. I didn’t believe in myself, but I still had the urge to play music.”
Mundy managed to get the rights back to the songs he had been recording and decided to tour Ireland with them.
The album which was cold shouldered by the record label contained some of what are now his biggest hits, and at gigs there was a rip-roaring reception for the likes of July and Mexico.
“People were coming up saying, ‘I love that song, it’s such a good song’, it could have been Linchpin or one of those,” he remembers. “Then I went, ‘You know what, I’m going to put out an EP’, it was called The Moon is a Bullet Hole. I then put out Mexico and July as a double A-side, it just started getting loads of airplay. I said, ‘Right, I’ll release the album’. In 2002 it came out and it just flew.”
I sang it off a piece of paper and the next day I got all these texts saying people are going absolutely nuts about this song, but I had only read it off a piece of paper
To facilitate this second album, 24 Star Hotel, Mundy decided to bring everything back to basics and set up his own record label.
He wanted creative control over his music and himself. He named it Camcor, after the river flowing through his hometown of Birr, Co Offlay.
Having been scorned by others, 24 Star Hotel ultimately ended up going triple platinum in Ireland.
Galway GirlSix years later, Mundy – whose real name is Edmund Enright – received another great boost.
One day he found himself on Tom Dunne’s old radio show Pet Sounds with acclaimed accordion player Sharon Shannon.
As the episode was being recorded in Galway, he and Sharon decided to sing Galway Girl, even though Mundy didn’t know the song verbatim.
“I sang it off a piece of paper and the next day I got all these texts saying people are going absolutely nuts about this song, but I had only read it off a piece of paper,” he smiles.
Although the song was written and first released by Steve Earle, the Mundy and Sharon Shannon version put it on the map, making it an enduring anthem for not only the city of the Tribes, but Ireland as a whole.
At this time too, the singer-songwriter was putting plans in motion for a live album and Galway Girl worked very much in his favour.
“I had already booked in a gig in Vicar Street, which was sold out. I needed a special guest and all my usual compadres were out of town.
I rang up Sharon and asked if she would come up and we would do that song.
We threw that on at the end of the album, because it didn’t really have any similar style to the rest of my music.
“It just sky rocketed. We didn’t even release it [as a single] actually. Once you put something up on iTunes and enough people buy it, it gets into the charts.
"It just lifted off, we never even did a photo together. We won two or three Meteor Awards with it, most downloaded single and all this kind of stuff. Quite a journey.”
Anxiety issues
Professionally, Mundy has overcome the many hurdles one faces when navigating the music business.
Personally, he has also had to contend with anxiety, something he is happy to talk about.
Mundy first remembers feeling anxious in his teens and says it was after getting his record deal that he began to get really anxious.
“I remember when I left school, at 18 or 19, I couldn’t get out of bed one day. Actually for days.
Even though the musicians I work with are always really supportive and that, you feel a bit vulnerable going out there
"My mother couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I think that is your brain growing and accepting stuff. It takes a long time,” explains Mundy.
“In my late 20s I started getting it again, after coming out of a long relationship. That was when my album Raining Down Arrows went to number one.
"The audience started getting bigger and I just felt a lot of pressure, because I’m a solo guy at the end of the day.
"Even though the musicians I work with are always really supportive and that, you feel a bit vulnerable going out there.
“Especially if you are after breaking up with someone after eight years and the album is all about that. I remember supporting the White Stripes one day out in Marlay Park and I had an awful gig.
"There were like 10,000 people out there and the one person I saw out of the 10,000 was my ex. My heart hanging out of me chest, yano.”
Mundy has faced his challenges head-on and is now settled in Dublin with his wife and two kids.
For him, his emotions have always been the key to his song writing talents and his resilience the reason he has gotten through it all.
Read more
Mundy: You have to be honest about how you feel
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