Crystal Swing

This week, I spoke with Derek Burke, lead singer and front man for Crystal Swing. Crystal Swing, for those that don’t know, comprises of the Burke family from East Cork, Mary a fine musician and overall brains behind the outfit as well as being mother to, Derek on vocals, and Dervla, an accomplished singer with a great voice, who in my mind is one of the finest singers ever to come out of
Cork. When she sings country you really have to listen.


The first time I came across Crystal Swing was when their song. "He drinks Tequila" appeared on the well known SKY TV Program Hot Country, within weeks it was on Youtube, and from there it went viral. Getting roughly 100,000 hits in the first few days alone, that figure climbed and within two weeks it had hit over the half a million mark. Currently on Youtube the combined footage and video clips of Crystal Swing surpass the 3 million views mark & that’s not including the millions of TV viewers across the globe. Now there are companies, film makers, bands, movie stars all hoping to achieve what Crystal Swing have managed to do, go viral on the internet. The rewards for this are amazing, in this case Ellen DeGeneres saw the band, loved the band and had them on her TV program - the end result, millions of viewers. The Late Late Show followed suite and before you knew it they were on every newspaper, radio show, TV program in Ireland, all because of the video "He Drinks Tequila".

To be honest at the time there was a very mixed reaction to the video, with many people looking at it to see what all the fuss was about. Some loved it, others didn’t, some wanted to have a laugh, others wanted to hear the song, but Crystal Swing, took it all on board and rolled with it. They didn’t pander to the naysayers, they didn't get caught up in negative reaction, they pushed onwards, they used it as a launch pad to show that Crystal Swing were not just a one hit wonder, a one track pony.

They are, behind all the showbiz glamour and makeup, a very genuine, honest, very hard working group of nice people. The music business is not all about talent, it’s about hard graft, and it’s about drive, ambition, luck, work ethic, and the ability to entertain.All you have to do is watch any of the X factor programs, Britain's got talent etc to see the judges don't always pick the best singer but they pick someone who has all the above attributes that are needed to make it in this business.How many times do you think you have to pick yourself up, listen to the critics, dust yourself off and go on stage again night after night and face the same problems and backlash from some one who has had a bad day at the office or just does not like your shirt?

It’s common in the music business to go on stage and please 99% of the audience but the 1% who will complain or give out, will be twice as loud as the other 99% and are never afraid to tell you what they think. Crystal Swing has huge support from rural Ireland. They are on a roll and have not looked back since the day they decided to appear on Hot Country.

I have interviewed many singers down through the years and I have gotten used to listening to the self promotion which sometimes goes with these interviews, speaking with Derek there was none of that, we could have been sitting in a pub talking about the match, motor racing or any other subject. Derek has a great sense of humour and a great sense of the locality. He knows where he comes from and is very proud of all they have achieved as a family and as a group, and rightly so in my own opinion. There are no big egos involved here, no big attitudes about music or how big they have become, just a chat with a very honest, humorous guy.

I started off by asking Derek how things were going for the group in the last year, bearing in mind it’s only a short while in the entertainment world since they hit the world music headlines. Derek replied that it’s been a crazy year things were flying and they were busy touring and playing.  He spoke at length about how things are going and how they have taken it all on board and are going from strength to strength. They recently launched another new song on Craig Doyle’s TV show on RTE. But in recent times I think the biggest concert they preformed at was the fashion Show in Leamlara, home to Crystal Swing. On the night they sang a few songs and their father Michael provided sound for the entire fashion show, it was all very local and very normal for one of the biggest bands ever to hit the world music stage.