Ciaran Gribbin from Ex INXS Lead Vocalist shares his views on the music industry with RMN Podcast and speaks about his career and song writing.

Ciaran Gribbin (born 1976) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer who hails from Castledawson, Northern Ireland.

Early career

Gribbin began writing songs at the age of nine. He formed a small band with his two best friends, and for years they toured the pubs in Belfast, Northern Ireland where he was born. At 20 years of age, Gribbin studied music at the School of Music in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Upon leaving college, he formed the band, Leya, which lasted seven years. The band put out one album, titled Watch You Don't Take Off. Leya toured with bands such as Snow Patrol, Scissor Sisters, Franz Ferdinand and Embrace. Gribbin also performed backing vocals on Snow Patrol's album Eyes Open.[1]

Joe Echo and collaborations

After Leya disbanded, Gribbin continued to work with the members of Leya on various projects, under the name of Joe Echo[2] as well as collaborating/co-writing with international artists including Deadmau5 and Paul Oakenfold, with whom he co-wrote Madonna's track, "Celebration", for which he received a Grammy nomination.[3] Gribbin also toured, under the name Joe Echo, with many artists including Gotye, Powderfinger, The Script and opened for Sir Paul McCartney at the Hard Rock Calling[4] Festival in Hyde Park, London. Gribbin wrote and produced soundtrack albums for the films Killing Bono[5] and Heartless.[6]

Ciaran also released some original music under Joe Echo in digital format.

INXS

In 2009, while supporting Paolo Nutini on his Australian tour under Joe Echo, Gribbin met INXS keyboardist and songwriter Andrew Farriss at a house party in Sydney. Over the next 12 months, Farriss and Gribbin became close friends and in May 2011 the two songwriters got together for a songwriting session. The members of INXS were impressed with Gribbin's vocal and songwriting ability and promptly asked him to audition for lead vocalist of their band. In November 2011, Gribbin performed his first show with INXS[7] in Arequipa, Peru[8] in front of 7,000 people and two nights later performed in front of 30,000 people, headlining the Personal Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He replaced their former lead singer, J.D. Fortune.

Gribbin performed over 50 shows as INXS' frontman. Two of the songs Gribbin co-wrote with Andrew Farris have been released by INXS. "Tiny Summer"[9] was a free download single. The second single, "We Are United",[10] was performed in Australia's capital city, Canberra, at the Australia Day celebrations in January 2012 in front of a television audience of one million, and was released to mark this occasion.