Tommy Fleming is celebrating 30 years in the music business with the release of a new album. He talks to Cara O’Doherty about embracing social media and going viral.

A dog is barking in the background, and someone has just arrived at the door to repair the washing machine.

It is a reminder that being a celebrity is not all glamour, as Tommy Fleming is quick to point out. "People think there is a glamorous side to all this, but there isn't really. It is a job, it is a different type of job, but it is just a job at the end of the day."

He may say it is not all glamour, but Fleming has performed across the globe in his 30 years in the music industry, often in prestigious venues such as the Sydney Opera House and New York's Carnegie Hall. The Sligo man has 16 albums under his belt and is about to release number 17. The latest album is a mix of old and new material, mirroring the artist himself, a man who likes to keep things simple but decided to embrace social media for the first time during lockdown.

"I had been touring non-stop in America, Australia and Britain and was about to finish, when lockdown happened. I would never normally do social media, but it was the only way to reach out to people. I started making videos; I called them Jeep Tunes.

It was just my dog Teddy and me, singing in the jeep. I did that for one hundred days, once every day, and it was so simple. Some people loved them, and probably some people thought they were awful, but you know, you can't please everyone."

The singing part came easily he says; getting to grips with technology proved a little trickier.

"I had to learn how to become technologically savvy and learn how to film. I had all the gear, which I never used. My wife, Tina, bought me a brilliant camera a few years ago, not one picture was taken with it. I learned how to use different apps to edit the videos and put them online. I got over three million views. It was a huge thing for me because this man didn't even know how to use the Sky remote control two years ago. You have no idea of the number of expletives that came out of me as I was figuring how to operate everything.

"Social media is a tool that I was afraid of for a long time, but I changed my outlook once I knew what I was doing. It was great to interact with people, and it is always good to keep current."

INSPIRATION

After 30 years in the music business, keeping things fresh is no mean feat. But Fleming does, saying inspiration hits him in the most unlikely places.

"A friend of mine sent me a song called All These Years. I would play it constantly in the car. Tina thought it was a great name, so that is how the album got its name. I was flying home from Australia not long before Covid. I woke up wondering where we were. I looked at the screen, and we were flying over the middle of the Indian Ocean right where there is a curve on the planet.

On the screen, it looked like there was a bend in the ocean, so that became the song's name. I went to South Sudan with the charity Goal, in 2001.

I was on a hammock looking up at the sky, thinking about the stars, which led to a lyric. Inspiration comes from so many different places, and I never know when it might strike."

Fleming contemplated releasing a best-of album to commemorate his milestone anniversary but thought that was taking the lazy way out.

"People expect a re-release of older material when you release a celebratory album, but it didn't sit right with me. The plan became five or six new songs, but that grew, and we ended up recording thirteen songs, so we have three CDs and forty songs. We have the new material, and the other two are retrospectives of the last thirty years."

Fleming met his wife Tina in 2002, marrying in 2006. She took over Fleming's management, and he says she is his rock in every way. "She lets me be creative and do what I do best which is write and perform, and she takes care of everything else. I'm not good with money. I am no good with budgets. I am the type of man that needs a calculator to play a game of darts. Tina has the wherewithal to put the reins on when they are needed."

Fleming says it is hard for women who work in the music industry and says that although he has seen some change over the last three decades, the changes are not coming fast enough.

"Tina is a manager in a business that still expects men to be managers. She has her work cut out for her most of the time. She is great at her job, and sometimes she needs to be tough, but when a woman is tough or has good negotiating skills she is seen as a bitch. When a man does the same thing, he will get a clap on the back.

"I've always had great women in my life: my grandmother, my mother, my sisters, my wife, and I have great female friends.

I have seen them all be strong, and I have watched them go through hard times, and I have great admiration for them. It is so unfair sometimes when women are labelled or branded even though they are doing the same job as a man."

The musician also says that a perception still exists that women do not always know what they are doing in business. "I've witnessed it first-hand in the office when Tina is making a deal, and she has the phone on speaker. The condescending way that she is often spoken to is infuriating. If anyone spoke to me like that, I would lose it. Tina has more patience than me. I have reached an age where I will say what I think."

LOCKDOWN LIFE

Living, working and touring together can be challenging for any couple, but the pair found a rhythm early on in their partnership which helped them survive the toughest challenge yet: lockdown.

"We survived lockdown. We had lots of great tools to help us, one of them was bottles of wine! Seriously though, we worked apart, which was intentional. Lockdown was a horrible time for everyone, but it was about finding ways to keep the head up. We had the added worry of Tina's dad, who is in his eighties. Our priority was to protect him. "In the initial stages of all of this, it was very scary, but I think there is something in the Irish that when the chips are down, you just have to knuckle down and find a way around."

Fleming says the hardest aspect of lockdown was not seeing his 27-year-old daughter, Becky, who lives in Dublin.

"It is different when you are away from home on tour; you know when it ends, and you know that you can come home if needs be. With lockdown, we had no idea when it would end. The hardest thing was being separated from friends and family. Becky kept us all going by setting up a weekly Zoom quiz with all the family. It was harder on her because she was in an apartment; she was working from home and very much isolated. It was much harder for the younger generations."

As we navigate our way back to normality, Fleming is looking forward to a return to live music although he says that the government mismanaged the music industry in recent months.

“It was brilliant to see audiences roaring in Croke Park. I have no problem with that, but I had a problem with the imbalance. If one of the players ran onto the pitch with a guitar instead of a hurley it would have become an illegal event sending 35,000 people home. The music industry brings in €3.5 billion a year and it was ignored for a long time, but it came through in the end.”

Looking back over his career, Fleming says he is a different man from who he was when he set out to be a singer.

"At twenty, I wasn't very mature. I thought I knew everything. Now at fifty, I know I don't know everything, and I need to keep learning. I'm quieter. I would rather listen in a conversation than hear myself speak. As an artist, I'm far more accomplished now. When I was twenty, I certainly didn't know the tricks or techniques that I know now. The last thirty years have taught me a lot."

As for the latest album, Fleming hopes listeners will take from it what they will.