Gavin Friday

All Music Guide:

Gavin Friday was the lead singer and principal visionary of one of Ireland's most ambitious, challenging, and (often) difficult post-punk groups, the Virgin Prunes. After leaving the Prunes in 1986, he abandoned the music business to paint for a year and a half, returning to the fray after teaming up with pianist Maurice Roycroft (whom Friday renamed the Man Seezer). The duo's 1989 debut, Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves, found him making unexpected moves into a sort of modern-day cabaret style, albeit with all the Bowie-isms of his vocal delivery intact. 1992's Adam 'N' Eve was a much less interesting follow-up which found him addressing his dark visions with a far more standard-issue modern rock sound. Friday collaborated with Bono to write three tracks (two of which were Bono-Friday vocal duets) for the popular 1993 film In the Name of the Father, and returned to a more cabaret-ish mode on 1995's Shag Tobacco. In 1996, Friday and Seezer contributed the song "Angel" to the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, among other film work; this direction culminated in 1997 with a full score for the film The Boxer, which was released early in 1998.

Wikipedia:

Gavin Friday (born Fionán Martin Hanvey, 8 October 1959) is an Irish singer and songwriter, composer, actor and painter.

Career

Gavin was born in Dublin and grew up in Ballygall a neighbourhood located on Dublin's Northside located between Finglas and Glasnevin where he went to school. He was a founding member of the post-punk group The Virgin Prunes and has recorded several solo albums and soundtracks.

In 1986, after the demise of Virgin Prunes, Gavin devoted himself to painting for a while, sharing a studio with Bono, Guggi and Charlie Whisker. This resulted in the exhibition Four Artists - Many Wednesdays (1988) at Dublin’s Hendricks Gallery. Friday, Guggi and Whisker showed paintings, while Bono opted to exhibit photos taken in Ethiopia. Gavin's part of the show was entitled I didn’t come up the Liffey in a bubble, an expression often used by Friday's father.

He has maintained a close friendship with U2's Bono since both were children, and they collaborated on the soundtrack for the Jim Sheridan film In the Name of the Father, including the title track "In the name of the father", "Billy Boola" and "You made me the thief of your heart", which was sung by Sinéad O'Connor and nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. In 2003 they wrote "Time Enough for Tears", the original theme tune for Sheridan's film In America, as sung by Andrea Corr. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

In 1995 he performed Look What You've Done (To My Skin), one of two songs (the other sung by P.J. Harvey) written by Philip Ridley and Nick Bicat for Ridley's second feature film as writer and director, The Passion of Darkly Noon.

His main collaborator between 1987 and 2005 was multi-instrumentalist, Maurice Seezer. They signed to Island Records in 1988 and released three albums together, before parting with the company in 1996. Since then Friday and Seezer composed the score for the Jim Sheridan movies "The Boxer" and "In America" which was nominated for Best Original Film Score in the 2004 Ivor Novello Awards.

In 2005 Friday and Seezer collaborated with Quincy Jones on incidental music for the 50 Cent biopic Get Rich or Die Tryin'. In 2001 they scored the film Disco Pigs by Kirsten Sheridan. Two years later Friday and Seezer and their ensemble also collaborated with Bono on Peter & the Wolf in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation.

In September 2006 a 2-CD collection of sea shanties called Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys, produced by Hal Willner, was released on the ANTI- label. Friday contributes to two tracks including the lewd "Baltimore Whores" and "Bully in the Alley" with ex-Virgin Prunes bandmates Guggi and Dave-id. The reunion of Friday, Guggi and Dave-id was the first time they had recorded together since the Virgin Prunes broke up in 1985.

Friday worked again with Hal Willner in June 2007, appearing in the concert "Forest of No Return - the Vintage Disney Songbook" as part of the Meltdown Festival presented at London's newly reopened Royal Festival Hall. Sharing a stage with artists such as Grace Jones, Nick Cave, Pete Doherty and curator Jarvis Cocker, Friday performed the classic Disney tracks "The Siamese Cat Song" and "Castle In Spain".

Taking time out from work on his fourth solo album with Herb Macken, Friday teamed up with English composer, Gavin Bryars, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Opera North for a new interpretation of Shakespeare's Sonnets touring as part of the 2007 Complete Works Festival. Opening in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Friday presented his take on Sonnet 40 ('Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all') and narrated Bryars' 40-minute piece 'Nothing Like The Sun'.

Friday and Macken composed the music for the Patrick McCabe play, The Revenant. The Revenant opened as part of the 2007 Galway Arts Festival. The play's main theme is entitled 'Dreamland'.

In 2009 Friday and Macken worked on Gavin's 4th studio album, set for release in 2010.

On April 6, 2010 Record company Rubyworks announced they signed Gavin Friday and that a new album is on its way. The new CD is titled catholic and was released in Ireland on Good Friday: April 22, 2011.

Acting

Friday's first acting experience was in the Kirsten Sheridan film Disco Pigs (2001), in which he played a bit part.

In 2005 Gavin Friday played Billy Hatchett in the Neil Jordan film Breakfast on Pluto based on Irish author Patrick McCabe's book, which had been influenced by Friday's album Shag Tobacco. On the soundtrack he sings "Wig Wam Bam" and "Sand", a duet with Cillian Murphy.