GILBERT O’Sullivan became a worldwide sensation the 1970s with hits such as Alone Again (Naturally), Matrimony and Get Down.
Geraint Jones talks to the respected Irish songwriter about his tour date at Venue Cymru on March 25.
Have you performed in North Wales before?
No. Why I’ve got up there before God only knows. It’s not my department – I kind of let the agents handle that side.
What I like about this tour is that I’m getting to places like North Wales, and also going down to the West Country, where I haven’t played in a long time.
Do the songs take on a different identity with an 11 piece band and a string quartet?
For me it’s very important to make it sound the way the recorded sounded – I’m not one of those who’s in favour of changing drastically.
One or two of the songs we vary, but they’re not necessarily the most well known songs.
I feel if it’s really a well known song, keep it as close to the original as you can.
Do you enjoy playing live?
My career is based on song writing. Once you’ve written the songs, you record them and all that’s done with just a few musicians and yourself.
Then you spend time promoting the record, and part of the joy of promotion is that you play to people for the first time or who’ve seen you and look forward to seeing you live.
Plus, you get the chance to meet the people who like you, because after a concert you talk to people.
Who inspired your song writing?
The catalysts for my writing and singing, even the look, were the Beatles and Bob Dylan.
The Beatles, because they wrote great songs, so you thought if they could write them at a young age, you could do it.
I don’t really have a great voice, and Bob Dylan didn’t have one, so I was kind of influenced by him on the vocal side.
When I decided to go into the business a few years later, coming up to London, that’s when I created this image to look different.
I sounded like Bob Dylan on my early demos. I was only 20 years of age but I sound like an old man.
Did your signature look catch on immediately?
Gordon Mills, who managed me, hated it. Nobody liked it.
Everybody would have preferred it if I’d worn my hair long, had a pair of blue jeans, and looked normal.
But I was extremely determined to use it, because it was very separate to the song writing.
What I liked about having a kind of serious song writer, and you had this image of someone who looked they couldn’t have been the person who sung that.
I really worked hard at creating an image just to look different.
The great thing with Gordon Mill was that he didn’t like it, but he knew that I wanted to use it and he also knew that the reason I would be successful wasn’t so much how I looked but how I sounded, and how the songs would take off.
A lot of artists have covered your work, which must be quite an honour?
It’s a great compliment to any song writer.
I’ve never criticised any cover version, and I’ve heard some strange ones (laughs).
There’s been some marvellous versions of my songs by people like Andy Williams and Bobby Darrin.
Do any gigs stand out as the most memorable?
We did the Albert Hall two years ago, and that was pretty special.
What was nice about that was that after so many concerts around the country, all the band’s mothers and fathers came to the Albert Hall.
Why? Because they felt they’d made it by playing at the Albert Hall.
Show time is 7.30pm. Tickets are £25.
To book, contact the Venue Cymru box office on 01492 872 000 or visit www.venuecymru.co.uk.