We sat down with the Irish King of Swing Luke Thomas for the June issue of VIP Magazine.
He chats to us about the reality of working as a musician in Ireland and how his idea of success has changed over the years. He speaks about his mother, who came from Trinidad in the 1970s and worked two jobs until her retirement.
“I’m hugely aware of all the things my mum has done for me so I always look for opportunities to involve her because she’s been the main driving force for me in life. She’s given me my ambition,” he tells us.
He’s been working as a musician since he was a teenager but admits that it hasn’t always been an easy ride.
“I went from sitting in the front row at the Meteor Irish Music Awards with Westlife, Bono and The Chili Peppers to needing to get a job at Guinness where I worked for a good ten years all the way through most of my twenties,” he tells us.
“I soon realised that if you weren’t signed to a big label you could be haemorrhaging a lot of money trying to keep up with everybody else. It was only when I was in my 30s that I got back into it full time again. By that stage my idea of success had changed.
“If you can make a living out of it, if you can support yourself, and your loved ones, pay your mortgage, while doing what you love, that’s success. You know there’s only one Ed Sheeran, there’s only one Beyoncé, and that’s fine. Only as you get older do you realise that and make peace with that.
“And it’s not that you’re not ambitious or that you don’t want bigger gigs, you do, but you have to be practical and see success at every level of the industry.”
To read our full interview with Luke Thomas pick up the June issue of VIP Magazine on shelves nationwide now