Are you a musician?”, a woman asks Paddy Dennehy while he is queuing up to pay for petrol before this interview. Paddy is taken aback by this exchange.

Am I?”, he seems to want to reply.

But then again, why should he be surprised? While he has been a musician for years, the past year has qualified him to a status worthy of recognition. Numerous festival slots, opening for some of Ireland’s most worthy musicians including Mick Flannery and Imelda May, as well as a bucket list appearance on the Late Late Show have taken him beyond his humble beginnings, which weren’t always successful.

I did a Hot Press thing years ago when I was in college. It was just me and my sister, who was playing cello at the time and we didn’t win. I remember being so upset by it that I didn’t gig for years. I just said I’d wait, go away for a few years and wait until I thought I had some good songs.”

Well here we are. Good songs a’plenty, the most significant being Hard Times, a song that captures Paddy’s enthusiasm for history. Having been on location with his manager filming a video for a different song, Dennehy was regaled with local stories, including the tragic story of Winifred Barrington, a popular member of the landed class in 1920s Ireland who was killed by Irish Free Staters while spending time with a reviled Black and Tans officer Henry Biggs.

Confused by her murder, considering her popularity in the community, Paddy was intrigued: “Why would they have done that? So I went home and researched it. One of those too much free time scenarios”, he adds with a laugh. Paddy susses out that Biggs courted her as a means of protection, doubting that any rebels would take a shot at him if she was with him. But they did. Winifred was accidentally murdered during the course of this assault, along with Biggs.

Hard Times was almost like a love letter from Biggs to Winnie. The bridge of the song goes like “Oh my love is selfish and greedy when starved/ You should know better than to feed it when it cares not for who it scars”. It’s a really self-serving kind of love, if that exists.”

He performed this song on the Late Late Show in March, and is aware of the gravitas of this achievement. “There were people like “I think Paddy plays piano”, “I think he’s doing a gig or something”, then all of a sudden, you do that and it’s like “He’s a musician!”. The guys that book for the Late Late, if they think you’re good it kinda makes me less self-doubting. They could have gotten any band in Ireland really and they asked us which is nice.”

Was he nervous?

It’s not a nervousness because I know I can play the song but it’s that I would put so much on me for it to go well. Before I gig, I think “This has to go well. You’re gonna make sure this goes well. This is really important. Don’t fuck this up!” I’d put so much pressure on myself that it’s almost like a weight of expectation, not a nervousness.”

Since then himself and the band have released an eyebrow-raising cover of Toxic, a quintessential Britney Spears pop song from the ‘00s. Paddy doesn’t want to rest on his laurels. “I want to make sure it doesn’t all stay the same the whole time. It could totally happen, where it might sound like I’m trying too hard. Hopefully the guys will be able to sit me down and slap me. “We need to talk about the glockenspiels Paddy! They have to go. 17 is too many!”’, he says with a laugh.

So what’s next for the Limerick man? While an EP ‘Once Upon a Night’ is currently available, proud of it as he is, Dennehy believes it does not currently represent the band, which has changed a lot since its release. The next release, he says, will be a truer introduction to the band. He is not sure of when this will be, but he is excited about an upcoming video release for Hard Times, as well as a headlining show in Limerick’s musical Mecca, Dolans Warehouse.

The audience is growing. With a headlining slot coming up in Limerick in December, how would Paddy describe his music to those unfamiliar with him to entice them to attend? He pauses to reflect on this painful question. “If Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman all had a baby… with Billie Holiday”. He laughs uproariously at the thoughts of him being the progeny of some sort of musical swingers club, but quickly catches himself and adds more sincerely that “If somebody mentioned me within an asses roar of Tom Waits, I’d be quite pleased with that!”

Paddy-Waits-Cohen-Newman-Holiday-Dennehy and the Red Herring will be finishing off a busy year with a headlining show in Limerick, but there is also plenty of new music on the way. He should probably prepare for more friendly petrol encounters.