What a difference a year can make. In the summer of 2023, the Irish folk trio, Amble - Co Longford’s Ross McNerney, Co Leitrim’s Robbie Cunningham and Co Sligo’s Oisin McCaffrey – had known each other for what the Irish call a ‘wet day’ when a phone call from Los Angeles changed their lives. They weren’t to know it then, but their day jobs (respectively, a secondary school teacher, a primary school teacher, and a data scientist) were soon to end.
What a difference a year can make. In the summer of 2023, the Irish folk trio, Amble - Co Longford’s Ross McNerney, Co Leitrim’s Robbie Cunningham and Co Sligo’s Oisin McCaffrey – had known each other for what the Irish call a ‘wet day’ when a phone call from Los Angeles changed their lives. They weren’t to know it then, but their day jobs (respectively, a secondary school teacher, a primary school teacher, and a data scientist) were soon to end.
Amble’s jump from relative obscurity to signing to a major label isn’t the usual story, however. There were no canny strategies for world domination, no ruthless plans to undercut the opposition, no aching ambitions to match a billion streams. Rather, there was (and is) a ‘less is more’ approach within which the most important elements are the music and the wholesome enjoyment of playing it.