David James - the Killea singer who is the newest 'big thing' in country music

In the last few weeks alone, he has launched a new band, new single and won a prestigious award.

A former student of St. Columb’s College, David is no stranger to people across Derry and Donegal.

Not only does he attract hundreds of fans to local venues, he is also a popular DJ on top Donegal station Highland Radio.

It’s hard to know how he finds the time to fit it all in, but, speaking to the Journal this week, David says he’s delighted to be busy.

In fact, he’s just back from a cruise around the Carribbean with other top music acts like Daniel O’Donnell and Nathan Carter, following which he was back on his radio show and then went back ‘on the road’.

His new single ‘Friday Night Feelin’ was released to much acclaim last Friday. Based on ‘basically every young person’s Friday night – finishing work and hitting the town’ he co-wrote it with his new manager, John Farry.

It follows hot on the heels of his last single, a re-work of the song ‘God Bless The Farmers,’ which recently won him the ‘Best Single’ accolade at the Northern Ireland Country Music Awards.

From a farming background, David released the song as a ‘tribute to his uncles’ and was ‘over the moon,’ with the reaction.

"It was an old country music song that we completely redid. All my mum’s side of the house are farmers. We grew up on the family farm and have the house beside it. I wanted to do it as a tribute to my uncles and it got a massive reaction. I was delighted with the award. It’s nice to get recognised in a capacity like that for the work you do.”

With his success growing over the last while, David decided he needed his own band.

"Over the last couple of years I’ve been working with a sub-hire band called The Ryan Turner band. They were very good and I absolutely loved working with them. But, it was getting to the stage where my diary was getting busier and they also have a really busy diary. It was getting impossible to merge them. I decided the only way to move forward and also to advance my career was to put my own band together.

"We launched it on February 1 and I’m absolutely loving it."

The five-piece band come from all around Ireland and his musical director is the renowned Jim McVeigh, who has worked with many other big names.

“It’s great working with them as we can work on creating our own individual sound. We’ve had a great reaction. And we’ve a really busy couple of months ahead, so it’s all good.”

His ‘dream,’ he adds, would be to play Derry's Millennium Forum.

"It’s unbelievable being on stage. When we launched on February 1 in the Allingham Hotel I went on stage and the place was rammed. It was just unreal.”

David has huge respect for the ‘great team of people’ around him, including his management, band and road crew.

“It takes everyone to make the show happen.”

He describes his music as ‘a real mix’.

"While it’s maybe branded as country music, there are lots of different genres of music throughout the shows. We have 60s, 70s and 80s, up to modern pop and some Irish folk.”

David’s music and the artists he loves have gained him many fans on Highland Radio, who, he says are ‘very good’ to him.

“I love doing the show.”

He’s also working on a new album, which is about “60% done” and will be released later this year. He’s also involved with the hugely-popular TG4 show Glor Tire.

"We’re off to a really good start this year. We’ve been really lucky and have got lots planned for later in the year. We’re doing lots of dances and have a really busy festival period coming up. It’s going at seven days a week all the time, but it’s a good complaint to have.”