Irish folk group hit Hollywood heights with soundtrack to hit horror film Sinners

Sunday World

24-05-2025

High Kings thrilled as young fans check them out after hearing songs in Michael B Jordan movie
Brian and Darren with their wives Anne and Michelle at the London premiere of Sinners
Singer Darren Holden of top Irish folk group The High Kings reveals how their American fans have soared in numbers since being featured on the soundtrack of smash-hit movie Sinners.
Band members Darren and Brian Dunphy, a son of former showband star and Irish Eurovision representative Sean Dunphy, sing The Rocky Road To Dublin and Will You Go Lassie Go on the movie's soundtrack.
Kilkenny man Holden, who starred in Riverdance and Billy Joel's Movin' Out musical, reveals that they got sprinkled with the magic dust of Hollywood thanks to Sinners' composer and executive producer Ludwig Göransson being a fan of The High Kings.
Ryan Coogler, who wrote, produced and directed the horror movie, grew up surrounded by Irish folk music as his father was a fan.
The High Kings on stage
And both Holden and Dunphy with their wives were guests at the European premiere of Sinners in London's Leicester Square last month.
Darren tells the Sunday World: 'Ludwig was telling everybody about the band in London at the premiere, he was introducing us as his favourite band.
'We are getting 50,000 hits a day now on Spotify and my Spotify has gone to almost 800,000 listeners a month on the strength of my involvement in the soundtrack, with the band just under a million.
'Since Sinners came out, TikTok and all social media has completely blown up for us. Kids are now coming to see the show. We were in America last week for a week of concerts and our numbers are gone through the roof.
Michael B Jordan in Sinners
'There were people standing along the sides of one of the venues because there were no seats. The movie has brought glamour to the band, it really has.'
Holden tells how multi-Grammy and Oscar winner Göransson approached The High Kings about working on the soundtrack of Sinners, with stars including Michael B Jordan and Jack O'Connell, whose late father Johnny was from Ballyheigue, Co Kerry.
'Ludwig and his wife Serena was reaching out to us sporadically over the last six months,' Darren reveals. 'They were in contact with Brian and myself asking about Irish music.
"When they were sourcing Irish music for the movie they asked who is the top folk band in Ireland at the moment. They said it was our name that was predominantly given back to them, so they wanted to have conversations with us,
Brian Dunphy, Ludwig Göransson and Darren Holden
'We were just helping them find songs and making sure that they had the right songs for the movie. At that point there was no talk of us singing on it, it hadn't even been brought up.
'When we played The Troubadour in Los Angeles at the end of March, Ludwig came to our show with his assistant. Afterwards Brian and I spoke to him and he was a very friendly guy, really personable and really into our band's music.
'He told us that when they were researching music for the movie our name kept cropping up on everybody's lips, which was amazing to be told that after all these years. So that's why he reached out.
Darren Holden of The High Kings with Ludwig Göransson's Oscars
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'The following day we had an NBC television appearance and afterwards we got a call, myself and Brian, to go over to Ludwig's studio in Glendale, Los Angeles.
'We thought we were just going over to hang out with him, but he dimmed all the lights in the studio, played us the scenes from the movie that Rocky Road To Dublin and Will You Go Lassie Go was going into.
'We were blown away by the scenes. He said, 'What do you think?' We said, 'That's perfect placement.' He said, 'Well, now it's ready for you guys to sing on.'
A packed out High Kings show
'Brian and I looked at each other and you could see we were both thinking, 'this is insane!' So we put our voices on Rocky Road To Dublin with Jack O'Connell, a vampire in the movie. Then some of the other actors were singing on Will You Go Lassie Go and we swapped verses on that.
'And that was it really. We sort of left LA on a high, but we had no idea that the movie was going to be so big. We did know that it was a major movie because on our way to the airport we kept seeing billboards for Sinners, even though it hadn't been finished.'
Sinners is on course to rack up €300 million in worldwide ticket sales — a record reached by few original films in the genre.
Brian and Darren with their wives Anne and Michelle at the London premiere of Sinners
'Brian and myself, with our respective wives Anne and Michelle, got invited to the European premiere in London and we were treated like absolute royalty,' Darren adds.
'All the actors from the movie were there and it was like being in a dream. Ludwig told us that night that we are on the soundtrack of the movie, which is a double vinyl album that is coming out in a couple of weeks.
'We are definitely living the dream at the moment. We are getting talked about again in a cool way. It's always the younger Irish bands like Amber and Kingfishr that get mentioned in the media, but we have been thrown in there on a couple of pieces I saw recently.
'We'll try and sustain it as long as we can because we are enjoying it now more than ever before.'