Behind the music - Nathan O'Regan

RTÉ News​

03-06-2025

Irish singer-songwriter Nathan O'Regan has released his new single, Better Days. We asked him the BIG questions . . .
It's the second track to be lifted from his forthcoming debut album Olive Branch, set for release 19 September on Belfast label Zenith Cafe Records.
Having just completed a support tour with Lucy Spraggan, Nathan will be performing at festivals over the summer before embarking on the Olive Branch tour in September and October, including a date at The Workmans Cellar, Dublin on 8 October and other Irish shows including Mullingar, Castlebar, Limerick and Belfast.
He wrote Better Day for his partner when she was pregnant with their first son.
"It was written just before we had Arthur, and we were living in this tiny little house just outside of Belfast. It felt like we were boxed in," he says.
"You couldn't step in a straight line, you were climbing over things to get anywhere, and we just didn't know where a baby was even going to fit. I just wanted to tell her everything was going to be ok eventually and to keep the faith."
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I was born in Cork but moved to Belfast when I left school. I'm the proud Dad of two little boys, Arthur, who's three and Oscar, who's five months old. I love cooking and think if I didn't work in music I would have wanted to work in a kitchen of some sort.
How would you describe your music?
I'm so incredibly bad at answering this question but I'll try: I try as much as I can to keep my lyrics conversational. If I can't imagine myself saying it, then I normally won't sing it either. Style wise, people have told me I sound a bit like James Morrison, Gregory Porter, Springsteen.
Most of the stuff that I think has informed the music I like making are probably from my Dad's record collection. Marc Cohn, Jackson Browne, Billy Joel all have left big impressions on me. Storytelling at its finest with the lyric front and centre at all times. More recently, I'm obsessed with Lake Street Dive, Leif Vollebekk, Stephen Wilson Jr, to name a few.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
Eric Clapton Live At The Marquee in Cork. I think I was about 14 or 15. I remember the day of the gig, I had the flu or something similar working on me and my Mum thought I shouldn't go but I was adamant that I wasn't going to miss it. We went really early to get near the front and about 20 mins into Clapton's set, it was so hot in there that I fainted. I remember waking up being carried by a paramedic who was screaming "WHAT DID YOU TAKE?" at me. Their instincts were correct so I replied honestly, "two Lemsips."
What was the first record you ever bought?
American Idiot by Green Day, followed quickly by everything else they'd released. I used to sit for hours with them on repeat and try and work out the guitar parts. I was obsessed
What's your favourite song right now?
This is going to sound super specific, but right now its a song called Dela by Johnny Clegg. We've been letting our son Arthur watch some movies and he's obsessed with George Of The Jungle and there's a scene at the end where that song plays and he absolutely loves it. It's the first non-nursery rhyme song that he genuinely loves and it brings me a lot of joy watching him dance around and sing it. I'm not sure if I love the song or if I just love that we're not being asked to play Baby Shark all day long anymore, but in any case, it's a banger!
Favourite lyric of all time?
I have too many to pick just one, but the first one that comes to mind is from a song called Elegy by Leif Vollebekk where he sings, "Gonna find a way to climb out of this basement / Gonna find out what that smile on your face meant." More just from a place of being a fan of songwriting than what that specifically means, but I've never heard someone rhyme "basement" with "face meant" before and it completely blew me away! It's pretty elite stuff I thought.