Gaelic Storm - History

History

Gaelic Storm's origins can be traced back to 1996, when Patrick Murphy and Steve Wehmeyer joined with Steve Twigger and Uillean piper Brian Walsh to perform at O'Brien's Irish Pub and Restaurant in Santa Monica, California, of which Murphy was the manager. This led to a number of pub performances for the next year.

In 1997, Gaelic Storm appeared in the film Titanic as the steerage band, performing "An Irish Party in Third Class". This catapulted them into touring, where they were met with extreme success and popularity. They have toured throughout the United States and Canada, in the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

To this date, Gaelic Storm tours aggressively, and plays over 125 dates a year. It has also put out eight albums since its inception, including the compilation album Special Reserve. The band is notable for its energetic rendering of traditional Irish music and Scottish traditional music, and for its albums which repeatedly top the Billboard world music charts.

Gaelic Storm's fifth album, How Are We Getting Home?, was released in August 2004 and debuted at #3 on the Billboard World Music Charts, #10 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and re-entered the September 2005 World Albums Chart at #3. "Gaelic Storm". http://gaelicstorm.musiccitynetworks.com/index.htm?id=5737&sid=5431. Retrieved 2007-11-13. The band's sixth album Bring Yer Wellies was released on July 25, 2006 and debuted at #2 on the Billboard World Chart, #16 on the Internet Sales Chart and #31 on the Independent Album Chart. The next album of Gaelic Storm was released on July 8, 2008, titled "What's the Rumpus?" released by their own label, Lost Again Records. It reached #1 on the Billboard World Chart.

Over its history, the band has replaced its fiddle player a few times, its drummer once, and added Highland, Uilleann, and Deger (electronic) bagpipes to its instrumentation.

In January 2006 the band released its first DVD titled "Gaelic Storm: Live In Chicago". The show was filmed live at the House of Blues in Chicago.

A Simlish version of the song, Scalliwag, from the album Bring Yer Wellies was recorded and featured on the World music channel in the expansion pack, The Sims 2: Bon Voyage, for the popular PC Game, The Sims 2.

Gaelic Storm also includes: Ryan Lacey on drums and world percussion (graduated twice from the Los Angeles Music Academy, once for hands and once for sticks), Pete Purvis of Merrickville, Ontario on uilleann pipes, tin whistle, deger pipes and highland pipes (a Grade 1 piper who toured with award winning pipe bands including the Braemar Pipe Band and played at 2000 Sydney Olympics) and the newest member of the band Jessie Burns on fiddle (originally from Suffolk, England, now living in Colorado)."

In 2012, Jessie Burns left the band to start a family and was replaced on fiddle by Kiana Weber.