The Ennis Brothers

It looks like Dublin 4 may have two new stars on the horizon in the form of local music duo Owen and Matt Ennis. The Ringsend two-piece have gained significant traction online with their cover versions and updates of their original material.

The two lads have been singing since they were kids, and while they were students at Marian College they were taken under the wing of one of their teachers, who taught them how to harmonise.

Their music is a unique blend of pop, country and rock, with their main musical influences stemming from The Everly Brothers to The Script and contemporary country.

The duo features Owen on guitar and Matt on guitar and piano, with both performing vocals. They have been developing their act for several years now and have starred in numerous competitions, most notably RTE show Class Act when they were 16. It was here that they met current manager Julian Benson, an Irish talent scout who served as a judge on the show.

The pair are currently working on their original songs with producer Greg French, whose credentials include being the songwriter for Molly Sterling’s 2015 Eurovision song entry.

“Our manager put us in contact with Greg,” Owen and Matt told NewsFour. “We’re trying to hone our sound with him, and make our song babies come to life!”

Anyone hoping to find out more about the Ennis Brothers can access their output online on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. In fact, the band recently put up their first music video, which can be viewed on Facebook, a cover version of the song ‘Demons’ by the band Imagine Dragons. The band’s Facebook page has recently been inundated with positive feedback and their page has received over a thousand ‘Likes’ over the past two weeks. However, despite their array of cover versions, Owen and Matt have over 50 original tracks of their own, with five of them already fully produced in Westland Studios, where they shot their video.

“We picked the Imagine Dragons song because it was something that I don’t think people would have expected us to have done,” Owen and Matt said. “We’re songwriters and serious musicians above anything else; we’re not a cover band and we are serious about our originals.”

The two lads are currently in the process of putting their originals online and hope that they can reach dizzy heights over the next few years. They have been the benefactors of an online groundswell of acclaim and have also received a lot of positive reaction from the local community, and over the years the lads have played several venues in the area.

“People in the area have been great; whenever we’ve played gigs people have always supported us,” they told NewsFour. “We’re trying to build up our profile and the support has been great. We want to do as many gigs as possible, hopefully people will like our original music, and that we can do this full-time, that’s the dream I suppose, and hopefully in the future we can go on to play the big arenas.”

By Craig Kinsella