richard hiorns
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Biography
I was born in the late 1960's in a small town near Birmingham, England. I started writing lyrics and poetry in 1980 and shortly afterwards began to tinker around on a nylon string guitar, singing, and writing songs. I played in several bands during the early 80's, usually singing my own songs and playing 12-string guitar. In the late 80's I played lead guitar for a glam/goth band in Coventry, 'Poison Flowers'. The band never amounted to anything but played a few gigs around Coventry and made an independently released self titled ep. After this band split up, in 1987, I went back to writing my own songs again and recorded several lo-fi album cassettes.
In 1990/91 I indulged in my Irish roots and learned about 300 Irish ballads which I played in pubs and clubs around the English midlands. In 1994 I took it a step further and moved to Galway, Ireland where I continued to perform. The album "Hungry Sea," comprised of original songs written with an Irish ballad influence, was completed in September of that year.
The period 1996 to 1998 saw my most prolific songwriting to date. The albums 'Adventures of the Peroxide Twins', ' Falling Dice', and the experimental piece 'Darwin and the Snake Charmer', were all written during this period, along with many other songs that didn't make it onto any of these albums. I also wrote the music for 'Jackdaw', a spoken word album featuring the poetry of Steve Tuohy set to 12-string guitar. The piece was performed live at several venues around Galway, Ireland in 1998.
Towards the end of 1998 I moved to the U.S -- first to Ohio, and then the following year to Miami, Florida. It was in Miami that I wrote most of the album "Runaways" and played at various venues including a regular spot at O'Caseys Irish bar. In 2001, I moved with my wife to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001. Influenced by the new surroundings, my music took on a somewhat western feel with a touch of Flamenco on the album "Sand". It was here also that I set up a desktop recording studio, and started the slow process of re-recording earlier works.
Returning to Ireland in 2003, I upgraded the home studio which led to the 2005 album 'Pieces of Earth' featuring David Brosnan on bass and Andile Meshack on saxophone for some of the songs.I began putting my music on the web in early 2005, launching richardhiorns.com.
I moved back to the U.S in 2006, settling in the Bay Area, California, where I am currently based. A new album, "Nothing easy", was released in May 2007.
Note on names: Between 1991 and around 1996 I performed and recorded under the name Richard Buckley, Buckley being my mothers maiden name. From around 1998 to 2001 the stage name was Richard Hyorns, a deliberate misspelling of Hiorns. These name changes were due mainly to the fact that few people could pronounce Hiorns. The problem was that nobody could pronounce Hyorns properly either. To avoid confusion, both to others and myself, the name is now permanently Richard Hiorns. Pronounced high uns, as in high uns and low uns.... or however anybody feels like pronouncing it really.
Copyright Richard Hiorns 2007