County: Kildare

Decades Active: 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s

About Damien Rice

Damien Rice was originally the singer for Juniper, a rock band which released the singles "The World Is Dead" and "Weatherman". On the eve of recording their first full album for Polygram in 1999, Rice became disenchanted with the commercial direction he felt pushed into by the label, and quit. His Juniper bandmates became Bell X1. He moved to rural Italy where he played acoustic guitar, wrote songs, and busked around Europe until he was able to form a band and get coffeeshop gigs in the Dublin area. Exploiting a lucky connection to David Arnold, his second cousin, Rice was able to record 'O', for which he won the Shortlist Music Prize in 2003. 'O' was a massive success going on to sell over 2 million copies and made Damien Rice a big name artist. The other members of the band at that time were Lisa Hannigan who added vocals guitar and bass; cellist Vyvienne Long; percussionist Tom Osander (aka: Tomo) a member of the groundbreaking 90's jam band God Street Wine; and bassist Shane Fitzsimons.

"The Blower's Daughter" and "Cold Water" were featured on the 2004 Mike Nichols film Closer. "Cold Water" was also featured in the TV drama ER , in the movies Stay, The Girl in the CafΘ , and I Am David. "Delicate" was featured in the movie Dear Frankie as well as on the TV dramas Lost, House, Alias and CSI: Miami and "Cannonball" was featured in the movie In Good Company, in the TV series The L Word and the dramedy The O.C.

In 2004, 'Cannonball' was re-mixed for UK radio to make it more radio-friendly. Rice later was reported to be very unhappy with it, saying to Tom Dunne on PetSounds (Today FM) that he did not "...really like it". He stated that he had allowed the remix to go through only if he signed a contract that would forbid anyone from ever remixing one of his songs ever again.

In 2004 and 2005 Rice worked on recording the follow-up to O. Damien's second studio album entitled '9' was released in November 2006. Tensions arose between Rice and his band mates and came to a head during the tour in support of 9. He parted ways with his girlfriend and collaborator Lisa Hannigan.

After eight years of various collaborations, Rice released his third studio album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy, featuring the first single "I Don't Want To Change You" in 2014 to critical acclaim. It was the first album he did without his former collaborator Lisa Hannigan. Much of the album was recorded in Iceland where Rice was living at the time. He brought in Rick Rubin as the producer and credits Rubin as an essential component on the album even though he wasn't present for the Reykjavik recording sessions.

Rice has contributed music to charitable projects such as Songs for Tibet, the Enough Project, the Freedom Campaign and Songs for Australia..

Video

Damien Rice – I Don’t Want To Change You


Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter


Damien Rice - Older Chests