Margaret Malandruccolo Alan Doyle, the iconic Newfoundlander and former frontman of Great Big Sea, is back with his sixth solo studio album, “Welcome Home.” The record, his 20th overall, showcases Doyle’s evolution as an artist, blending his signature rollicking party tracks with more intimate, personal compositions. In an exclusive interview held on a typical rainy Newfoundland day, Doyle opens up about his musical journey, the new album, and his enduring connection to his Newfoundland roots.
“Welcome Home is probably my most personal album to date,” Doyle reveals. “It’s really my first dad song. The first track, ‘Yours and Mine,’ is about my son who’s about to turn 18. It expresses the feeling many parents have – hoping you’ve prepared your kids enough to go out on their own, but knowing somewhere in the back of their minds and hearts that you’re always with them.”
The album sees Doyle collaborating with notable artists such as Jimmy Rankin, Donovan Woods, and Oscar Isaac. “They’re all very talented and productive people,” Doyle explains. “Jimmy has been a writing hero of mine since his days in the Rankin Family. Donovan is probably the person I’ve written the most songs with in the last decade. Oscar and I met on a film set in the UK in 2009, and we started writing songs together for various projects.”
Reflecting on his musical roots, Doyle credits his upbringing in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, for shaping his unique sound. “I grew up in a very traditional Newfoundland Irish music, Celtic music community,” he says. “It wasn’t some weird romantic leap for me to include an accordion in a song. That’s what we had. We didn’t have drums or electric guitars. We had accordions, fiddles, bodhráns, and whistles. When I’m not thinking about it, I don’t sing twelve-bar blues songs like somebody from Detroit or Chicago might. I sing six-eight sea shanties. That’s where my mind goes first.”
Doyle’s journey from a small fishing village to international stardom with Great Big Sea is a testament to the power of authentic storytelling through music. “We came along at a time when people were very hungry for something homey and real, and we were nothing but homey and real,” he recalls. “We were writing songs about Petty Harbour and tiny little fishing communities in Newfoundland. I think it was so specific that the genuineness registered with people.”
The success of Great Big Sea inadvertently turned Doyle and his bandmates into ambassadors for Newfoundland. “We never set out to become ambassadors for the place,” Doyle admits. “It all happened because we got popular at a time when it was really beneficial for Newfoundland to have some popular people. By the 1990s, we’d been in Canada for a generation and a half, maybe two generations, and we still weren’t anything much more than a ‘Newfie’ joke book in the country.”
Doyle believes that artists from Newfoundland played a crucial role in reshaping the province’s image within Canada. “I think the people in the arts community had a huge role to play in that reimagining of what Newfoundland is in Canada,” he says. “Between the musicians like ourselves and comedians like Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh, we got some airtime and occupied the Canadian pastime in a way that didn’t fit those stereotypes or joke books at all.”
The singer-songwriter’s love for his homeland is evident in his music and his personal life. “I’ve only ever lived here,” Doyle shares. “I moved 15 km in my life. I grew up in Petty Harbour, and I moved to St. John’s, and I’ve lived here ever since. But I travel a lot, and I’ve always wanted to come home. It’s a national pastime, arguably an obsession, for the diaspora of Newfoundlanders spread across the country to have this holy land, this Mecca that they need to return to.”
Doyle’s songwriting often draws from the rich storytelling tradition of Newfoundland. “That totally comes from a foundation in traditional music,” he explains. “For my parents’ generation growing up on the southern shore, they recorded their history in songs. So, they are vivid and tell stories, and they have funny characters in them because they’re actually about real people and events.”
The unique language and expressions of Newfoundland also find their way into Doyle’s music. “I love that we have our own language,” he says. “It’s unusual in North America for a place to have this distinct a tongue as we do. But of course, in the older parts of Europe, that’s not unusual at all. You go 20 km down the road, and they don’t sound anything like they do up there. They speak a different language altogether.”
Doyle’s live performances are legendary for their energy and audience engagement. “It’s how I started,” he explains. “I’ve always wanted to be in a band for a living. I never spent my young life dreaming of recording a record. I wanted to be in concerts. That’s what I did it for. That’s what I thought it was, and that’s never left me. It’s probably the only reason I do any of it – so I get to play concerts with my friends in front of a group of people, and we have a night out.”
The artist’s passion for live performance is palpable. “The joy of playing live is not something I have to conjure up,” Doyle enthuses. “I’m often asked, ‘How do you get up for concerts?’ And it’s like, get up for concerts? I got to talk myself down for concerts. I’ve got to calm myself before I go out there. If you’ve been at it like me for a few decades and you’re not excited about doing a concert, you’re probably in the wrong business.”
Doyle’s versatility extends beyond music. He’s also an author, actor, and producer. “If you’re lucky like me and you have a life in the arts, you end up having friends that are primarily actors or filmmakers or painters or dancers,” he says. “Every now and again, one of them asks you to join them in some project they’re doing, to contribute a song for one of their films or to play a role in one of their theater productions. Almost all the other things beyond playing concerts and making songs have come to me that way.”
Reflecting on his diverse career, Doyle remains humble and grateful. “It’s been a lucky ride so far,” he says. “I got to shoot a movie with Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott and Cate Blanchett. That’s like getting to play a shift of hockey with Wayne Gretzky or something.”
As for the future, Doyle is excited about the upcoming “Welcome Home” tour. “The tour will take me to play everywhere that will have me,” he shares. “There are usually five legs to get to play everywhere. We’ve done two of them already. We did one mostly in Canada in the winter, and then I just finished one that was all in the US, on the eastern side of the US and the northeast.”
The tour will continue through 2025, with Doyle already planning his next project. “My plan, without knowing much about it yet, is to do at least one more cycle of it,” he says. “Sometime in the next 18 months, I’ll do another EP or a record or concert or whatever sort of main project that dictates that we’ve got to go out and do all this again.”
As Alan Doyle embarks on this new chapter of his career, he remains true to his roots while continuing to evolve as an artist. His journey from a small Newfoundland fishing village to international stardom is a testament to the power of authentic storytelling and the enduring appeal of music that speaks from the heart. With “Welcome Home,” Doyle invites listeners to join him on a musical voyage that celebrates both his past and his future, proving once again why he remains one of Canada’s most beloved and enduring musical talents.
Go to alandoyle.ca to find out where he’ll be playing next.
