Biography
"Sean Millar is an Irish national treasure. Brilliant caustic acoustic rock’n’roll ...truly awesome" Irish Times
Sean a.k.a Doctor Millar began his career as lead singer and main songwriter in The Cute Hoors
- a fast, thrashy, literate, Irish rock and roll band, with whom he toured Ireland Britain and mainland Europe. They managed not to die. They split in 1992….
In 1996 Sean Millar was nominated solo performer of the year at the Heineken hotpress awards (along with Van Morrison, Paul Brady and Gavin Friday).
Sean Millar’s first album “The Bitter lie” was recently voted one of the Best Irish Albums of all time by both Today FM and The Sunday Tribune. His second album “The Deal” “was one of the Sunday Times top five albums of the year in 1998. His third album “Always coming home”, prompted The Irish Times, in its five star review, to proclaim him “an Irish national treasure”.
He has toured in Ireland, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Norway and Denmark and in the United States and Canada and been the subject of major media features in all the main Irish publications. He has performed on countless TV and radio shows both in Ireland and abroad.
Sean released his Best Of compilation album ‘Tarzans Ambition’ to the kind of press that most artists dream of. International reviews of Sean’s albums and concerts have crowned him as ‘the greatest living Irish song writer’ while in Ireland his cult status and critical reputation are apparent with so many incredible reviews to his name - see press page for more.
In recent times Sean has been stretching his artistic abilities in many directions to great success. In early 2010, Sean took his music to Sweden where he included some concerts in prisons as well as regular venues. ‘You just can’t let things go’ a short film by Fake Dog Films, based on one of Sean’s songs, is now touring film festivals around the world. Gavin Friday recently lent his vocals recently to Preachers Sons’ reworking of Sean’s song ‘O Lipstick’. His songs have been covered live by Nina Hynes, Jack L, Camille O’ Sullivan, Joe Chester, and Tom Dunne to name but a few.
As a composer, Sean has gained widespread acclaim for his theatre show ‘Silver Stars’ in Project for the Bealtaine Festival in 2008 and Dublin Theatre Festival in 2009. It was listed in the Irish Times critics round-up for both years as one of the music and theatre events of the year. In early 2010, the show dipped its toes into American soil when it ran for 2 weeks in New York at the Public Theatre to controversial acclaim. ‘Silver Stars’ will open in Paris on June 4th 2010 for 2 nights and then move to Finland on August 6th.
Sean co-produced Nick Kelly’s ’05 album ‘Running Dog’ alongside Joe Chester while as an actor, he played the supporting role as the ‘bank manager’ alongside Glen Hansard in the Oscar winning film ‘Once’.
Sean uses his music everyday to reach people, through his work as a collaborative artist in communities in Dublin’s inner city, using words and music to help people express, often for the first time, their innermost feelings on the re-development of their surroundings. One of the many projects he has been involved in as a musician is Tower Songs, a city wide arts project helping to make visible the collective memory and experience of a number of Dublin communities as they make the transition from tower block living, via major urban regeneration initiatives in Fatima Mansions and Rialto.
As a highly recognised composer, performer and producer, Sean Millar’s career as a musician has spanned the last 2 decades. It is fitting that his new album ‘Of the people’ is released at the start of this new decade. Sean’s sharp wit and intelligent lyrics shine forth on every song of his new self-produced collection of 10 songs.
Sean presents “the Hot Press Hot spot’ each week on East Coast FM in Bray Co Wicklow - one of the most respected rock shows on the air www.eastcoast.fm.