The members of Hilsgaelic are bringing a new sound to Hillsdale’s campus.
Erin Osborne | Collegian

What do you do with a drunken sailor early in the morning? According to the new band Hillsgaelic, the answer is simple: sing about him.

“There’s a distinct lack of Irish music on campus,” lead singer and sophomore Colin Joyce said. “There have been a couple of nights where a bunch of guys just stand around the fire, screaming Irish ballads. We really love Irish music.”

The band is mostly made up of members of the Mu Alpha men’s music fraternity. Freshman fiddler and Mu Alpha member Tobin Sommerville started the band, which features senior Matthew Welch on lead guitar, junior Gabe Kottkamp on percussion and backup vocals, and freshman Julian Burchard on bass guitar.

Some of the band members, such as Charlie Reamsnyder, joined only two days before Hillsgaelic’s first performance at the SAI benefit concert.

“Charlie plays the bodhrán, which is the Irish frame drum,” Sommerville said. “He heard about us a few days earlier, joined us at the practice before the show, and nailed it immediately.”

Another change before the show was the addition of Gail Kunze, who took the place of lead soprano and freshman Tully Mitchell.

“Tully got laryngitis and Gale was able to step in at the last minute,” Sommerville said. 

In spite of the mishap, Hillsgaelic won “crowd favorite” at the concert.

“They were very upbeat and performed with full energy,” SAI member and sophomore Kat Surkan said. 

Hillsgaelic incorporated introductions to each song in their performance, explaining the type of song and its contents. The band also included a theatrical element in their performance, in which Colin Joyce’s brother Luke Joyce acted out the scene described in the song “Finnegan’s Wake.” 

“Luke brought out a ladder and acted out the song, which was very amusing,” Surkan said. “It was about a workman who climbed a ladder and fell off and lay still. The band then covered him with a blanket since they thought he was dead and gave him whiskey. He then got up and drank with his friends again!”

Hillsgaelic also played “The Devil Down Below,” the “Dreadnaught,” and “Over the Hills and Far Away.”

“We love playing generally Irish music,” Joyce said. “Basically, if it sounds good with string instruments, percussion, and vocals, then we’ll play it.”

The band practices once a week, and hopes to play at Mu Alpha’s end of year concert as well as Rough Draft at some point in the future.

The band members have a passion for Irish music, in part because of their heritage.

“We’re six Irish guys and one Irish lass, so we really try to get into the music,” Joyce said.

Sommerville has played the violin for 14 years, and the fiddle for seven. He led an Irish band with his father and twin brother called The Copper Celts.

“The reason my brother and father and I started The Copper Celts was because of an Irish band that we saw at a Norwegian festival in Sweden,” Sommerville said. “We were there on a trip with a Finnish folk dance group, and heard them play and thought that it seemed like a lot of fun.”

The Copper Celts performed about five times during the two and a half years that it was active, and often played together in more casual settings. 

“I really missed playing Irish music,” Sommerville said. “A couple of the members of Mu Alpha are aggressively Irish, and expressed interest in an Irish band after hearing me play fiddle with Matthew Welch last semester.”