Musician has a novel internet concept for funding new album

A Mullingar musician who has written the songs, lined up the musicians, and booked the studio time for his next album, is hoping that a novel internet concept will enable his fans help him over the final hurdle.What is that final hurdle?Well, like many singer/songwriters, the word struggling goes before the job description for Peter Doran, and that hurdle involves amassing the funding required to get his album beyond concept.However, following the example set 11 years ago by the UK band Marillion, Peter is asking his fans to make online pledges to help meet the cost of this, his third album.Via the website pledgemusic.com/projects/peterdoran, fans can pledge as little as €10 - which will get them a full digital download of the new album they will have helped into being, along with a PDF document with lyrics and artwork, and some extra bits and pieces that the normal album buyer won't get.The system is tiered upwards, so, for example, someone who pledges €200 could find themselves one of just three proud owners of a piece of Peter's guitar."This year, my beautiful Martin acoustic was ruined in a car crash. I used this guitar heavily on both my previous records," explains Peter.For €500, he will write you a song; for €1m, fans can, he promises, have exclusive rights to his soul!To date, he has received 70 pledges, which have brought him 58% of the way towards his target. He has only 10 days from today (Wednesday) to reach the rest.The deal with the site is if he doesn't reach 100% within the target time, he gets nothing. If he gets more than 100% of what he needs, a percentage of the excess will go to Oxfam Ireland.IllegalAn aspect of the internet gets a bad press in music circles, is the fact that illegal filesharing and downloading of music deprives artists of payment - but, for an independent artist such as Peter, as well as the opportunities that sites such as pledgemusic.com provide, there are many other positives.For example, his album producer is an Italian whom he came to know online, and who is now, in real life, a firm friend whose home in Italy Peter has visited.For the drumming on some tracks, he will be using the services of a US drummer he doesn't know, but who will add to the recording from Grouse Lodge the exact drumming sounds Peter wants, with a turnaround of only around 24 hours.It's an exciting time for Peter, a native of Clonmore, who, although still only 28, has spent 10 years honing his craft - five of them full-time.He loves what he does. Then again, he'd want to love what he does, for it's not easy being an independent artist - especially in a land that is recession-obsessed - not, mind you, that the word recession crosses Peter's lips over the course of his Westmeath Examiner interview.Growing up, from the age of 11, Peter's life was always going to be about music, as it was back then that his cousin Paddy Gavin got him into the electric guitar, and he was immediately hooked."My dad, Brendan, did play a bit when he was younger, and there's a good few in the family who played music. My uncle, Anthony (Doran), was in The Blizzards," he says."Also, my father was a good friend of Vinny Baker, and he took me under his wing and pointed me in the right direction, so when I was a teenager, it was just guitar, guitar, guitar,"By 14, he was doing his first gigs, at The Stables in Dominick Street.Alongside music, Peter had a passion for reading - and in his teens he began the obvious move into writing his own songs, not a great surprise when he lists the great influences on his music - Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits, and from at home here, Damien Rice and Fionn Regan.When he finished school, he could have headed the college route, but jumped at the chance of a job in Heartbeat City. "It was great: you got to listen to all the music, and you got to know all the people in the town who were interested in music," he recalls.Mullingar is a good town for music, Peter believes: it's lively, and there's always some sort of activity."It seems to go up and down, and sometimes it seems like there's a hundred bands. So it would be in flux."He usually performs solo, but sometimes with a band, and lined up from the talent currently playing in Mullingar to help Peter on the new album are Ricky Byrne, Nicky Brennan and Brian Murphy.Everything is written; there've been some rehearsals, and they're on target for their Grouse Lodge date. While Peter has written all the songs, he stresses that once the other musicians get involved, the work becomes collaborative."I do write by myself, for the most part, but when it comes to the band situation, everyone throws in their own ideas. I can think as the songwriter, but I can't think like a drummer, or a bass player, so it's about trusting the guys who work with you to bring your song to the right place."Once the album is made, Peter has to get it out there, known, played, sold.He's been there before, and knows how tough it is. Having some guaranteed pre-sales (through the online pledges) removes some of the headache, but it's going to be down to Peter to get word of the new album out there somehow."You don't do this if you don't enjoy it," he laughs: "It's not all glamour!"Peter's next Mullingar gig is for 'Pledgers', and takes place on February 24 in the Kitchen Bar at John Daly's pub.• See peterdoran.com. To make a pledge in support of the new album, check out: pledgemusic.com/projects/peterdoran.