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Biography
I was born in the late 1960's in
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England. I started writing lyrics and
poetry in 1980 and shortly afterwards began to tinker around on a nylon
string guitar, singing, and writing songs. I played in several bands
during the early 80's, usually singing my own songs and playing
12-string guitar. In the late 80's I played lead guitar for a glam/goth
band in Coventry, 'Poison Flowers'. The band never amounted to anything
but played a few gigs around Coventry and made an independently released
self titled ep. After this band split up, in 1987, I went back to
writing my own songs again and recorded several lo-fi album cassettes.
In 1990/91 I indulged in my Irish roots (mother from Dublin) and
learned about 300 Irish ballads which I played in pubs and clubs around
the English midlands. In 1994 I took it a step further and moved to
Galway, Ireland where I continued to perform. The album "Hungry Sea,"
comprised of original songs written with an Irish ballad influence, was
completed in September of that year.
The period 1996 to 1998 saw my most prolific songwriting to date.
The albums 'Adventures of the Peroxide Twins', ' Falling Dice', and the
experimental piece 'Darwin and the Snake Charmer', were all written
during this period, along with many other songs that didn't make it onto
any of these albums. I also wrote the music for 'Jackdaw', a spoken
word album featuring the poetry of Steve Tuohy set to 12-string guitar.
The piece was performed live at several venues around Galway, Ireland in
1998.
Towards the end of 1998 I moved to the U.S -- first to Ohio, and
then the following year to Miami, Florida. It was in Miami that I wrote
most of the album "Runaways" and played at various venues including a
regular spot at O'Caseys Irish bar. In 2001, I moved with my then wife to
Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001. Influenced by the new surroundings, my
music took on a somewhat western feel with a touch of Flamenco on the
album "Sand". It was here also that I set up a desktop recording studio,
and started the slow process of re-recording earlier works.
Returning to Ireland in 2003, I upgraded the home studio which led
to the 2005 album 'Pieces of Earth' featuring David Brosnan on bass and
Andile Meshack on saxophone for some of the songs.I began putting my
music on the web in early 2005, launching richardhiorns.com.
I moved back to the U.S in 2006, in the Bay Area, California, recording
the album 'Nothing Easy' in 2007 followed by the latest release,
'February' at the end of 2008. I returned to England in 2009 and made a new album, 'i-dentity' in 2010.
Note on names: Between 1991 and around 1996 I performed and recorded
under the name Richard Buckley, Buckley being my mothers maiden name.
From around 1998 to 2001 the stage name was Richard Hyorns, a deliberate
misspelling of Hiorns. These name changes were due mainly to the fact
that few people could pronounce Hiorns. The problem was that nobody
could pronounce Hyorns properly either. To avoid confusion, both to
others and myself, the name is now permanently Richard Hiorns.
Pronounced high uns, as in high uns and low uns.... or however anybody
feels like pronouncing it really.
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