Seanchai & The Unity Squad

Success for a band can only truly be judged by one criteria - the magical ability to touch people's souls through music. Long after one-hit wonders fade away, Seanchai and the Unity Squad soar, both in being judged a success and in their ability to touch, and maybe even capture, listeners' souls. Words and sounds that mix age-old history and today's mind-bending events into the same line of musical poetry are the hallmark of the Seanchai. Seanchai & The Unity Squad unleash exactly that with every performance.

Like an actor that cannot be typecast, the music of Seanchai & the Unity Squad has no parameters. The length and breadth in age, locale and previous musical preference of their extensive and passionate fan base is ready testament to that magic that they generate each time they take the stage. The Irish poet has found a new platform, in a new age, and the echoes of the Irish passion for speaking out at injustice and/or gathering in celebration resound through the songs and stories of Seanchai & the Unity Squad.

The band is comprised of singer, songwriter, Uillean piper, tin whistler, rapper, activist, cultural preservationist, former cop, actor, bar owner, poet, and professor Chris Byrne, singer/DJ Rachel Fitzgerald, guitarist Jason Goodrow, bassist Andrew Harkin and drummer Terry Wettmore. And with all those combined life experiences, how could Seanchai & Unity Squad be pigeonholed into a title, genre or demographic?

"I would describe our music as being unrepentant Irish-American music. The reason there is an Irish thing is because that is where our people come from. I never considered being Irish as a hobby. We are not reduced to being entertainers. We are what we are - you can like us or not. We are what we are." - Chris Byrne