Thom Southern

Thom Southern started his musical career busking in Belfast city centre aged 16. After winning a Belfast Busking Competition he played a run of concerts in the Belfast Nashville Festival supporting Foy Vance, Iain Archer and Nanci Griffith. Through the festival Thom was awarded ‘Songwriter of the Year’ by the Belfast City Council and was taken to Nashville by the festival to play a tour of concerts including two nights at the renowned Blue Bird Cafe. He later teamed up with his sister Lucy (Gaffney) to form the band ‘Southern’ and in 2013 they signed to Marathon Artists. After the release of their debut EP the duo were described by The Guardian as “The most promising singer/songwriters in Ireland today”, and within 18 months they saw their work used in international campaigns by ESPN, Netflix, Channel 4 and performed events around the world for brands such as for Saint Laurent and Burberry. In 2016 the duo launched a psych-rock project called MMODE which saw them add to the growing list of extensive tour support, sharing stages with the likes of Jake Bugg, Bastille, Catfish & The Bottlemen, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Coral and The Kooks. After recently playing his sold out hometown headline show in April 2023 and releasing new single ‘Love Hz’ Thom Southern is set to release his second self-produced album in the autumn of 2023 with a headline tour of Ireland and the UK. Written around the same time as his NI Music Prize-nominated 2022 solo debut, ‘PLAZA’, Thom’s new material is a return to the source - a lo-fi yet luminous collection of indie gems recorded in his home studio.