Lisa Regan talks to Donal Gunne, one half of the acoustic guitar duo Túcan, about the renewed popularity of instrumental guitar, musical influences and world domination!

Your music is renowned for its high tempo, crowd-pleasing sounds, so can Galway audiences expect more of the same from this show?

Yes, indeed they can expect more of the same but with a little extra too. We have been working on our debut album recently, so we have some new and improved material, plus a few new tricks up our sleeves.

How did you become involved in playing music together and why the instrumental guitar?

We have been playing music together for a long time now. Probably about eight or nine years, since we were in school together anyway. Neither of us has any formal music training; we both just picked it up as we went along. We started off just jamming while we were hanging out. We listened to a lot of music together and found that we had a lot of similar tastes. Over the years our musical interests developed as we learned more about our instruments. We started off playing stuff like 'Alice in Chains' and 'Thin Lizzy', and singing as well but after a while we got into harder stuff like 'Metallica' as well as more worldly music like 'Kila'. Gradually the guitars became more of a focus.

We both got into the Spanish guitar at the same time, but independently, about six years ago. That is when the current style of music (instrumental on Spanish guitar) started to take root, and listening to such guitarists as Paco de Lucia, Al di Meola, Django Reinhardt and Rodrigo y Gabriela really showed us what could be done with an acoustic guitar. We both feel that one day singing may become part of our sound but for the moment we are sticking to the instrumental sound. We both feel that music can be so expressive and powerful on its own that it doesn't always need vocals, so now we are happy to try to push it as far as we can with two guitars.

There has been an increased interest instrumental guitar. Do you think this is down to your varied style of playing and alternative sound?

There has been an increased interest in instrumental guitar lately. People like Rodrigo y Gabriela have popularised it of late, though it has always been there if you looked for it. We feel that instrumental guitar allows us to play a style of music that incorporates all the music we listen to. Having a wide range of styles means that many different people can find something in the music that they can relate to. Once people have that recognition, I think the rest of the music becomes more accessible as it is an alternative sound.

How would you classify your sound or can you?

I have no idea; experimental, acoustic, instrumental metal maybe?? We leave the classification of our music up to other people. You can call it whatever you want. It sounds Spanish because it is played on nylon string guitars but it is not flamenco. I personally think the songs are more like heavy metal songs but without the distortion. Though lately we have been adding some trad influences. Listen to it and make up your own mind is my advice.