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Foy Vance was born in the North Ireland town of Bangor, but his passion for traditional music was born in the southern states of America. As a child, Foy relocated with his father, a preacher, to the American Midwest settling in Oklahoma. With his Father, Foy travelled the American South, widening his horizons and absorbing the rich musical traditions he was exposed to. Returning to Ireland some years later, Foy began writing his own music, deeply shaped by the sounds of his youth. Since those days, he has spent a considerable amount of time on the road, touring with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Michael Kiwanuka, Marcus Foster, Snow Patrol and Ed Sheeran. Foy also scored Oscar-winning short-film The Shore with David Holmes, who collaborated with Vance on his 2012 Melrose EP.
With his latest album, "Joy of Nothing," - the first effort for his new label Glassnote (home of Mumford & Sons, Phoenix and more) - Foy Vance has crafted a masterwork of the sweet hurt of love and what it does to the men and women involved with all of the fallout. Vance works with those familiar refrains of finding and holding onto a guiding light, of falling back on one's resiliency (with the backing vocal help of Bonnie Raitt on the excellent cut, "You and I"), of shutting off from the world and living behind guarded emotional walls, of knowing the contents of one's soul better than anyone else ever could.
On November 12, 2013 Joy Of Nothing won the inaugural Northern Ireland Music Prize for best album. Other nominees included Tired Pony, Girls Names, and Two Door Cinema Club.
"They will haunt you with light. They'll haunt you with pangs of love. They'll haunt you with the tears of others. They'll make you realise that you've never felt anything even as remotely deep as he has."- Daytrotter on Foy's lyrics.
"Very fortunate to have been given an early copy of the new @foyvance album. It is the best album I've heard in the last 2 years. So exciting." - Ed Sheeran on 'Joy of Nothing' via Twitter.
