Factor One is back by popular demand with a new concert at Unitarian Church in Dublin. On Saturday 3rd December the band is playing many of its popular songs as well as launching an E.P. with four new songs.

The songs come from personal experience. “If it’s not too much to ask” is described by band member Andrew Basquille as a “prayer or a wish list” for the kind person or better self someone would like to be.

“I see what I’m missing” is a song about trying to put oneself in the position of someone who is suffering loss in life.
Another comes from a meditation of Chiara Lubich  and titled “Timeless Gifts of Love” is about living fully in each present moment.

“She (Chiara Lubich) wrote that time is passing by and we can’t make time standstill, but we can make the moment last forever if we live it well,” explained Andrew Basquille.

The band was formed in Dublin in 1985 by Andrew Basquille (guitar & vocals), Padraic Gilligan (guitar & vocals), and Eugene Murphy(piano & vocals). While there have been other members from time to time.
“From the very beginning with Factor One we wanted our songs to be inspired by our experience of putting the gospel into practice in our everyday lives, and basically the songs are an expression of that. They are not explicitly hymns or gospel songs or sacred songs but they are songs that everybody can relate to,” said Andrew Basquille.

A significant moment for Factor One as a young band was representing Ireland at the Genfest youth rally in front of an audience of 20,000 at the Palaeur football stadium in Rome. During that same year the World Youth Day was initiated by Pope John Paul II and Genfest was later to become an official event of World Youth Day.

In the years following the young Factor One band members were married one by one and became fully occupied with family life and day jobs.

Last year the trio were back with a 30th Anniversary reunion concert, which was a sell out. They are back this year due to popular demand and to raise funds for Merchants Quay Ireland Homeless and Drugs Services.

“People really enjoyed the last one, they said you must really do this again so it’s not just a one off” explained Andrew Basquille.

Earlier this year they recorded the new songs at The 515 Studio in Nashville where they rubbed shoulders some of the “royalty” of the famous American home of country and western music such as Martina Mc Bride.

The concert is on Saturday December 3rd in the Unitarian Church, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2 at 8pm sharp.
Tickets €15 / €12 from www.tickets.ie
Also see: www.factorone.ie