Barleyjuice is a musical group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

. Formed originally in 1998, the group began as a side project for musicians Keith Swanson and Kyf Brewer, who met as bagpipers in the Loch Rannoch Pipes & Drums of Pineville, Pennsylvania

Pineville, Pennsylvania

Pineville is an unincorporated community on the border between Buckingham and Wrightstown townships in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States.-Name:...

. Barleyjuice's focus was to perform traditional Irish and Scottish songs in a pop/rock fashion, and the band remained a seasonal St. Patrick’s Day project for the first few years of its existence.

Biography

After the release of the band’s first collection of recordings, initially entitled Barleyjuice, and later known as One Shilling, the band became a full-time working group by 2001. The album contains traditional songs of Ireland and Scotland, and one original song, "Donnie Scot," penned by Brewer, which can be heard briefly in the feature film Driven

Driven

Driven is a 2001 film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone, who also wrote and produced. It centers on a young racing driver's effort to win the ChampCar World Series...

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In 2003, a second album, Another Round, was released. The album earned the band notoriety with the song, "What’s Up Yours?", an ode to the kilt named Song of the Year by listener vote at Celtic Radio. In 2004, Another Round’s "Jig Set" was also featured in Episode 13 ("Cheer Factor") of the eighth season of King of the Hill

King of the Hill

King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...

. Another song, "Whiskey to the Sea," won additional attention with its inclusion in the complete set of the iTunes Irish Music Essentials Collection. In 2006, Barleyjuice released Six Yanks, their third full-length album. Celtic Radio named Six Yanks Best Celtic Rock CD of 2006.

The fourth Barleyjuice album, Bonny Prince Barley, was originally released to the public in 2008, but released officially to radio in 2010, mainly due to the scheduling of an appearance on the QVC

QVC

QVC is a multinational corporation specializing in televised home shopping. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Goshen Township, Pennsylvania, United States, QVC broadcasts in five countries as QVC US, QVC UK, QVC Germany, QVC Japan and – QVC Italy to 200 million households...

 television network in the United States in 2008. The band stopped promotion of Bonny Prince Barley to rush release The Barleyjuice Irish Collection, a double CD, and their biggest seller to date, which included selected tracks from the other four studio albums. Songs from Bonny Prince continued to be crowd favorites at festivals, so the album was re-released in January 2010 with eight new original songs. Chicago’s Irish American News, the Midwest Irish Focus, and radio show “Blarney on the Air” all named Bonny Prince Barley "Celtic Rock Album of the Year" for 2008. In 2008, Paddy Rock Radio listed the album at #6 in their top twenty new albums, while listeners of Celtic Radio voted “Celtic Girl”, from The Barleyjuice Irish Collection, Best Celtic Song of the Year. Barleyjuice began working on their fifth studio album in 2010.

On March 11, 2010, Barleyjuice's "Weekend Irish" was used in an episode of NBC's The Office.

In 2010, the band released their fifth album, Skulduggery Street. Soon after, band members Billy Dominick and Jimmy "Carbomb" Parkinson departed and went their own ways. Replacement violinist, Shelley Weiss, joined the band in early 2011.