Ronan grew up in Twickenham, West London, His father Ross MacManus was a musician and trumpet player, with Joe Loss and his orchestra, (and also responsible for the music and vocals from the R. White’s Lemonade television commercial, “Secret Lemonade Drinker”). Needless to say, his father passed on the musical tradition, to all 5 of his sons – “our dad was a musician and he taught us all how to perform- not just how to sing but how to perform”. The eldest son, Declan (from his father’s first marriage), went on to become a well-known musician called Elvis Costello. “I always sang from an early age, school plays, church choir boy, rugby club houses from a very early age. When away with London Irish, I was picked up and put on a table and told to sing Irish songs to all the parents, I was only 9!” Ronan formed his first band ‘Eutopia’ (later to become ‘Lazy Jaymz’) whilst at school with brother Ruairi covering grunge and heavy rock songs (pearl jam, nirvana etc.). By then he had already started putting pen to paper to write “some of the most truly horrible songs.., but it was a start”. Later brothers Kieran and Ruairi formed ‘Slainte’ – a more traditional band (acoustic guitars, mandolin, fiddle, tin whistle and bodhran), joined by Ronan and then later, brother Liam who added a drumkit to the line up. The other Irish intrumentalists left and Andy joined in their place – “…it was four MacManus brothers and Andy, who fitted in like one of the family.” Slainte started off playing in friend’s Dad’s Irish pubs, focussed on traditional songs, reels and jigs, supplemented by covers of modern Irish bands such as the Saw Doctors and even Oasis songs who had emerged at the time as the biggest band in Britain- “…the Gallagher brothers’s Irish blood helped to justify playing their songs” Whilst playing in Slainte, “…the Irish band was our job back then, strictly cover songs.” , Ronan and his brothers started to write and perform original material as ‘Second Nature’, which then became ‘Manus’, ‘Bluefish’ and finally Riverway,(named after the street in which they grew up) where they were given the chance to support Marti Pellow on a UK arena tour including Glasgow SECC, Birmingham NEC and Wembley Arena. It was to be Ronan’s first experience of such a big stage. “…all the while, Slainte was evolving and growing in part-time members. It got very incestuous and the lines were blurred between all the bands we were in. A pool of musicians tended to form different line ups for different gigs – a prime example of this was the london irish match day band known as “le Cheile” which was a 6 piece band made up of members of 4 different bands .. . many nights at The Stoop we had 10 or 12 people on stage at the same time when friends turned up to join in the musical orgy…” Finally the chaos was reigned in and things settled down, and with changes to the line-up, they began to write original material for “Slainte”. Deciding they needed a more unique name, as there were so many bands using that name, they somehow stumbled across ‘The BibleCodeSundays’ – “…we were drunk and the name stuck!” A committed writer himself, Ronan has long been influenced by fellow songwriters, such as Ron Sexsmith, Neil Finn, Del Amitri, Shane MacGowan and, of course, Elvis Costello, whilst he cites the influences of Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Bono and Jeff Buckley “for their performance and passion”, and singles out The Clash, Oasis, and Evan Dando (Lemonheads) for their “attitude”. Ronan has been fortunate to have shared the stage with several of these acts – including his first public performance with Elvis Costello (Ronan was only a year old when Declan’s first album came out) “appearing on stage for the first time in public with my big brother Declan in New York and Boston in May 2011 - amazing venues and a great reaction, what a buzz! ...The London Feis, Finsbury Park, London summer 2011 was a great experience … to see our name on a poster with the likes of Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Thin Lizzy, Saw Doctors, Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore and Paul Brady was amazing” Despite writing and recording original material for BCS and his previous bands, Ronan also writes and records as a solo artist – with ‘Strawberry Hill‘ being his first solo album. When not touring, recording or writing, Ronan follows his passion for Celtic and Everton FC and, despite no longer playing, still keeps the faith with the exiles at London Irish RFC – just as he did as a kid…