MICHEÁL Bolton's whole life revolves around music, having started to learn the violin at the tender age of four. When his father, Michael, passed away in 1991, his mother, Vonnie, was left to raise her six children on her own. It's thanks to her that all the Bolton siblings share a love of music.

'My mother thought that you can always bring music with you wherever you go,' Micheál remembers. ' She felt that you'd never go hungry if you could play a tune, she gave us all an opportunity to learn to play an instrument.'

Micheál is about to embark on a new phase of his music career and is about to launch his new rock band, The Sugar Factory.

He's hooked up with well-known Carlow singer-songwriters Gala Hutton and Eric Butler, with Eamon Burke on drums and Mark Condron on bass.

He's somewhat disgusted when asked if playing the fiddle in a rock band leads him into the same territory inhabited by the Corr family, instead describing The Sugar Factory sound as 'different, honest and down to earth.'

'Coming from a traditional and classical background, this is where the fun is for me,' he smiles. 'The fiddle is folksy and is also the mainstay of classical music but I'm combining both sounds. I'm more interested in using the violin as a tool to suit the songs, rather than letting it take over the sound altogether. I haven't tried anything like this before so it's quite liberating for me.'

Micheál first started on the violin as a small child when he took classes with Noelle Robinson in Athy. Though he sometimes found it a chore to attend the classes, he stuck with it and learnt to play through the Suzuki method.

He then went on to graduate from Maynooth College with a degree in music, a course that gave him a good general knowledge of music.

'It gave me a complete history of music, from Gregorian chant right through to jazz,' he explains. Micheál uses his considerable knowledge to teach in the Majella Swan School of Music on Carlow town, a position that he took up about seven years ago. From beginners through to adult learners, he says that the secret to playing music is hard work, but that he'd easily spot a gift

ed student.

Growing up in Killeshin, Micheál was constantly exposed to the vibrant music scene in Carlow, a town which he rightly describes a being the centre for great music.

'There are so many music scenes in Carlow, from trad to classical,' he points out. 'The town is getting much better gig-wise because pubs now have to work to get a crowd in. It means that there are more opportunities for bands to play.' 'People, too, have more time to sit down and listen to music,' he continues. 'Before, people were caught up in the rat-race, but now they've a chance to decide what's important to them.' Micheál own love of gigging was re-kindled when he was studying for a master's in music under the famed Micheál Ó Suilleabháin at the University of Limerick.

'I had been teaching but wasn't performing at any great level,' he recalls. 'When I started in Limerick, I realised that there was a whole world out there that I was missing out on.'

The course taught him the finer techniques in trad playing and led him to form a trad band, called Pick of the Litter. They enjoyed modest success but fizzled out after recording an eight-track EP.

But the taste for performing live had been reborn, eventually leading him to join the Sugar Factory.

'This is new and exciting for me because it gives me a platform to experiment. I have to make the fiddle left of centre,' he smiles.

'We've been working really hard for weeks, getting the sound right.'

He says that the band have been influenced by the likes of Neil Young, Pink Floyd and Crowded House, and that he really believes that the songs will 'go the distance.'

'I've very little experience of the music industry but Gala has been around and knows the business end of things,' he says. 'Maybe it's blissful ignorance on my behalf, but I'm really, really looking forward to it. To make a living from music, that's the dream and it's something that I'm very passionate about. At 28, I've built my life around it.'