Like another flame-haired singer-songwriter familiar to these shores, Gavin James honed his craft busking on the streets of Galway.

In fact, Ed Sheeran and the Dubliner who are the same age, probably crossed paths all those years ago when they were young teens and attracting big crowds on Shop Street during the summer.

Back then when he was known as Gavin Wigglesworth, he would play Led Zeppelin covers with “hair down to my arse”. He was later a support act for the global superstar.

“Two gingers walking down the road with guitars! I remember when I was 15 outside a pub in Galway and some English man offered me 50 quid to play Wonderwall – happy days,” he says of covering the 1995 Oasis hit.

So, it was a happy return to his youth when he did an impromptu busk outside Matt O’Flaherty’s Chemist in rare sunshine a fortnight ago. What started off as a usual curious procession of passers-by had morphed into a crowd of several hundred by lunchtime, with Gavin belting out some of his biggest hits over a half-hour.

He’s been a regular performer in Galway, playing Leisureland in 2022, the Big Top in 2018, and the former Galway Airport in 2019, when high winds forced the last-minute cancellation of that show.

“I remember we told everyone to head back to the Róisín [Dubh] and it was absolutely mental. The first time I played the Róisín was a lunchtime gig and there was a woman with a baby in a pram and one dad having a pint – there were no more than six or seven in there. I think it was 2012 – it was one of my favourite ever gigs,” he recalls.

Gavin recently signed to one of the world’s biggest music labels, Sony Music Worldwide, to release his next as yet untitled album around Christmas. He has finished it but is currently polishing it off. The first single from that, White Noise, was followed by All My Life, both songs a celebration of being happy in love – a far cry from the sad ballads which have been his trademark.

“I wrote some of the songs with my best mates who are dance producers so they’re more upbeat,” he explains. “It’s an interesting take as I come more from a singer-songwriter background. This one has a lot more electric guitar, more solo-ey stuff. It’s a lot of fun to play live.

“But they’re not all happy,” he says of the songs. “Some of them are about mates going through hard times; now we’re all in our 30s everybody’s in a different space.”

Gavin has been playing the guitar since he was ten, and earning a living in bars and as a busker for 20 years. He has written some of his hits in just ten minutes. Other, like All My Life took a bit longer.

“That took ages because I kept rewriting the chorus, the verse is so different. The first idea is always the best. I sit at the piano and waffle, just making noises until something clicks. It’s better than starting on the guitar, which is just second nature; the piano is a bit harder work. It’s better to be off-the-cuff.”

Gavin’s debut song, Say Hello, won Song of the Year in the Meteor Choice Music Prize in 2013 and since then he’s been racking up the hits – Always, Bitter Pill, Boxes, The Book of Love, Nervous (The Ooh Song) and For You, which stars a young Barry Keoghan in the video.

Always has seen him emerge as a mega star in Brazil after being featured in a soap called Pega Pega.

His music has streamed three billion times across the globe and he has sold more than 250,000 tickets for live gigs across the world.

But he reveals he is always desperately nervous before those first notes.

“Even busking today in Galway. I’ll be sh***ing it,” he insists.

Catch Gavin James in the Big Top during the Galway International Arts Festival on Saturday, July 26.

Tickets on www.giaf.ie.

Pictured: Gavin James: Playing the Arts Festival big top is a long way from his younger days when he busked on the city streets.