Twenty-eight years on, Lúnasa is still pushing the boundaries of Irish music.

The acclaimed band—founded in 1997 when Trevor Hutchinson, Donogh Hennessy, Sharon Shannon, and Seán Smyth were invited to tour Australia—has since played more than 3,000 shows across 36 countries, including stops at Carnegie Hall, The Hollywood Bowl, and Glastonbury Festival. Named after the ancient Celtic harvest festival honoring the god Lugh, Lúnasa has become known for its energetic live shows, innovative arrangements, and seamless blend of tradition and experimentation.

Ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, Lúnasa brought their celebrated sound to The Local Center for Arts and Culture in Saugerties on March 6, giving audiences a chance to hear one of Ireland’s most acclaimed bands in an intimate setting — a fitting kickoff to the season of Irish music and celebration.

Their 2018 album Cas marked a new chapter, featuring guest vocalists Natalie Merchant, Tim O’Brien, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Eric Bibb—an expansion of their sound that brought a folkier dimension to their music. The Overlook caught up with Trevor Hutchinson before the show to discuss the band’s evolution, their organic approach to creativity, and what keeps them coming back to each other year after year.

Take me back to Lúnasa’s early days. You each had a rich background in Irish music. How did you decide to form a band?

“It came from several different threads. Myself and Donogh Hennessy, our original guitarist, had been working for a long time with Sharon Shannon. We had started doing these Scandinavian trio gigs with Seán Smyth. We got an offer for an Australian tour in 1997 and decided to augment the band, which was sort of a part-time project at that stage. One of the conditions of doing the tour was we had to record, so we recorded half a dozen shows or so around Ireland, which became the first Lúnasa album. Then after that, we decided just to make something of it. It was never intended to be a long-term thing, but maybe that’s the best way to do it.”

Nearly three decades later, what keeps you coming back to each other—and to the music?

“I think we’ve kinda learned over the years how to fit in around each other and I think musically we sort of augment each other pretty well. The whole thing is kinda second nature now! Might as well keep doin’ it until there’s a reason not to do it.”

On “Cas,” you worked with singers for the first time and expanded the sound in new ways. What stands out to you about that record?

“We wanted to do something a little bit different and at the same time sort of appeal enough to our existing listeners. We’d worked with all the singers over the years, so we wanted to use both the song as well as melody and it seemed like a natural thing to do.”

Was there a specific moment that made you decide to collaborate, or did it happen more organically?

“I suppose there was, yeah. But, I mean, it really just seemed like a natural way to do it. You know, I think you have to be kind of careful that [the collaborative effort] doesn’t get contrived. So, it sort of fell into place really quite easily. We would make a couple of suggestions, they would suggest something, and it didn’t take long for it to fall into place. We just kind of went with it really.”

How do you balance honoring traditional Irish music while continuing to innovate?

“That’s been the most interesting aspect of the last 28 years. Trying to find that path, there’s a constant push, pull even between different members of the band, as to how traditional it should be. I think we end up somewhere in the middle that works, and in traditional music in general I think there’s room for everyone. You can be way out there on the left, or you can be totally hardcore traditional. It doesn’t really matter. There’s an audience for every aspect of it. For us, it’s important to have a bit of, I don’t know if respect is the right word, but appreciation.”

After all these years, how do you keep things fresh? Have your goals changed?

“I suppose we try and stay true to some element of the traditional side of things. At the same time, we try and open it up a little bit sonically—bring people in to listen that maybe wouldn’t just listen to a hardcore traditional band. I think it’s really important—and it’s a very hard thing to kind of explain—to almost paint two pictures at once. There’s the traditional thing and the accompaniment really has to sort of have a life of its own. We do work pretty hard on that. To try and get a certain kind of soundscape in the whole thing that’s interesting in its own right.”

St. Patrick’s Day is on March 17.