Craig Downie was born in Scotland and raised in Canada. He started playing bagpipes when he joined a pipe band at 12 years old. After pursuing an acting career in the early 1990s, Downie formed Enter the Haggis in Toronto in 1995 shortly before the band’s first performance. The name was chosen as a humorous reference to the 1973 kung-fu film Enter the Dragon.

Since then, Enter The Haggis have led the charge among Celtic Folk Rock bands, delighting fans with their memorable performances, inspired songwriting, musical proficiency and high quality recordings. The Toronto-based band has released eight acclaimed studio albums, the most recent debuting at #9 on the U.S. national Billboard Heatseekers charts. Their original songs such as “One Last Drink”, “Down With The Ship” and “Gasoline” have become folk rock anthems, appearing in films such as “Goon”, “10mph” and “Addicted to Plastic”, and reaching as high as #25 on U.S. radio.

The band’s new album, “Broken Arms” is the bands third EP (fourth if you include the one the released as Jubilee Riots) to go along with their eight studio, five live and, one compilation (which you can listen to on the playlist below).

Praise for Enter The Haggis has appeared in major publications, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and Canada’s Globe and Mail. The band has also performed on national television shows like “Live With Regis and Kelly” and “Breakfast With The Arts” on A&E.

After multiple Canadian tours in the late 1990’s, ETH made waves in the US in 2004 with a feature-length performance documentary called “Live at Lanigan’s Ball”. Following extensive airing of the special on PBS in more than 80 markets around the US, the band was invited to perform at Celtic and folk festivals across the US, Canada and Europe. Touring tirelessly, they amassed a legion of diehard fans who are known to cross continents and oceans for shows. Shunning the traditional industry model of a band maintaining distance from its fans, Enter The Haggis has worked hard to develop personal relationships with their supporters, (affectionately known as “Haggis Heads”), taking the necessary time to shake hands and chat after performances, broadcasting shows online for free and even inviting fans to join them in the studio to sing and play on record. It’s thanks to this close connection that the band’s last three albums were entirely financed through crowdfunding platforms that raised over $150,000 US.