Alan Doyle was born and raised in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland,[2] in a Roman Catholic family.

[3] He attended Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.

It is also there that he met Séan McCann, Bob Hallett and Darrell Power with whom he formed Great Big Sea.

As a child, he appeared as an extra in the movie A Whale for the Killing, based on Farley Mowat's book of the same name, which was filmed in his hometown.

The creation of the album was captured by a film crew, resulting in a documentary also named Boy on Bridge[8] directed by Joel Stewart and John Vatcher.

Doyle, with Great Big Sea, was featured on Canadian country artist, Dean Brody's 2012 album titled Dirt, singing on the track "It's Friday".

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, Doyle started remotely collaborating with several Newfoundland-based artists to create a special "isolation edition" EP entitled, 'Songs from Home', which was released in November 2020.

[11] The story is based on the screenplay La grande séduction by Ken Scott that was made into the 2003 award winning[12] film Seducing Doctor Lewis.