The Magpies are an up and coming folk band from the UK, whose debut album ‘Tidings’ was released on Friday. Here, Imogen chats to Holly from the band about the album and their evolution as a band.
Hi, how are you?
I’m good thanks, how are you?
Good thanks. Congratulations on the release of Tidings! What was the inspiration behind the record and the process of putting it together?
It’s been a really exciting week. I suppose it kind of originated, we were trying to draw as much as possible from our live shows and represent those as best we could, mix of instrumentals and original songs, and traditional material and put a bit of a stamp of our individual influences on it.
I know you met back in York, but can you talk a bit about how you came together as a band and what your individual sounds were like before you met?
Yeah, so I was actually the last into the band, so it’s a bit difficult to talk about how it began. Bella and Polly started out as a duo, they met backstage at a gig in York and really hit it off and got to know each other as friends, started jamming and stuff. Bella is more of the Celtic, traditional background and Polly who’s the mandolin player, grew up listening to a lot of bluegrass and old time music, they bounced off each other and the sound came together really well. They knew Sarah Smout, who’s a brilliant cello player from the area and she’s got a really great classical background and that had a big influence on what she brought to the band.
Was it a really easy transition, because obviously you all probably had your own individual sounds and styles as artists before you met?
Yeah, I think it was a very natural thing, we obviously all really appreciated each other’s music and introduced each other to our respective genres. We bounced off each other and hopefully made something bigger than all our instruments and artistry.
In terms of your songwriting, what is your songwriting process like as a band? Does one of you come in with an idea or do you tend to bash them all out together?
Yeah, it tends to be the first one, we bring various things to the table not fully formed and then we sit down and arrange them all together as a group.
‘Rock Of Ages’ was definitely a standout track on the record, can you talk a bit about that song and the recording process?
So, ‘Rock Of Ages’ was actually originally a Gillian Welch song that we all loved that we’re big fans of her songs. We ran with it as our own and added our own stamp onto it.
How does it feel to record other people’s songs, is it hard to reimagine them in your own right with your own sound?
I suppose it’s helpful because we’ve grown up listening and playing to traditional music, we’ve got that angle going on already. We’re used to reworking them already and trying different styles, covers in a similar way, so it’s maybe a little bit easier to those who haven’t grown up doing that.
There’s a lot of Irish influences on the album, with ‘Galway Shawl’ and things like that, have you toured much in Ireland? How important are those Celtic elements to your music?
We went to Ireland in March 2019, which was amazing. We started off in Bantry on the West Coast, near Cork and worked our way over to Dublin. It was my first time in Ireland, though I’d been heavily influenced by their music, it was such an amazing experience to see how important that traditional music still is over there, as it is in lots of parts of the country but sadly less so in England. People’s enthusiasm for the music, you would be walking down the street with a fiddle and people would just follow you into the venue, it was amazing. The culture around music seemed to be much more enthusiastic and people were much more expressive.
I know it’s been a very strange time to release the record, how are you all navigating this difficult time?
Yeah, it is a very strange time to be releasing a debut album, but we were quite fortunate that we had a pre-release tour in March and we managed to get through half of that, which was a fantastic experience and kicked it off nicely. Unfortunately that was cut short, we’re all in different parts of the country at the moment but we’ve managed to put together a few videos that have gone down really well. People have been really supportive at the moment, in a way we’re trying to see the positive.
Complete the sentence…
Music is… the most powerful way of expressing ideas and emotion.
The Magpies are… a fresh brand of folk.
