Are We a Folk Band?

Coming close to getting this album out, we’ve found ourselves more than anytime before having to label our music – and it’s really difficult. We’re an acoustic band, plain and simple – but with that comes the inevitable question of what sort of acoustic band we are? There are many genres we could fall in to if we really thought about it, but it seems folk music is the closest match.

But, are we a folk band - and if so, what kind?

Acoustic music is a strange thing, and it’s something I didn’t quite realise until I sat down and tried to book an album tour for us. If you type in ‘Acoustic Music Venues’ in an internet search engine, it will pretty much always come up with folk and roots sites, listing folk club gigs which will generally be everyone in a circle having a sing around. Now don’t get me wrong, people that know me (Phil) will know I’ve taken years of abuse for my love of folk music – but this just isn’t any good for us. Does acoustic music mean folk music? Is it an instant reaction in the main that if you say you are an acoustic band, people immediately think folk band? Does the fact we can’t rock up and sit around with a bunch of instrumentalists and reel off some traditional standards mean we aren’t a folk band?

Maybe we’re a ‘nu-folk’ band…..

We’ve just been named as support to ‘nu-folk’ artists Lisa Knapp – a gig we’re very happy to get. ‘Nu-folk’ in my mind means a younger, trendier take on the genre. Performers who wouldn’t look out of place walking down Camden High Street yet sporting a fiddle on their back, not a guitar. Performers who have taken the tradition and given it a swift kick up the arse to bring it in line with this century and make it relevant for a whole new audience.

That sounds more like us – but again, the fact we don’t play traditional based songs could be our undoing here as well.

So, maybe we’re contemporary folk?

This is a controversial one – and one the traditionalists hate, yet I think it’s where we fall. We play acoustic, folk sounding music – yet we make no reference to the tradition, there are no murder ballads or songs about the sea in our repertoire and we don’t encourage Morris Dancing. Surely that is sacrilege?

To be honest, it’s got to the stage now where we’re combining genres to describe us. ‘Folk Fusion’ has been used, as we sound like a folk band musically, but not lyrically. The same could be said for ‘Contemporary Roots’. It also appears that opinion plays a big part in it. Some people say we have a very folky sound, yet people who participate regularly in folk music would say we don’t, and that we are far more contemporary.

It’s enough to fuck with your head if you let it – maybe we should just label our stuff as ‘Music’, and let everyone decide whether they like it or not, it will be a hell of a lot easier……