root salad f20 Flats & Sharps
What is it about young men and banjos these days? Steve Hunt unveils a bluegrass band from Cornwall.
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ikey: “There’s always that tentative moment, after I’ve (say) broken up with my girlfriend and cried over my mandolin, then I take it to the guys and they go ‘No, that’s crap, man!’ I just rap into a dictaphone, then listen to it the next morning, cut out all the swearing, put some nice chords to it and turn it into a bluegrass song.” “It’s fantastic hearing the audiences sing songs that the guys have written,” says Liam. “Our audiences now are more likely to sing along with [Kirk’s] Darkest Shade Of Grey than Nine- Pound Hammer.”
“At the time we recorded our first
album [Live At Didmarton, 2011] we thought it was the best thing ever,” admits Mikey, “but now we can’t bear to hear it. It’s all part of learning and progressing though, isn’t it? I asked Jack Lawrence, who used to play a lot with Doc Watson, how do you become a really quality blue- grass player, and he said there’s no short- cuts, no two ways about it – it’s 25 years, straight-up. I think we’ve all got that in our heads. We’re creating the best music we can, where we are now, but we’re com- mitted to getting better, all the time.”
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lats & Sharps are four young men from Cornwall who are rapidly building a formidable reputation for playing bluegrass music astonishingly
well. What’s more, they’re doing it the old-fashioned way, through relentless gigging and word-of-mouth, rather than PR hype and pop-up Facebook ads. They are Kirk Bowman (banjo), Liam Fitzharris (double bass), Josh Aubrey (guitar) and Mikey Ponsford (mandolin) – as engaging a bunch as you could wish to encounter in an old Penzance boozer, where I met them for a chat.
“It really all started about four years ago,” says Mikey, “when, through various circumstances, we found ourselves at the Cornwall Bluegrass Festival. My father has always been a bluegrass fan, but I hated it. Then, two weeks beforehand, I picked up a mandolin. Kirk had only been play- ing a short time, and he was there with Liam, his bass-playing mate. We didn’t really have a clue what we were doing, so ended up just charging about and destroying everyone’s jams. We knew how to play in G and that was about it. We were naturally drawn to each other as the ‘yoofs’, so became friends, and then ended-up in the same college.”
“We had to create a band for col- lege,” continues Liam. “We met Josh there and he joined forces with Kirk and me, playing country songs.” Josh was just start- ing guitar then, strumming a few chords. “We told him to go and listen to Bryan Sutton and Ricky Skaggs,” relates Kirk, “and then, in the second group practice, he started and we just went: ‘woah! How did he do that?!’”
“Josh is now regarded as one of the best bluegrass guitarists in the country,” reckons Mikey. “You’ve been told that, right Josh?” “Yeah, but by drunken wasters, like you!” he retorts. Liam con- tinues: “Mikey was pestering us, so even- tually we went round his house, and came out saying: ‘Mikey’s never going to be in the band,’ then, a week later, he was. It was really Mikey who said ‘right, let’s not mess about here, let’s really aim to be the best – let’s win.’”
Kirk says “We all sing lead and take turns, and we’re generous towards each other’s material. It’s taken a while to establish that trust – to be critical of each other’s songwriting. I always write at the piano, not with a banjo, so whenever I bring a new song in, it’s a group arrange- ment, not just mine.”
I ask whether they feel they’ve bene- fitted from the success of Mumford & Sons, as (love ’em or loathe ’em) they’re the band about whom the word ‘blue- grass’ has featured in the likes of the NME more than any other in the last few years, probably ever. At the mention of the name, Kirk politely makes it clear that he’s not a fan and doesn’t wish to be drawn into discussion about them. Liam cheerful- ly confesses to liking them, while Mikey says “I like them but don’t listen to their records. I prefer Death Metal, but that’s just my problem!” What they do all agree on is the idea that traditional styles can also be pop music.”
“I want our music to be popular,” con-
tinues Mikey, “but I don’t want us to sell ourselves out. We’re lucky to be living through another folk revival, when people are open to hearing our kind of music.”
While they acknowledge a huge debt of gratitude to the UK bluegrass circuit, after a taste of the summer folk festivals (and what appears to have been a particu- larly inspiring conversation with Blair Dun- lop) they’re eager to perform at more.
“There are a lot more folk festivals than the purely bluegrass ones, they’re bigger and there’s often a younger audi- ence. We want to play loads more of them.”
I’m quite sure that will be arranged.
www.flatsandsharps.co.uk
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