Edwin to Tom: You‘ve been a professional musician now for quite a number of years, at what point did you decide that it was the path for you?


Oi! It‘s not that many! Only 6 years, which is long enough to start balding, but not long enough to see Salford Rugby League club win anything. Anyway, it didn‘t! It happened almost without me noticing. The moment where I realised it was an option was definitely the 2003 Young Folk Awards, where I was a finalist. I‘d not had any experience of the broader scene beyond my local session before that.


When I finished my politics degree at Loughborough, I was playing in a couple of bands and I thought I‘d play my gigs out over the summer and then get a job. When they‘d finished, I had a few more to do, so I did them, and so on! In terms of taking it seriously, my duo with Gren Bartley taught me a huge amount about the industry, and performing, and certainly galvanised me to want to make a success of it.


You‘re also deeply into the English tradition, but have a wide array of other influences - so why English in particular?


Andrew Cronshaw once said that tradition shouldn‘t be thought of as from a place, but like a backpack we each carry. I like that idea. I suppose I‘m most influenced by the musicians around me, who mainly play English music.


I‘ve always enjoyed the space and shape of it, there‘s loads of potential to express youself and get stuck in. I‘m also hugely influenced by Scandanavian music, particularly the fiddlers Emma Reid and Sturla Eide, which is again through having spent time learning from them in person. Contact is the key.


If you play with someone and enjoy their style, it‘s bound to rub off. I spent years playing music in Buxton with Sean Heeley, who was a brilliant and unpredictable fiddler, which certainly influenced me hugely, and not always for the best!


It‘s people like him who have inspired so many to start playing and want to keep going. They are the unsung heroes of our genre, and I‘m sure that most professional folk musicians have great characters like that in their history.


Whats your favourite kind of audience to play for?


I love folk clubs. I like the intimacy of it, and that there‘s no sense of divide between them and us. When it‘s going well, the audience feel they can chip in, laugh with you and heckle. You can‘t pretend to be anybody you‘re not in a situation like that. I hope that gigs like that can survive the change of generations, and I‘m keen to start running concerts like that myself.


Beer: light or dark? Strait sided glass or handle?


There‘s a Cloggies strip about this! It all depends on how you were brought up. Robinson‘s Mild in a handle glass please.


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