root salad f16 Rura
Highland traditions meet contemporary sound. Liam Thompson meets the Glasgow quintet.
I
mbued with highland traditions but with a distinctly contemporary sound, Rura won fans across the world with their raucous gigs and well-crafted
debut album Break It Up. With a new album, Despite the Dark, due in April, along with a national tour, I caught up with them to talk folk, politics and marry- ing tradition with modernity. But before all that, let’s go back to where it all began and ask what is Rura anyway?
Jack Smedley, Rura’s dynamic fiddle player explains: “Unfortunately there’s no interesting story behind the name! Steven [Steven Blake, bagpipe and whistle] and myself were asked to do a small perfor- mance at a festival in Glasgow once called Piping Live and we had to have a band name. Luckily a friend of ours stepped in at the last minute with a suggestion for us. And five years later it’s still our name.”
“We’ve been told that in Gaelic it refers to things being messy or chaotic, so if that’s true it suits us just fine. In Polish it means ‘pipe’, it’s also a small town in India and our main competitors online are the Rwandan Utilities and Rewards Agency!”
And how did the band come together?
“We all grew up listening to loads of music and watching loads of gigs,” Jack tells me. “I think that’s why each of us has always wanted to work with bands, make records and get out there touring venues and festi-
vals. Myself, Steven and David [David Foley, flute and bodhran] met while studying at university. We were all in the same year studying Scottish Music at the Royal Conser- vatoire of Scotland and over time we realised that we enjoyed working together and saw an opportunity to take that further. We met our original guitarist Chris Waite and Adam [Adam Holmes, vocals] through various projects we were all involved with outside university and by the end of 2010 we were releasing an EP and touring widely.”
Rura have become a lot more than just a band of university friends with a penchant for the folk tradition however. The band are now a firm fixture on the festival scene and, since appearing on the UK folk scene back in 2010 have found themselves in the run- ning for numerous awards including the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Horizon award.
So, how have these friends from Glas- gow found themselves received since being thrown onto the world stage? Guitarist Adam Brown tells me that, “We’ve been all over the world now and often performed to some audiences who speak very little English, if any, where the only way to com- municate is through playing. I can think of a few gigs where we’ve come off stage think- ing that the crowd really hasn’t enjoyed it, only to find out that they did. Music is one of those universal things that can bring peo- ple together and I think that as long as we
play well, most of the audiences really like our sound. And of course, particularly in Germany where we’ve featured quite a lot in recent years, people love the bagpipes!”
“Experiencing people’s reactions to the music outside of Scotland and outside the folk scene has been great,” says flautist David Foley. “But the music we play is so influenced by our surroundings and colleagues in Scotland. There’s a real hub of creativity in Glasgow right now, with great music being written and per- formed all the time. There is an air of col- lective influence which everyone playing and working in the folk scene is part of. Really when we’re touring this is what we’re presenting to audiences.”
recent years.” Says Jack, “However our music and sound – and this is probably true for most of the folk scene in Scot- land – is quite separate to this. Our music is a representation of things going on in Scottish music, rather than Scottish poli- tics. Perhaps it is true that more attention was drawn to Scottish culture during the course of the Referendum campaign but whether or not that’s had any lasting impact we’re not sure.”
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“For us personally the Referendum was one of the most exciting things we’ve ever been part of,” says Dave Foley. “The atmo- sphere in the week running up to it in Glas- gow especially was electric. Let’s just hope that the Referendum has sparked a process of political change that is much needed throughout the UK.”
So, where next? What are Rura hoping for from 2015?
Adam Brown says, “This time last year 2015 seemed miles off. Individually we’ve all been incredibly busy as well as having a busy summer with Rura. On top of that we’ve spent a lot of time refining our sound and our live show, getting our line- up sorted and of course writing and record- ing our new album! So hopefully we’ll have a bit more time this year just to enjoy the gigs! This year we’re looking forward to getting on the road, doing our first ever UK tour in April and a bunch of festivals over the summer. As soon as this album is released we’re going to get back to making music for music’s sake and there’s some talk of working on a couple of collaborative EPs with other artists.”
www.rura.co.uk F
cotland’s always had a strong national identity and there’s certainly been an upsurge in Scottish nationalism over
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