f92 B
oth Kate and Kathryn recog- nise this same tendency. They, as a perfectly natural course, are broadening the appeal of the music. As a duo, their audi-
ences are expanding as a result.
Kate: “Even though we are doing a lot of the same songs as people have done before. we’re doing it our way. There is a wider appeal because we use a bit of piano maybe, or a clarinet. People think, oh, that’s really nice, I never thought you could do that in folk music. So we get mixed audiences. Half will be the regular dyed-in-the-wool folkies and there’ll be another half that have never been to a folk thing before, who have maybe heard us on the radio and just come along to have a listen.”
What with the breadth of appeal the
different ranges of experience and influ- ence of both Kate & Kathryn and the Lake- mans have created, the possibilities of the five-piece seem even more open-ended.
Sean: “In a sense we’ve got every audi- ence under our belt. With The Equation, we particularly want to widen the audience without selling out musically for what we do. A sort of soft pop folk music, I suppose.”
Kate points out that the scope is also extended as a five-piece rather than the two individual elements because of the size of venues they will play – larger arts centres and festivals. She also suggests that the fact that they are a young English band has its own merits.
“There isn’t actually an English band, a young English band at the moment. There is a big hole in the scene. When we’ve phoned arts centres, we’ve found they’ve just been waiting for it.”
Sam agrees and extends the theory to young bands in general. “Apart from Oige, and Liza’s band, Kings Of Calicutt, who are very different from us, there aren’t any young folk bands of our age who are on the circuit and professional, that I know of.”
So musically, what is the philosophy behind The Equation, given all this eclecti- cism? What musical direction will this all take? Sean has it all worked out:
Lakeboys, 1994 “An evolution, musically, of tradition-
al song and it’s very hard to describe. We’re not selling out at all, but musically – with rhythms, melodic variation, within feel and ambience – we explore it from a number of different influences. A lot of space is created which is nice. The way James Taylor and Peter Gabriel and Sting use space in their music. The space is almost as important as the notes. Some- times more important – it leaves an antici- pation for the listener which is absolutely spell-binding. Whilst we’ll be predomi- nantly using traditional songs, there are some really lovely contemporary songs that Kate and Kathryn have found which no-one else is doing. A Tim Wood song – a very fine singer/songwriter from Leeds who unfortunately is quite ill and doesn’t perform very much. He used to play with Tom McConville.”
Kate and Kathryn are musing about the possibility of actually writing some songs but reckon they’re not experienced enough in life quite yet. “Maybe this time next year! There are plenty of songs to have a go at in the meantime.” Kate and Kathryn have the main input on the vocal side, obviously, but even the boys will be doing some singing.
Sean: “We’re all incredibly surprised that we can do it. We’re shit scared of singing as The Lakeman Brothers. We’ve previously thought that, musically, as we play to such a standard, if we started singing at a semi-good standard it’s going to let the whole show down. But the girls have made a huge input in finding the songs and interpreting the songs. Basically, they’d sing us the songs the way they’d do them and we’d say “Stop there!” at the second verse and there’d be a quarter of an hour of intense musical discussion with quite a few intense terms flying around the room, and then in about a quarter of an hour we’d have the basis of an evolved song. Musically, it was mainly me and the lads working in a very intense way. But there’s been a very fair distribution of input from everybody.”
Working methods seem to have been an eye-opener all-round. You get the impression that working with the Lake-
mans involves lots of burst blood vessels, if not near-death experiences. Earlier in the year, when the group got together for a week of rehearsals, they realised that they were meeting each other for the first time musically. The Lakemans had never really played with many other musicians before, not even in sessions. Seth jokes about having to compromise on working methods: “We weren’t allowed to use whips or anything!”
Of course, songs are not the only aspect of The Equation. All five members are very fine instrumentalists, the melody instruments set in a soundscape created by the keyboards with “a lot of depth and a lot of scope.”
Sean: “Tune-wise, we do some stonk- ing tune sets. Kate plays the fiddle as does Seth. We feel there’s a limit with what you can do with tunes. In the main, I’m talking about traditional Celtic dance tunes, and by the sheer nature and the history of the tunes, there’s only so much you can do with them musically because they are very defined, almost cut in stone, by the melody and the harmony. That’s where quite a lot of bands cock up, by taking these tunes and being too musically clever with them, and you can’t. It’s a bit like being too musically clever with a lullaby. It’s not going to work because what you’ve got in the first place, the fundamental bedrock of a tune, is quite minimal. I’m not taking anything away from Celtic music but as someone who’s just spent three years studying Charlie Parker solos, there ain’t no comparison.”
“The tunes sets will get people on their feet dancing, which is another bril- liant aspect of the gig. So we’re going out there doing a bit of everything. Of course, the girls are both brilliant dancers.”
The Irish dancing at the end of the show sums up the variety of entertain- ment being offered.
Kate ponders. “It’s all in there some-
where, isn’t it?” and jokes “… juggling, fire-eating, magic tricks!”
W
hen you look at the tour schedule that The Equa- tion have already acquired and consider that both outfits are
working separately as well, that Sean is doing his finals this summer as well as being a professional musical accomplice of Tom McConville and member of the Young Tradition Band, that Seth is doing A-Levels, that Sam is finishing an arts course… and so on, it’s hard to envisage how on earth all these commitments are managed. Both Kate and Kathryn are already full-time musicians and come July all three Lakeman Brothers will be dedi- cating themselves fully to musical careers too. Sean already feels that he’s nailed ten years in the space of three by continuing playing professionally through his college course, thereby also helping to fund him- self. He feels he has learnt an awful lot during this time, particularly working with Tom McConville.
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