The Voice of Capercaillie 

KAREN MATHESON is the singer in leading Scottish band Capercaillie, and is currently working on her third solo album. The Arts Journal caught up with Karen this autumn for an update on the latest developments.

Arts Journal: Karen, we’ve been hearing for a while now that you are working on your third solo album. Where are you with that?

Karen Matheson: Well, it was really supposed to be out for the wee tour I did in October. At least, that was the plan when I set the gigs up, but the Capercaillie workload since March has been really full on, and the one week that I had scheduled for recording I lost my voice! So it has fallen behind, and is still work in progress – I’m hoping it will be out early next year. For the gigs we did some stuff that will be on that record, along with material from the two earlier albums. I never really had a chance to tour the earlier solo albums properly in any case – it was more a case of fitting in the odd gig, so it was good to air that live.

AJ: Is the new record going to be a disc of traditional Gaelic songs?

KM: Well, it’s changing. I’m not very focused, and if somebody comes along and gives me a nice song, I think yes, I’ll do that, then Donald [Shaw, Karen’s husband and co-founder of Capercaillie] will say well, hang on, I thought you were doing a purely traditional album, and I’ll say yes, but …What it will definitely be is rootsy, with an acoustic sound, but it probably won’t be all Gaelic now.

AJ: Is traditional singing a family thing for you?

KM: Yes. My mother is from Barra, and my father is from Skye. He was a box player, and my maternal grandmother sang, and I learnt a lot of songs from her when I was young – she died when I was 14, but I grew up with her in the house. She was a MacNeil.

AJ: Are your related to the great Flora MacNeil, then?

KM: We probably are somewhere along the line. She has been a great inspiration to me as well.

“We were very influenced by the Irish set-up at the time, and all the great bands coming out of Ireland.”

AJ: You and Donald have both been involved a lot with the the Fèisean and young musicians, including the Fèis Rois Ceòlraidh project at Eden Court in September. I imagine none of that support structure was around when you were kids?

KM: It wasn’t really. The only platform we had was the dreaded Mod, which obviously has its place, but is a different kind of performing altogether. The kids in the Ceòlraidh project were great. That was essentially a one-on-one thing. I worked with a girl called Katie Mackenzie, who is now studying at the RSAMD in Glasgow, and it was more a case of doing stuff together – in fact, she taught me a couple of songs, and that was really nice. Rita Hunter at Fèis Rois does an amazing job for the kids.

 AJ: Apart from traditional singing, what were the main influences on Capercaillie when the band started out back in Oban?

KM: We were very influenced by the Irish set-up at the time, and all the great bands coming out of Ireland. There was very little of that kind of thing going on here at that point – there was Silly Wizard and the Battlefield Band, and not much more. When we did start to get established, we spent most of our time abroad. It’s a very different picture now – it’s a thriving scene here.

AJ: Did Capercaillie have a game plan to develop the way they did?

KM: I never had a vision of that, or any kind of a master plan, it was very much done for the crack at the time! Donald did have a vision, though, and he really believed we could take it somewhere. I had come back from college and had just started working in Community Education in Oban, and we were offered a tour of Canada. It was a case of if we were going to do the music then we had to give up the other things and take it more seriously, and that was really it from then on. That tour was fantastic, and we thought well, maybe we can do this. It wasn’t always easy, but it always felt like the right thing to be doing.

“Capercaillie are very up-tempo and energetic live, but in the solo concerts we have a different feel, and deliberately so.”

AJ: Did chart success have negative as well as positive effects?

KM: I think it can only be positive if means your name is being bandied around and people are aware of you. The negatives came later when we signed with a major label, and all of the manipulation and so on started, when the A& R men start saying why don’t you go and live in Ireland because that’s cool, or do a duet with Rod Stewart or whatever. Or let’s get rid of so-and-so and keep the girl singer …. You are young and quite naïve, and you can get sucked into it all, but we learned the hard way that the independent road is definitely the way for us in order to have that independence and control.

AJ: When you were making your earlier solo albums, ‘The Dreaming Sea’ (1996) and ‘Time To Fall’ (2002), and working on the new one, did you aim to distance them from the music you make with Capercaillie?

KM: Yes. it always starts out with that in mind, because what’s the point otherwise? In any case, working with James Grant makes it different anyway, even though Donald is involved. It’s a bit more melancholic, I think – Capercaillie are very up-tempo and energetic live, but in the solo concerts we have a different feel, and deliberately so. I started the first solo project just after I had my wee boy, Hector, and that was a reflective time anyway. We don’t really do that material with Capercaillie, so it’s good for me to have that outlet, but it’s even better to have the opportunity to do both things.

AJ: How has having the children affected your professional life?

KM: It can be hard, and it’s more difficult as they get older, but that is true for anybody with a career. We travel more, I guess, but I try not to be away for more than three or four nights – any longer and they come with us. I have good family support here in Glasgow, otherwise it probably wouldn’t be possible. It is difficult, but then it’s all we’ve ever known, and we work it out.

“Playing the wee halls is great – people are delighted that you have made the effort to go there. It was a real tonic for us.”

AJ: You have been heard in the Highlands and Islands a fair bit this year – how did you enjoy Capercaillie’s ‘back to the roots’ tour in May?

KM: Brilliant. That’s the first time we had done the small halls, or at least the first time for 20 years, with no drums and a back-to-basics approach. Playing the wee halls is great – people are delighted that you have made the effort to go there. It was a real tonic for us. It is a really exposed setting, and makes you really work. I did some gigs in the summer with my band with no drummer, and that was terrifying as well – all of a sudden I didn’t have that big Capercaillie sound to hide behind!

AJ: You also played at the first Tartan Heart festival, both with your group and with James Grant – using identical line-ups! What did you make of that event?

KM: It has a lot of potential. It was a fantastic setting for it, and a great idea. It was a wee bit awkward that people were so far away from us – when people moved forward in the evening there was more atmosphere. But there is a lot of potential there.

AJ: Especially if the weather plays ball the way it did that day.

KM: They were so lucky. It’s a funny thing – we always say we can’t rely on the weather here, and yet Capercaillie have been over in Spain the last two years, and we have had outdoor gigs completely rained off. In fact, someone came over and grabbed the microphone out of my hand at one of them – there were huge puddles forming on stage, and he had visions of me being fried!

AJ: Are you doing Celtic Connections again in January?

KM: Sure am. Capercaillie aren’t doing it as a band this year, but I’m doing my own show [21 January], and I’m also involved in the Transatlantic Sessions gala concert [29 January]. Donald will be doing that one as well, and he is also playing with Michael McGoldrick’s band [14 January].

AJ: Thanks, Karen.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2004
 

Related Links

• Karen Matheson website 
• Celtic Connections website