Tuning Up for the Road

JULIE FOWLIS has been very busy of late, what with her own debut solo album, a new disc from Dòchas, and lots of touring and gigging. We caught up with her on an increasingly rare return to Dingwall, where she was catching her breath before Dòchas launched on an eagerly anticipated Tune Up tour with the Michael McGoldrick Band

Arts Journal: Julie, maybe you could start by explaining how this Tune Up tour as a double bill with Michael’s band came about?

Julie Fowlis: We share the same agent, Active Events in Glasgow, and I think this got worked out between the agency and Donald Shaw, through the Capercaillie connection with Michael. Between them they came up with the concept, and applied for the funding from the Scottish Arts Council. They had obviously spoken to us about it, but it all seemed a bit pie-in-the-sky at that point, and it was a while before the funding came through and we realised that it was actually going to happen. Both bands were really up for the idea, though.

AJ: You had a dry run with a concert at Celtic Connections in January – how did that go?

JF: We did, and that was really good fun, if maybe a bit under-rehearsed for the joint finale! It was one of those lovely nights when we just jammed along on a couple of tunes at the end of the night, and it was great fun, but we hope that we will get a chance before the tour and work out some material for the joint bit at the end.

AJ: Did Dòchas play first?

JF: We did, yes, and I think that is how we will do it on the tour. Michael’s band have some electric instruments and a bigger sound than us, although we do have the pipes at the end of our set. We will draw our material pretty much from the new album, although we will probably do a couple of older ones as well.

AJ: Are you looking forward to hitting the road?

JF: We’re really looking forward to it. We are just back from three weeks in Austria, so we are all exhausted, but we had a ball, and can’t wait for the Tune Up tour now. That was the biggest tour we had done so far – the gigs were all in Austria other than one across the border in Italy. Most of the stuff we have done abroad has been long weekends or festivals, so this was a bit different for us. We have had chances to do longer trips before, but we never had the time – a couple of the girls have jobs, so it’s harder to fit everything in. It was great to get away and to try it.

AJ: You were working for Feis Rois yourself for a time, weren’t you?

JF: I was, yes, but I left about a year ago to concentrate on being full–time as a musician.

AJ: What was your background in relation to music?

JF: I sang a lot when I was growing up in North Uist. My mother’s side of the family are all Gaelic speakers. My granny was a very good singer, and there were a few singers in the family on that side. I did a lot of Gaelic singing in primary school and so on, but I had taken up oboe to do standard grade music at secondary school, and I was playing pipes a lot as well. The instrumental side took over a bit for a while, and I carried on with music rather than singing, and I didn’t really get back into it seriously until I went to university.

AJ: You did the Applied Music degree at Strathclyde University, didn’t you?

JF: Yes, and it was compulsory to do singing for the first couple of years, but it was Italian arias and things like that. I was always really nervous about singing at university for some reason – maybe I felt more comfortable singing in Gaelic, but I definitely felt I wanted to get back into that.

AJ: You released your first solo album of Gaelic songs, Mar a Tha Mo Chridhe , in January – tell us how that project came about?

JF: About a year past last October I was browsing the Internet and for some reason I was looking at the Scottish Arts Council website and saw that there was a deadline about three days away for applications for their Creative Development funding. I quickly put together an application which I honestly hadn’t thought a great deal about, other than having the basic idea in my mind for a while. I submitted the application and didn’t tell anyone about it, and promptly more or less forgot about it! I went off gigging and then went on holiday, and when I came back there was a letter telling me I had been awarded funding. That was great, but of course, it meant I had to actually do it!

AJ: Was there a specific theme to the project?

JF: It was about researching music from Uist, and a little bit from other areas of Scotland as well, but mainly Uist. I spent the next few months doing a lot of research at the School of Scottish Studies and back home on Uist looking for good material for the album. Arthur Cormack was keen to record it for Macmeanmna, I had pulled the songs together by the summer, recorded in September, and it was out in January, so it all went relatively quickly for an album.

AJ: It ended up mainly Uist songs, didn’t it?

JF: Yes, although a lot of my material is from Uist anyway, but I think pretty much all of them were Uist songs in the end. Finding that material was central to the project, but at the same time I was also making a record, and I had to feel that I liked them enough, and that they fitted well together as an album.

AJ: Did that mean not using a lot of songs you found?

JF: There were some songs I did like, but wasn’t sure if they really did fit well, so I’ve kept them for another time. Mind you, I don’t know if I have the energy to do another solo for a wee while – we were working on both my album and the Dòchas album at the same time, but pretty much at opposite ends of the country, so it was a bit hectic with lots of mad dashes and drives! I’ve got a few gigs coming up this year doing the material from the solo album, though, and that balances nicely with Dòchas, so it works out well.

AJ: Do you enjoy touring?

JF: I do, although I had the heaviest suitcase when we went to Austria, so I’ve been banned from taking as many clothes next time!

Dòchas and the Michael McGoldrick Band play at the following venues in the Highlands and Islands:

Glenuig Hall, Glenuig, Friday 1 April 2005
Rhinns Hall, Islay, Tuesday 5 April 2005
Aros Centre, Portree, Skye, Wednesday 6 April 2005
Farr Hall, Farr, nr Inverness, Saturday 9 April 2005

© Kenny Mathieson, 2005

Links

• Julie Fowlis website