Skerryvore is band with a great identity crisis. Call them a rock band with a Celtic-music habit, or a Celtic band with a rock-music habit, the Scotland-based group walks a fine-line between world-beat rock band and traditional Ceilidh band.
On any given day they can bang out a thriving and lively set of rock music, then quickly turn a corner to lay down up-beat, bagpipe and fiddle heavy Celtic music that would score a pint-heavy afternoon in your local pub. Those sounds come from members of the band being reared on rock radio and traditional Scottish music passed generation to generation. Because of those influences, they’ve created a glorious fusion of the two, where modern rock music meets centuries-old sounds of Western Europe.
Skerryvore will perform Saturday in the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
That combination of Celtic and rock results in their sound being an energetic affair; it’s a sound that has grown as the band has grown.
“There’s eight members in the band, and we started about 15 or 16 years ago with four members. And its evolved since then. It started out as quite a traditional Scottish band, what we would call a Ceilidh band, traditional music, purely for dancing. But its evolved to what it is now, which is a lot of songs, and a lot of our own original music, and it’s a mixture of that,” said Craig Espie, Skerryvore’s fiddle player. “It’s got the traditional Scottish element in there with the bagpipes, accordion and fiddle, but its essentially a rock band with drums, bass, keys and guitar. Its lively, fun, uplifting music.”
If You Go
WHAT: Scotland’s Skerryvore plays a fusion of traditional Scottish music with rock and pop.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
WHERE: Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
TICKETS: $27/$45. Available online at https://bit.ly/3ryjMG5.
MORE INFORMATION: www.durangoconcerts.com.
Commercial radio, no matter what side of the Atlantic Ocean you may be on, has for the most part ignored anything with an “international” type of flair; bands with anything other than guitar/bass/drums/keys/vocals don’t get top-40 airplay. Skerryvore has bucked that trend. Using pandemic time to write, some of their new tunes that feature those traditional sounds have been picked up by some of the more popular broadcast channels of the U.K.
“Our music has evolved, I suppose, and I think the music industry in the U.K. is a wee bit more open than it used to be. During lockdown when we couldn’t play live music, so we concentrated more on recordings and new music, and two of the singles we released during that time were picked up by the BBC for mainstream radio, which is very unusual for anything that is not completely mainstream. So hopefully, mainstream radio is beginning to change,” Espie said. “Certainly, it has for us, and along with those singles we’ll bring out more music at the start of next year, and hopefully we’ll continue in the same vein.”
Skerryvore’s moving into a more mainstream territory will also perhaps be a catalyst for new fans to dig on old sounds. Just like bluegrass flavored jam bands inspiring fans to work backwards to discover Bill Monroe or Flatt and Scruggs, Skerryvore’s nod to tradition could motivate their fans to research the historical, musical influences within their catalog.
“This introduction to ‘Celtic’ music often provides inspiration for people to explore the roots of the genre more. We often have people coming up to us after shows or sending us messages saying they now want to learn the bagpipes or fiddle, which is amazing to know that they will undoubtedly start listening to other, more traditional artists,” Espie said. “The traditional music scene in Scotland just now is very strong, which is largely due to the number of different artists taking the music in their own direction and combining the traditions with other musical genres.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
