You could argue this decade’s procession of newcomer chart folk has had its day. Sure, the global phenomenon that is Mumford & Sons continues to threaten sales records and bother Bieber in the charts, while the likes of Laura Marling and St Vincent continue to mop up the more fashionable end of the market. That sense of a huge rising tide at the heart of the genre, though, has slowly ebbed over the past year.
Oxford lads Stornoway, however, have built slowly, and have some real, considered depth to their songwriting. With a charmingly left-field lyrical heartland to their songs (which take in topics as diverse as the lifestyle restrictions of technological culture and how a lifetime changes perspectives), being easy to relate to seems to come naturally, especially when their slightly uncomfortable but instantly affecting live show comes into play. While ‘Tales From Terra Firma’ is yet to match debut ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’ in terms of sales, it has the feel of a career builder, and got the critics raving (The Guardian even went so far as to call the record “a folky take on the E Street Band”). Things are looking up.
There was plenty of hype well before ‘Beachcomber’s Windowsill’ came along, though. Very early demos inspired a local radio DJ to lock himself in his studio and play their debut EP on repeat for an hour long breakfast show (he was suspended), yet latest offering ‘Terra Firma’ still feels like something of a creative coming out. The mini-album follow up ‘You Don’t Know Anything’ – released in September – is a floral, rickety collection of folk melodies that didn’t make the full album, and a far cry from the quirky early days, and songs about which fish are ethically acceptable to eat.
Front man Brian Briggs and keyboardist Jon Ouin cite the sheer eventful timescale between the band’s formation and album number two as a massive contributing factor. “Plenty was going on in our lives between the two albums, so the writing for ‘Tales from Terra Firma’ was very productive and songs came along very naturally”, Jon explains. “There is nothing more inspiring to me than personal experiences, and things like birth, death and marriage are about as powerful emotionally as you get. So in fact the songs from our new mini-album also came about during that busy creative period. Ever since recording we knew we wanted a proper release for the songs on ‘You Don’t Know Anything’, as we are dead proud of them, but felt that they didn’t quite fit in with the mood of the other songs on ‘Tales from Terra Firma’. So rather than release a mega album at that time we decided to save some for the future. The tour we are just embarking on seemed like perfect timing to put them out.”
There’s a modesty associated with that success; perhaps a nod towards the days when the thought of playing on-stage openly intimidated the four-piece. The challenge was apparent when the group supported Villagers in Marlay Park back in 2011, when a crowd of several thousand could arguably best have experienced the show by closing their eyes: the musical aspects were perfect, but the stage presence somewhat lacking. Brian explains: “If you’re not used to doing it, communicating something musical to a massive crowd of people – without losing the essence of what you do – can be daunting! I have also found the sheer amount of space you get on larger stages pretty odd, as if I really ought to be making full use of it, maybe by doing cartwheels or importing some massive unnecessary props. Anyway, I think we’ve got a bit better at doing the larger stage shows and are getting a bit more comfortable in our own skin.”
While Stornoway clearly got off to a slow start, the rising tide of folk played a major role in the scale of their success once things kicked off, perhaps putting the band on huge stages before they were fully fledged. “There’s no doubt we’ve been fortunate”, the duo admit, “in that when those guys were in the ascent, around the time of our first album, it perhaps meant people were open to giving us a listen on the assumption that we were similar. If I’m honest I don’t think we sound especially like them, though, aside from the use of an acoustic guitar. I think we’ve always slightly operated in a bit of a bubble and we’ve never felt particularly part of any scene (‘nu-folk’ – ugh!). We did play a gig with Laura Marling for Irish TV quite recently, though, and she’s a pretty exceptional performer.”
Before that rise, the four-piece went through their own bizarre development process as a band, including an extended period in which one member was living a double life. When bassist Oli Steadman joined the band, he told his new band mates that he was studying at an Oxford College, but neglected to mention that he meant a high school. The saga eventually came out when Steadman moved to Warwick to start university; by the time he completed his degree, Stornoway were set to take off. “The journey from freshers’ week to graduation day was certainly a strange one for me”, he recalls. “I started out lying to band members about my identity… and ended up lying to professors as to my whereabouts during the last days of my Masters research in chemistry. Things came together very gradually for Stornoway over the 4 years of the degree, piecing things together around 2am drives back from having played in London. As the music started growing into a career, rather than an after-lectures hobby, the need for a double life grew too… I clearly recall a phone conversation with my lab partner in final year, with whom I was meant to be in the library – when actually I was in Tober Moray preparing for the first show of a tour. It was unexpected! And felt quite amazing, to be able to go straight from my last exam to a plane bound for NYC, for our first American shows.”
The relationship with Stornoway itself – a Scottish town name borrowed from the shipping forecasts that the band often joke provides free advertising – fits well with the band’s organic ethos. “We’ve still only made a couple of visits to the place”, Brian explains, “but it has made a lasting impression. The isle of Lewis is a wild and beautiful place and the locals were unsurprisingly a little suspicious of a group of southerners using their name. At our first gig we bought them all whiskys which helped to ingratiate ourselves. We would love to go back and spend some more time there. Certainly the name conjures up the sense of remoteness and escapism that we wanted to bring across in our music.”
That connection with the environment has long extended to Stornoway’s lyrics, too, not least in hit single ‘Battery Human’. “I am just trying to argue that for our own mental and physical sakes we need to fit in a bit of outdoors in our lives”, Brian explains. “We evolved over millions of years in a natural environment and so unsurprisingly there is plenty of evidence to say that it does us good to maintain a connection with the natural world. Yes, I would like people to live in a more environmentally sensitive way, for the sake of our future generations as well as for the wildlife on our planet, but I realize that touring in a band is not the most green of activities!”
Of course, those tours have become a huge highlight for the band, not least the outdoor connection that a complete cross-country jaunt of the States allowed. “Touring America was exciting, in particular crossing the whole country for the first time, hiking in an active wolf territory, picking ticks off each other, ferry trips and dolphins in British Columbia, crazy packed gigs in Canada, a pub crawl in Manhattan, crossing the Rocky mountains and the mega casino in Omaha. I always enjoy our European tours too, especially our visits to Berlin. This time we played we had our great friend Anton Barbeau (who’s been living there a while) support us at a venue called Bi Nuu, which is always an honour.”
Despite two releases over the past few months, though, Stornoway already have a focused eye on the future, and show no signs of resting on any laurels. “Hopefully the third album won’t be too distant”, Jon says. “The mini-album is more connected to our second album ‘Tales from Terra Firma’, in that the songs were all written and recorded around the same time. We are already working away on another album, and are excited to be trying a new approach to recording, which is working with a producer for the first time. It will be interesting to see what an extra pair of ears brings to the process. So hopefully we’ll have a new album out late next year, and have the chance to try out a bunch of new songs at summer festivals – there are few better things in life than a great music festival!” A life of folk and social commentary, it seems, is a satisfying one indeed.
Stornoway play The Button Factory, Dublin on the 3rd of December; ‘Tales From Terra Firma’ and the mini album ‘You Don’t Know Anything’ are out now.