Singer set to look back on decade long career for Inverness show
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Blue Rose Code – Ross Wilson and his band – are back in Inverness this week.
He’s excited about a new collaboration, playing with Show Of Hands’ Steve Knightley at Cambridge Folk Festival, and so much has changed in Ross’s life over the decade.
Battling drug and alcohol addiction in his Edinburgh home, the Leither moved to London and, in that anonymous place, found the space to explore music and write songs that stopped people in their tracks.
But it was time in New York that helped his music career take off, with his mix of folk, Americana, jazz and a little bit of soul all feeding into his debut album, North Ten.
The gig at Eden Court will start with it, the songs – including classic (This Is Not A ) Love Song – played in order.
The second half brings things up to date with performances of both new and reinterpreted songs.
“We are doing a mix of things from my back catalogue – some much older than 10 years and make me realise what a different mindset I’m in,” he said. “I think it is a combination of getting older and life experiences and also making better choices in my life.”
He added: “When I was putting out my debut album, I was living in London and was gathering no moss, and now I’ve firmly put down anchor on the west coast of England, in Liverpool.
“I’ve got two beautiful daughters and I can make a living.
“I wasn’t making a living from music when I put the record out and it’s been a decade since I could.”
Ross never seems to take anything for granted. Always a regular part of his set is the song Grateful, which emphasises how lucky he feels to be able to get up onstage and perform as a musician.
“My experience of coming out of the pandemic is that a lot of people I know have given up music,” he said. “The margins are too thin now. Fewer people are buying CDs, fuel and hotels are more expensive and, if anything, our fees have slightly gone down.
“That’s just the reality.
“I’m lucky that I’m a bit further on in my career. I’m blessed with an amazing support, but I think had I been starting now it would have been much more difficult.
“There was a whole media campaign in the pandemic that drew great ire – ‘Katie was going to be a ballerina but now she is a graphic designer’. I remember my music contemporaries going absolutely spare that people were suggesting they get other jobs. Some were forced to be subsidised by their parents, for example. But some people did have to get other jobs. No-one expects a pandemic.
“Sometimes you have to suck it up and get a job and then get back to music when you can. I don’t believe the world owes us a living.”
It was hearing on radio the chief executive of charity Magic Breakfast, which provides breakfasts in schools, that inspired March’s hard-hitting song, Thirteen Years.
“It doesn’t just impact their day at school it impacts their life outcome, because if they are hungry they can’t concentrate. That was what really fired me up – and also being on tour with The Proclaimers. They have such a broad section of ages at the shows, so many of them really switched on to the brothers’ social message.”
The Proclaimers’ Inverness date offered the chance to watch Ross woo the duo’s crowd, starting with Grateful, the song he more usually ends with.
He laughed: “I cut my teeth on the open mic scene and from that you learn you have about 20 seconds to get people’s attention, if you’re lucky. It’s an occupational hazard playing as support for a big act, very few people could care less!”
Ross reveals he’s often reluctant to tell people what he does: “My partner Michelle sends me up because I never tell people. I think they are going to think I’m either rich or famous or I’m no good at all. If people ask me directly what I do, I’ll say I’m self-employed, then if they ask ‘What do you actually do?’ I’ll say ‘As little as possible!’ But if they really pursue it, then I tell them. Although at times that self-doubt can creep in, I’ve never felt music’s the wrong thing. It’s always been my raison d’etre.”
Blue Rose Code play Eden Court this Friday at 8pm.
