Elephant Sessions misty-eyed for homecoming headline gig
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There are some traditions that rising folk stars The Elephant Sessions will never forget.
The “neo-trad” Highland heroes – four of the band’s five members come from around Inverness – make their long-awaited return for a homecoming show at the Ironworks tonight.
Since their last visit to the city six months ago for an intimate sold-out two night run at the Tooth and Claw, the band have scooped awards and brought their modern spin on Scottish traditional music – bringing elements of rock, funk, and electronica to the old sound of jigs and reels – across to the other side of the world.
Yet despite the successes, some things never change, and there’s one particular hometown ritual that the band know they’ll end up partaking in – Johnny Foxes’ legendarily lethal misty badger shots.
The half-tequila half-absinthe concoction beloved of city revellers have provided the trad quintet with a lot of good, if hazy, memories – they even named a song off their sophomore album All We Have is Now after the drink.
When Alasdair Taylor – the Elephant Sessions’ city-raised mandolin player – is asked about the shot, he can’t stop himself from laughing. “It’s a weekend gig, we’ll probably go to Foxes – you can’t avoid misty badgers!” he cackled.
“As much as you regret them the next day, they always seem to end up happening. They’re not even nice, that’s the problem! I mean, if they were tasty at least...but they’re pretty grim really, aren’t they?
“I go round everywhere telling the story about what’s in it and about how we’re from Inverness, and the amount of people that come up to me and are like, ‘oh, we’re going to go up and try one.’ I mean honestly – you can’t just go in straight away and try it, that’s crazy!”
To be fair, if any band has earned those misty badgers it’s the Elephant Sessions – the band are still reeling from their Album of the Year win at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2017 for All We Have is Now.
For a band who won Best Up and Coming Act at the same awards three years ago, there’s more than a little satisfaction for the group coming back to claim one of the night’s top awards. “It’s why I didn’t really expect it, and why I still can’t quite believe it,” Alasdair said. “I’m just genuinely so chuffed – it’s quite an honour to have that award given to you when there are so many amazing bands and amazing albums released every year.”
And, considering how every song on the trad band’s album was self-penned, there’s a personal sense of validation too. “We put everything into it. We write everything, arrange everything, and then our sound engineer will do all the recording and editing, it’s all fully in-house basically.
“It is quite a daunting thing to put that out there and let people hear it after you’ve put so much into it – so much time, effort and money – so to have that recognised is, yeah...it’s pretty special.”
The award has opened doors for the band in a lot of ways – and a few months ago, the band were able to take their music across the globe for a tour of Australia.
“It was absolutely amazing!” Alasdair enthused. “None of us had ever been, and it was just such an great experience.
“If you’d said that to us kind of five, six years ago when we first started this – or even 10 years ago when we first started playing music like – that we would have got to go to Australia through music, I would have just laughed at you – we could have never ever expected that in our wildest dreams.”
There are already plans for a return trip down under being worked on, but first there’s the matter of this current tour – after this Highland stop off, there are more dates to consider, followed by the summer festival season.
And the band’s music doesn’t exactly attract the usual traditional crowd – the electric guitars, bass and synthesisers bring far more of a party atmosphere than one might expect down the folk club. “They get quite...” Alasdair said, pausing to consider the right term. “...lairy – is that the word?”
“The crowd jump around and go for it a bit – I guess we kind of encourage that as well. It’s good fun to play for us – if the audience are having fun, then so are we.”
And with a followup album already in the works, there aren’t any signs of stopping for the Elephant Sessions. “We’re all enjoying the gigs as well as the writing, so yeah – we’re at a good point right now.”
Keep those misty badgers coming.
The Elephant Sessions headline the Ironworks tonight. Support from Calum Mackenzie Jones and the Trad Project. Doors open at 7.30pm, and tickets cost £12.50. For more information, go to www.elephantsessions.com
