Page 27 - BiTS_06_JUNE_2023
P. 27
situation? The last album, I wanted for myself to record everything live and just under
one microphone. So we set up a Soundfield microphone. I was going to do it in a
situation, but I got offered a studio, so we actually did it in the studio, but it was just
under one microphone. I wanted a bit of air around the music, if you know what I
mean? So we tried to record all the songs using that process so the theme or the feel
of the album, it gives some sort of theme to it, I suppose. But apart from that, it’s not
like a concept album.
BiTS: That's absolutely fascinating. I'm not sure whether you know this, but you
probably do, Doug MacLeod won the acoustic award at the Blues Foundation Blues
Music Awards, and he records like that regularly with a single microphone and him
and a couple of musicians around it on the floor.
TB: Yes, I think, Ian, I think it gives an honesty to the music, and also playing these
resonating guitars, I wanted to hear the actual timbre of the guitar, I know they’re
metal, but I also played my wood and Weissenborn, and if it's not plugged in through
a pickup you can actually hear the resonance in the wood. Most of the tracks I didn't
plug my harmonica in, so I played it acoustically. So it just gives it that different feeling.
It's really cool. Yes, I like it. I think I'm going to do the next one even more so. Maybe
we'll try and find an old church or a barn or something and do it like that for the next
album.
BiTS: I don't have it in front of me, so I forgot what the title is. There's an absolutely
fabulous harmonica piece that you've got on your current album. Some more of that
stuff, please.
TB: Oh yes, that was ‘Ambler Gambler’.
BiTS: That's the one.
TB: My dad used to sing the song going on holidays, and so I used the first verse as
a traditional song and then I wrote a second verse, but I've never heard it played sort
of a-cappella or with a harmonica.
BiTS: Well, I love that one, so let's have some more of that stuff [laughing].
TB: [Laughing] It goes down really, really well live as well.
BiTS: I bet it does too.
TB: Yes, when I get the foot stomp going and yes. So the gigs are coming in and
straight after the award, the next day, I was offered a festival in Ireland and some
better venues that had never booked me before. So hopefully, I'm going to turn a
corner and see where it all lands up, you know.
BiTS: You talked about going to Spain and doing some gigs there. Are you getting
stuff lined up for Europe?