Live from the Scottish Scene: PEATBOG FAERIES
Over on the Isle of Bute, on a late July evening, backed by the booming tunes of Valtos on the main stage and an 11pm sunset stretching over the island sky, I sat down with the Peatbog Faeries at ButeFest. They come from the Isle of Skye and oh my, do they create sounds to match the magic of the land. True to their titular claim of mystical fae-decay built up over thousands of years, Peatbog comes in with an energy that commands their audience to dance. Dance and surrender fully to their trance.
Upon hearing them play on a stage before me, I found my feet fluid and arms circling the limb of another as the rhythm of a cèilidh erupted amidst the crowd. Urged on in speed by the electronic beats, yet held in tradition through the core of trad, Peatbog Faerie’s provide some special sort of sound.
So tuck in and transport to the origin story of one of the most iconic, foundational band on the stages of the Scottish Scene…
Photo By: Graham Whitmore c.2024
* bank of underlined words at the end for ease of reader comprehension
Maya:
Heya, I am sitting here with some folks from Peatbog Faeries in the green room at ButeFest. I am wondering if you could introduce yourself and share a wee bit about your connection with Peatbog?
Peter:
Well, I'm Peter the Piper in Peatbog from the very beginning I've been here. From there on the Isle of Skye, I am, and this is,
Ross:
I'm Ross, and I'm the fiddle player, and I'm from the very middle of the time that Peatbog has been going on. I've been in the band for something like 12 years now, from Shetland, living in Glasgow, but I get to be a kind of a Sgitheanach now and again in this band.
Maya:
So if 12 years is about mid, you've been going for about 25 years?
Ross:
I say a little longer than that.
Peter:
33 years. I started when I was the wee age of two.
Maya:
You started when you were two!
Ross:
This interview isn't videoed, by the way, otherwise you'd be calling bullshit on that. Get some shots.
Photo By: Hessel-holt c.2016
Peter:
The bullshit alarm would go ring, ring, ring, ring.
Ross
Even I wouldn't get away with that.
Maya:
So you started about 30 years ago?
Peter:
Yeah, yeah. 1991.
Maya:
1991. What brought you to form Peatbog Faeries?
Peter:
Well, at that time we were playing what is known as cèilidhs and stuff at pubs on Skye as a couple of wee trios. And we got together for a girl's 21st at one point for a party, and we played trad pub songs and stuff, just a pub band. But then we started playing a few tunes I'd written that were more kind of funky dancey things, and that was really popular. So then we started playing more and more of what made people dance, and it became what we are today. It was a transition of about two years from pub band into this sort of thing.
Maya:
If this sort of thing is your electronic/dance take on trad, how did that aspect come in?
Peter:
Well, that would be about three years in when we first got keys, once keyboards started becoming a bit more electronic. We did our first, wee tester album three years in, 1994, and that had some keys and stuff like that. But when we did our main first commercial album, Mellowocity, there were lots of trancey kind of things and bits of dub and dance music. So from then on we just went down that wee track.
Maya:
You have such an interesting, and pioneering way of bringing in such ancient and traditional music with very new age, modern sounds. How does that feel through an identity lens, bringing in such old and new, ancient and modern together?
Ross:
Well, I would say that those things happen, but they happen reasonably organically. Sometimes when you hear a tune, it suggests a genre or a sound, a groove, whatever. But it kind of happens organically like that. We don't go, right, we're going to make one of these types of tracks when we all sit down. I think when you hear the Peatbogs’ finished product, you wouldn't believe how it starts, which is actually Peter playing the whistle, me playing the fiddle, or someone else playing the tune quietly, acoustically, in a room with an acoustic guitar, maybe. It just sounds like people playing in the pub kind of thing, like a pub session almost. And then it's like, okay, now we've got the chord structure. Then the bass is started on, then a groove is added on or something like that. Whatever comes after that. But really it starts very low key, and then it gets built up into this kind of sound that we end up with. So it's an organic process that ends up with these elements that you were describing. But yeah, it's a nice way of working. I couldn't believe it because I came into the band 12 years ago and so it was well underway by then. But I was like, Jesus, so this is how it starts, it was interesting.
Photo By: Sean Purser c.2016
Maya:
So your music starts with trad at its core, and then you build layers of modernity onto that foundation?
Ross:
That's right. And there's nothing to say that we couldn't hear a beat and go, oh, I have a tune that I wrote in the past that fit really nicely over that beat. That's also happened, but it's kind of a piece by piece kind of thing.
Maya:
I am fairly new to the Scottish scene, but from the people I've been talking to around, they said that you guys are pretty much the first ones to have done this mix together.
Peter:
Well, when we started, there wasn't so much of this kind of thing about, but there were two or three bands, friends of ours, Shooglenifty, were one of the pioneers at the same time from the Highlands and Edinburgh. As well as a great, now passed away, guy called Martyn Bennett from Isle of Mull. He made amazing dance music at that time. And there's one or two older things that we are touching on, but until Shooglenifty and Martyn Bennett came along, it was a genre that a few of us kind of invented. We didn't go out and invent something, but we were the first bands that were identified as this new thing that could go out with traditional based music and headline big festivals. It was effectively dance music. So yeah, nowadays there's lots. But back then it was a very formative thing.
Maya:
Yeah, it's amazing what you do. I was talking with Yoko Pwono earlier, and they were sharing a lot about how incorporating elements of modernity into trad helps strengthen their land-based and cultural identity, because it's just showing how you can move with the times, but still stay true to your roots. And I'm wondering if that resonates for you?
Peter:
For me, I don't really think that way. Both me and Ross still play very trad stuff at home. I play in Skye in sessions and stuff like that, and it is real, old style trad. Ross does the same in Shetland and Glasgow. But, we come to do this, like Ross said earlier on, it's kind of organic. We're not making a plan of getting the trad and putting some beats behind it and making it into a big dance thing. It's never really been like that. The band developed from these early stages into what it is, and we don't go out and try and create something. It's just what we've turned out to be. Do you know what I mean?
Maya:
Absolutely, your fluidity really shows up in how the crowd moves, very natural and animated. I think this interview is mostly going to reach people not familiar with Scottish music.
Peter:
Hello there, California.
Maya:
Is there anything that you want to share about your music, culture, identity, or anything else?
Peter:
Come to Scotland because it is awesome.
Ross:
And more to the point, take us to California, because we've never been there as a band.
Peter:
But aye, come and see it for yourself. Go to YouTube, look for Scottish mad trad bands, mad bagpipes, anything like that and you'll find a world of wonder. Truly.
Maya:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Thanks.
Peter :
Thanks Maya, cheers.
Ross
Cheers.
Photo By: Graham Whitmore c.2024
Scottish Word Bank
Buckfast: High caffeine and alcohol content tonic wine. Essential to any Scottish festival or party.
Wee: A little
Sgitheanach : A person from Isle of Skye. This derives from An t-Eilean Sgitheanach, which is the name for Isle of Skye in Gaelic
Cèilidh : Traditional Scottish dance gathering. Loads of swinging and swirling around, stomping and stepping, whisky and music.
Trad: traditional Scottish music.
Session: A gathering of musicians playing trad in a pub.
By : Maya Kaufmann @dreamscenebeing
