Flook, winners of "The Best Group" at this years BBC Folk Awards have very kindly taken some time out of their amazingly busy schedule for an interview with Folk Radio UK. The interview is with the very charming Sarah Allen, a founding member of Flook.

Sarah: It's nearly 11 years now! We celebrated our 10th birthday last November with 10 great gigs around the UK, Scotland and Ireland.
We started off in November 1995 as a flute trio called Three Nations Flutes, but it would be fair to say we never liked that name, nor was it very appropriate - we were supposedly representing England, Ireland and Scotland, but there wasn't anybody from Scotland! So we quickly changed our name to Fluke, later Flook - Fluke because there were 3 flutes in the band, and “flute” is like “fluke”, and it was a fluke we were playing together...but we found out there was a dance band called Fluke, so we changed the spelling. Our initial line-up of myself, Brian Finnegan and Mike McGoldrick on flutes was quickly augmented by Ed Boyd on guitar, and after that the only change we have had is when Mike left and we drafted in John Joe Kelly on bodhran. I think that is the thing about Flook that makes it special - the fact that we have been so solid together as four musicians and four friends making music.

Naming highlights is pretty tricky - we do so many gigs each year. This year alone we have been to Japan, Czech Republic, Germany, USA and Canada (several times), Spain, Mexico, Sardinia, France - and that's all fitted around our gigs in UK and Ireland. Mexico was great, and we always love our annual gig at Belfast's mighty Open House Festival, which is coming up next month.

FR U.K. - I read somewhere recently that you’ve probably had only 4 rehearsals in 9 years! Is that a conscious decision or is it because it's just too impractical to get together regularly?

Sarah: Mostly because it's impractical. I live in London, Ed lives in Bath, Brian lives in Armagh and John Joe lives between Manchester and Ennis in County Clare, Ireland. We see quite enough of each other on the road, and we like to have space from each other when we're not on the road! When we have new tunes to try, we generally play through them in soundchecks until they sound good enough to gig!


FR U.K. - On your latest CD, “Haven”, you had a number of session musicians. Can you tell us a bit about how you went about choosing those particular musicians? 

Sarah: Those musicians that we asked to play with us are usually all friends of ours whose music we like, and who we think will fit in nicely. We used Ewen Vernal on bass and Seckou Keita on percussion on both Rubai and Haven. They're great, and add a bit of extra backing to the sound. On Haven, we also used Leon Hunt, a brialliant 5-string banjo player from Bath, Padraig Rynne, a great young anglo concertina from Ireland who we'd met on a tour of Austria the previous year, Catriona McKay on harp, Andy Davies on hammond organ, and our lovely studio engineer Mark Tucker played his e-bow acoustic guitar

FR U.K. - Most of the reviews I have read state “Haven” as your best album to date. What do you think has been the main changes to your music to make such an impact?

Sarah: I think both Rubai and Haven were a huge leap forward from Flatfish, our first studio album. On the 2 more recent albums the sound expanded with the guests and some nice production.

FR U.K. - Celtic music is often compared to Afro/Asian music. This may be because they both are pentatonic (for our listeners not familiar with the term: a scale that has five tones to an octave) and this occurs in nearly all ancient cultures. Do you feel that connection when you hear Afro/Asian music and is it fair to say there are some Afro/Asian fusion elements in your music? If so, what are your current influences and where do you take this inspiration from?

Sarah: Everyone in Flook listens to a very broad spectrum of music, and I'm sure there are influences from Afro/Asian music in ours. John Joe's hero on percussion is Zakir Hussain, the great tabla player, and Brian listens to a lot of Indian flute music. We take our influences from anything we hear, I suppose - we listen to everything from dance and pop music to jazz and world music, even classical music, and everything in between.

FR U.K. - You play a lot of original traditional tunes. How do you go about researching, choosing and agreeing on what to play?

Sarah: It's Brian who searches out a lot of our music. He spends hours and hours trawling though CDs and tapes, always on the listen for something that might work in Flook. And yes, we write many of our own tunes; Brian and myself compose separately and together. Once Brian and I agree on a tune and have both learnt it, we try to subtly suggest it to the others by playing it in sound checks and looking to see if Ed and John Joe look interested!! If they do, we play it again the next day - that's the rehearsal bit I was talking about!

FR U.K. - Congratulations on winning the recent “Best Group BBC Folk Awards”. This is really quite some achievement. Do you think there has been a resurgence of interest in Celtic/traditional music over the years and do you see yourselves as patrons for making this music a “living tradition”?

Sarah: We were really over the moon with our recent award. It meant a lot to us, because we have done most things ourselves, keeping control and trying to do what we want, when we want - not pandering to anyone else, and subsequently having less support and back up from the powers that be. We have always had a keen fan base, and we were pleased when the critics caught on too!

FR U.K. - Apart from carrying on with your exhausting tour schedule have you any big plans or developments in the pipeline?

We'll likely be doing a few fewer gigs in the next year or so, as there are some personal developments coming up that might curtail our current touring schedule - but not too much, hopefully! Aside from that, we have never really made plans - we just take each day and week and month as it comes; we try not to book up too far in advance, and we try to make sure that everyone has enough time and space to have a life outside of Flook - I think that's a top priority and a huge reason why we have managed to carry on when so many other bands have folded.

FR U.K. - Now can I be cheeky and ask a couple of nosey questions:
What do each do to relax whilst on/off tour?

• Sarah: yoga / books / film
• Brian: running / anything dangerous or sporty
• Ed: cycling / dog walking
• John Joe: who knows!!

FR U.K. - What music are each listening to at the moment?

Sarah: We have just discovered this great band from USA called The Weepies, who we all really enjoy.
That's what we listened to last weekend, and I can't think further back than that right now!

FR U.K. - Thanks for taking the time to talk to Folk Radio UK. I wish you all the very best as I’m sure our listeners do to.

Sarah: You're very welcome