Can you tell us a bit about how you got started playing traditional music as I believe you started in classical music training?

Fr Christmas gave me a guitar when I was ten, which was the first instrument I ever played. I played a lot of classical guitar because that is what I was taught, but I was familiar with folk music because my Mum dances (clog step) so I went to lots of festivals with her as a kid. At the same time as playing the guitar I picked up the penny whistle and worked out how to play that a bit and the accordeon followed on from that. Lots of very kind people pushed me in the right direction and I learned what I know in a piecemeal fashion, picking bits up from people here there and everywhere.



What was the attraction of the Accordion?

I started playing accordeon when I was fourteen, and at that point I think the attraction was visual as much as anything. I still they are one of the most visually appealing instruments you can watch a person playing. As I got to know the instrument I also realised it has the perfect sound (I think!) really full and satisfying.





Why do think you have such an affinity to folk music and where do you think this came from?

Well certainly in part from my upbringing, but I have a brother and sister who aren't really in to folk music and they got the same exposure I did so there must be something else... I don't know why, but I feel at my most alive when I'm playing and singing (providing it is going well!)





Who was your main inspiration when starting out in folk music?

All the people around me, Beetlecrushers Clog Step, Roger English, Jethro Anderson (not that one but another one), Sue Dukes, Don English, they put me on to Andy Cutting and John Kirkpatrick, Blowzabella, and many others who still inspire me now.





Did you attend any folk workshops or summer schools when you were developing your musicianship?

Yeah I went to Folkworks Summerschools, Folk South West weekends, and I probably wouldn't be playing today if I hadn't been to them. Thanks.





You won the BBC’s Young Folk Awards at the age of 20? That must have been an amazing experience. I imagine it also opened many doors to you. What was that like?

Yeah it was a wonderful introduction to a great many people who have been very helpful and important in giving me the opportunities I've had to date. Many of them continue to be as helpful and important to me now. This is the most important aspect of the awards really, the trophy is lovely -and still gleams on my mothers mantlepeice!- but what makes it really worthwhile is the opportunity to introduce yourself to people who can help you out. I'm glad to say that a good many of them get involved in the early stages of the award and meet all the finalists too, so I think it is a nurturing event for quite a few young musicians every year.





What advice would you give to young musicians trying to break into the folk circuit?

Don't think there is one answer really. I'd be really happy to chat to anyone who wants to get in touch. You can contact me from my website or myspace.





How did you come to join Waterson:Carthy?

Well I'd met Liza and Saul at Whitby festival, among other places, and when Saul hung up his spurs for a while to be a Dad they asked me if I would step in. I've had a great time with them over the last six or seven years, and I'm really happy that Saul is now back in action and assuming the position again! So I'm off to do my own thing with my new band and anything else fun and interesting that comes along.





This must have been an amazing and possibly strange experience to be suddenly playing with such a famous family. What was it like?

Certainly amazing both musically and culinarily, I've learned so much working with them and got a second family in with the deal!





I see you are doing your last concert with Waterson:Carthy in December this year for the Frost and Fire - Singing the Seasonstour. How do you feel about this departure?

Of course I'm sad to be moving on. It has been a really integral part of life for me over the last few years. But it's a joyful kind of sadness if there can be such a thing. It's really good to recognise when it is time to move on.





I’ve read about your views on folk music today, why do you think progressive folk is so important today?

It is part of the fundamental nature of folk music that it progresses. I don't think it needs to be forced in new directions, just that a good folk musician should be open to the possibilities. Sometimes I think people worry too much about keeping a "folk" sound and it can end up being an artificial limitation imposed on the music.





Where did you get your ideas for the album Stiffs Lovers Holymen Thieves from?

I'm always inspired by the song first and foremost. Then all the things I hear around me and all the musicians I have worked with and work with now. There really are too many influences to list. I try to extract what it is about any given song that appeals to me and then work to draw that out and expose as directly as possible. I tend to work very instinctively though so it can be difficult to work out exactly what it is that appeals, and then the whole process is much more vague, and I should think I'm probably much more annoying to work with!





Can you tell us a bit about the musicians that play on the album: Who they are and how you came to chose them?

It's a dream team really, and I'm very lucky to have been able to work with them. Nancy Kerr I'm sure needs very little introduction. She is the most brilliant musician to work with, she has such a profound understanding of folk music and such technical flare. Olly Knight plays electric guitar in his own inimitable, quirky way and with the depth of understanding that you would expect with his family and work background. Pete Flood is known to many through his work with Bellowhead, among other bands. He has a background that includes a great deal of free improvisation which really feeds in to all his work. He's very inventive and has no apparent stylistic boundaries. (I did ask him to play more like Phil Collins once just to see where the boundaries lay and I'm glad to say that he baulked at that.) Colin is also fabulously versatile and intuitive. He's a real anchor man at the same time as being very sensitive. I wanted to have a sort of standard sound pallet to work with, hence bass, drums and electric guitar Then I wanted to have someone who could be a melodic counterpart both instrumentally and for vocals which is where Nancy came in. I asked Olly first. I knew Col a little bit through Nancy, who I have played a lot of music with over the years. I'd been struggling to find a drummer when Jon Boden recommended Pete to me and it was clear from the first rehearsal that he would be wonderful to work with. So that's a brief precis of how it all came about. Nancy will be leaving us later on this year to focus her attention on other things but we've got a good summer ahead of us yet.





You start the album with Barleycorn. Why did you choose this as an opener?

I didn't have an order in mind when I was gathering the tracks for the album and it simply worked out to be the best one to go first. I was quite reluctant in some ways because Jim Causley and Chris Wood had just done versions of it, and Martin Carthy had revived his version not that long back, so I thought the press reaction might be a bit luke warm, but in the end it doesn't do to make artistic decisions on the basis of predicted press reaction!





How did you go about choosing songs for the album?

I had had four or five of them up my sleeve for some years, then the rest came in around those. I got most of them from recordings, many of particular favourite singers such as Fred Jordan and Packie Manus Byrne. With the Voice Of The People and the great volumes of recordings that Veteran and Musical Traditions are putting out now it's getting much easier to hear the old singers and there's an exciting treasure trove of stuff there. I also find it difficult to go past a second hand book shop without just checking what is there, and I'm amassing quite a collection of useful tomes now.





Folk music is getting an incredible amount of attention as has your album. Do you think we are going through a further folk revival? What do you make of it all?

I think I was lucky to get in to folk music at a time when the worst of the folk "recession" was over. I've always been around other folk musicians my age, either at Folkworks events when I was younger, or later at festivals around the country. It's certainly true that the number is ever-growing, and the mainstream press are much more receptive at the moment than they have been for a while, so it's nice not to be fighting that battle. The "Nu-folk" thing is a but puzzling, particularly the divide there seems to be between nu-folk and folk. Paradoxically much of it seems to be quite retro to me, harking back to the 60s and 70s.





Are you working on anything at the moment?

Oh yes! I'm working on album two. Also I've been practicing my clog dancing -I learned quite a bit from Mum, but never really got round to finishing anything. Maybe one of these days I'll do something in public! And I'm fitting out a narrowboat in my spare moments.