Nothing prepares you for the high-octane music of the Peatbog Faeries. The band are about to go on their March ’23 tour with dates starting to sell out and many fantastic nights ahead for everyone attending.
Check out our full interview below for information about the band and new releases due to be released soon.
Hi Peatbog Faeries, for those who don’t know your music – how would you introduce it to someone?
Some people describe us as Trad fusion, sometimes as Acid Croft – a phrase coined by our contemporaries Shooglenifty but basically it’s dance music incorporating traditional instruments, pipes, fiddle and whistles. Music designed to make people move!
The mood is very much no-nonsense feel-good from the start until the finish, was this important when creating the band’s live show?
Over the years the band has honed its live show to the audience. Generally this has meant lively music in the main. A couple of moody numbers to give folk a wee rest then back to the reels and jigs.
Do you either individually or collectively have a favourite song to play live?
Like most bands, the music we’ve written last tends to be our favourite but there are some tracks that have proven they can pass the test of time. Folk Police would be the track that has always been undroppable for us.
Can we talk about the band name? Where and how did you come up with Peatbog Faeries?
Whilst on an ‘extended’ holiday in the Western Isles with some friends in 1989, drinking whisky, playing tunes and lying around beaches Innes had a chance meeting with an old woman in the village of Laxay, on the Isle of Lewis. Her name was Mary Anne and she happened to mention that there was a lot of peat to be lifted and dried. So the next few days were spent out on the hill making little stacks in what seemed endless miles of bog. Mary Anne christened us “sìth na mòine” – the peat faeries.
Your last album release was Live @ 25 in 2017 and before that acclaimed Blackhouse in 2015, are there more releases in the pipeline for the band?
Yes, our new album titled “I See a World” is due to be released at the end of May. We are finishing it now. It features three new band members and as a move from our all-instrumental past we will have some vocal elements, as well as a beautiful song by our guitarist Tom Salter entitled “Sister of Moses” from which we took the title of the new album
Tickets for Peatbog Faeries are on sale now. Click here to see the event for more info and tickets.