Celtic Folk IS Very Mainstream!

The Cottars, a teenage Celtic group out of Cape Breton Island, in the Great White North, is coming to the Narrows on Friday, July 29. Ciaran MacGillivray, who is about 17 years old, was kind enough to respond to your humble blogger's questions, and you can read the interview down below. The Cottars, by the way, are a very hot item in the Celtic world, and tickets are even starting to move at the Narrows, which is not known for Celtic shows.


Steve the Humble Emcee: Why not be a rock musician or something considered in the mainstream? Or are you planning to go in that direction eventually?

Ciaran: On Cape Breton Island, Celtic folk IS very mainstream. We grew up listening to it, consider it very cool, and have been travelling all over the world playing that sort of music for the last five years. However, we do some songs by contemporary writers in the folk vein, and we included some electric instruments and drum kits on a few cuts on our last CD. Who knows where it’s all headed.

Steve the Humble Emcee: How do you balance your school commitments with performing?

Ciaran: We have “homework buddies” (who keep track of classes we’ve missed), we take correspondence courses, and we get great cooperation from our schools. By the way, three of us are in the French immersion program in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Steve the Humble Emcee: Outside of where you live, what is your favorite country in which to perform?

Ciaran: We’ve really enjoyed performing in New England, the Southern States, and in Denmark, but I think our very favourite place has to be Japan. We’ve had two great tours there.

Steve the Humble Emcee: How do the Cottars decide what to record? What's the process?

Ciaran: We workshop the tunes that we all bring in to rehearsals. After awhile we home-record them, try them out on “live” audiences, and then decide. Allister MacGillivray, our musical director, has a great music library, and he also helps us to polish the pieces we’ve chosen to work on.

Steve the Humble Emcee: Are you working on a new CD currently?

Ciaran: We’ll start recording a new CD between now and spring. We have 95% of the material ready and, once we find time to get into the studio, we’ll start laying down the tracks. This 3rd CD will likely be part of the US record deal that we expect to sign in the coming weeks. Our first two releases came out on our own Sea-Cape Music Ltd. Label (distributed by Warner Music in Canada), and are available through our website: www.thecottars.com

Steve the Humble Emcee: Nobody is named "Cottar" in the group. Where's the name from?

Ciaran: The “cottars” were poor tenant farmers in Scotland in the 17th and 18th centuries. They lived in “cots” but were eventually driven off their lands and then emigrated to North America. All four of us in the band probably have cottars (also “cotters”) in our background. But our real last names are MacGillivray and MacKenzie.

Steve the Humble Emcee: For people thinking about coming to your show in Fall River, what songs might they expect? Will the show be high energy or mellow?

Ciaran: Our show can vary quite a bit from night to night, but we always include our Canadian singles “The Briar & The Rose” and “Ready For The Storm”, and there’ll be some driving instrumentals. Shows staged by Celtic bands like us tend to be lively, though we always include some tender ballads in close harmony. Lots of variety is the key.

Steve the Humble Emcee: Who are your favorite performers? Any CDs you could recommend to our readers?

Ciaran: Among the British Isles artists, we like Danú (blogger note: Danu is coming to the Narrows on Thursday, August 25), Dervish, Altan, Planxty, Steeleye Span, Kate Rusby, The Chieftains, Paul Brady and Tommy Makem — and lots of others. In North America, we like a wide array of musicians such as Tom Waits, Natalie MacMaster, Ricky Skaggs, and a few of the more senior members such as Doc Watson, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and even Peter, Paul & Mary. In the Celtic line, we’d like to recommend Danú’s “Think Before You Think”, Dervish’s “Live In Palma”, Paul Brady’s “Nobody Knows” and Altan’s “The Blue Idol” Cd’s. In non-Celtic, you can’t go wrong with Ricky Skaggs’ “Live At Charleston Music Hall”, Bob Dylan’s “Unplugged”, and Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Lifelines” Cd’s.