Loscoe State Opera
Derbyshire, United Kingdom
By Patrick Ferris

With roots reaching back over a millennium of tradition, Loscoe State Opera has one of the more unique sounds for a modern day band. A solid repertoire of originals mixed with traditional English folk music played on traditional English instruments, takes the listener on a journey through the musical history of Great Britain.

Often compared with Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull, Loscoe State Opera ties the familiarity of folk and the energy of rock together with the orchestration and finesse of a concept band. One of the most brilliant things about LSO is their ability to perfectly blend each instrument, creating a mental image exquisitely suited to their lyrics.

The interview with them was challenging to say the least! Attempts at talking and transcribing were quickly abandoned once I realized I could hardly decipher Ben’s accent, so we set up a chat-room where I met and chatted with front-man and whistler, Ben Daglish, flutist Kate Rounding and accordionist Andy Martin, separately over four days, stitching several conversations together into one interview.

Aside from being outstanding musicians, they were all charming, witty, politically aware and vocal about it. We connected immediately and conversations often took off on wild tangents, which caused me to be late on this issue! Nonetheless, I had a great time doing the interview and have made more friends on the other side of the world.

One of the things I found most interesting about Ben and Kate in particular was their conviction that everything was Andy’s fault. This was a great relief to me because for the past decade, my father almost had me convinced that everything was either Bill Clinton’s fault or mine.

Now…on to the interview!

HotBands - Great! It's finally nice to have all of you here. It always great to start with a background on the band members’ musical history and how all of you came together

LSO: Kate - It was all Andy's fault. Andy is the one responsible for getting us all together, and has been friends with Dave since before the rest of us were born.

LSO: Ben - Yes everything’s Andy’s fault. Andy is the accordion player. He’d met a drummer at the Whitby festival and invited Dave (guitarist), Kate, another friend named Brian, and myself to have a play for the weekend at the Loscoe Miners Welfare Club. We played to lots of friends mainly. I think everybody was curious to see what had happened and how the unlikely combination would sound.

HotBands - How many years ago did you start playing together?

LSO: Kate – About 5 years ago.

LSO: Andy – Dave and I were long time buddies, and I met Ben at a pub session and I knew Kate from samba school and invited her along.

HotBands – Pub session?

LSO: Ben - Pub sessions: Where people sit and play traditional music drunkenly.

LSO: Andy – Brian was Bens’ mate and he came along to the miners welfare meeting.

HotBands - What was your musical history before that?

LSO: Kate - I met Ben at a session and coincidentally arrived at the first recording session.

(There is a brief testing of the voice program, but I knew attempting to transcribe what he was saying would be extremely difficult, so I opted for text).

HotBands - Type it

LSO: Ben - OK – sorry! Especially when I talk as fast as I do!

HotBands – Yeah! And your accent! I need someone that speaks English just to translate! No offense!

LSO: Ben - Not at all! We understand that you Colonials have a bit of a problem with understanding proper English!

HotBands – One of the things that I’ve heard from every person I’ve introduced to your music is that you remind them of Jethro Tull. Now I know if I’m hearing that, you must be hearing that as well. Is Tull one of your main influences?

LSO: Ben - My other band at the moment is, believe it or not, a Tull tribute band! They asked me to play a few months ago having heard the Loscoe stuff. I listened to a lot of Tull when I was about 17, but then got into jazz. I became involved with music very early. I played whistle at 5; oboe, cornet, and harmonica…pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I settled on orchestral percussion at age 12 and played in a lot of youth orchestras. I became a professional musician at 18 when I dropped out of university, and did a lot of composing for 10 years or so. I finally became a computer programmer for the money.

HotBands - Kate, how old were you when you started playing music? Were any of you involved with music programs in school or private lessons?

LSO: Kate – I Spent a few years traveling around from age 16 and played the flute with friends at sessions and in tunnels. I even played the piano accordion for a while! I did a year of jazz in college, and by my mid-twenties, I was in the performance group of Nottingham School of Samba – several years of great fun, and a lot of gigs including Nottinghill Carnival. I became a freelance worker in 1998 when I worked for two years for the National Foundation for Youth Music as a percussion workshop leader. The work I do now is a fairly balanced mixture of percussion workshops, studio recording, and mobile recording in schools. Although more diverse workshops, sound engineering and mixing/mastering work is taking over now (thankfully! Much more fun – lots less carrying!)

HotBands - Andy, how did you get started?

LSO: Andy - I started on fiddle when I was 18, but I had an accident that injured my middle finger, which every fiddle player needs, so the Morris Men introduced me to the squeezebox. I started with the melodeon, which is a different animal altogether…it’s push button rather than keyboard. Now I use the accordion because Dave can only sing in E, and the melodeon only has G and D. My earliest musical influences were Fairport Convention, which got me into the folk idiom, as well as rock contemporaries such as Tull, Cream and Led Zeppelin.

HotBands - How many of you are original band members?

LSO: Kate – The original band members are Ben, Dave, Andy, and myself. I love this band! It’s a great vibe at the gigs, and they’re not bad mates!

HotBands - When you first played together, was there the electricity and energy there?

LSO: Kate – The whole first play/record day was great

LSO: Ben – Indeed! It was completely different to anything else.

HotBands – Your drummer is posing with just a snare. Is that part of your sound, or just for looks? It makes you look so…well…so British!

LSO: Ben – We're very British, my boy! That’s Kate's side drum. Our drummer uses a big kit, but Kate plays that on Dawnbird and a couple others.

LSO: Kate – Yes, besides flute I play snare drum, congas, tambourine.

HotBands - Ben, what instruments do you incorporate into your music? What kind of whistle is that?

LSO: Ben - I use a Susato 'D' whistle mainly. It’s a big hard American plastic thing, but I also play a bit of bouzouki and guitar on one track.

HotBands - Who is the main singer/songwriter, and where would you say your musical influences are from?

LSO: Ben - I think the bands influences are from literally all over the place. Kate has been playing Samba for ages; Kevin (bassist) comes in from the indie-rock side; Tony (drummer) is a 70's progressive rocker at heart; Andy has the Polish folk thing mixed with a very traditional English music background and Anna (fiddle) is into jazz in a big way. I used to conduct orchestras so I think I'm the only one that did the major school music, orchestras and jazz route.

Dave and I do most of the singing. Dave sings the songs he writes, and I sing the more traditional folk stuff generally. Personally, I rate Dave as one of the finest modern folk writers in the UK. He has a book full of 100's of songs and knocks them out like nobody’s business. They’re all good and some are truly excellent.

HotBands – Where did you get your Polish music background, Andy?

LSO: Andy - Polish music never really logged in to my heritage until that became apparent during our bands’ trip to Poland. Shortly afterwards, I heard a traditional Polish dance troupe that performed dancing and singing. They were really cool, and I was taken aback. It really affected me emotionally.

HotBands - So it's something that you've recently taken to but is originally part of your heritage?

LSO: Andy - I guess so

HotBands - You've been together for 5 years. Was the response great from the beginning, or have you had to tweak the band members to get the sound that moved the audience?

LSO: Andy – The response and feedback was great from the beginning but the sound has developed and got tighter…more professional.

LSO: Ben – We had a good response right from the start and I think it's stayed pretty much the same kind of sound…we just got better and tighter. We started in 1999. I think the 1st drummer lasted a year, the 2nd lasted 2 years, the 3rd lasted about 6 months, then we found Tony, who we nearly lost (he moved to Scotland), but he was so keen on the band that he makes every rehearsal and gig, even though it's 600-odd miles for him to come. Tony’s drumming suits us perfectly.

LSO: Kate – Yeah… adding Anna made a big difference too.

LSO: Ben – Yes, becoming a 7-piece band made the difference. I suppose it might be the mystical numbers and all that, but it strengthened the tunes enormously as well as adding some great texture.

HotBands – Texture - that's a good way of putting it. Your music really creates an emotional image. I'm interested to know if club patrons are receptive since I wouldn't classify your music as 'pop' or club music. What has the response been with audiences in the UK with LSO?

LSO: Ben - Wherever we've played, we've always gone down well and just about every gig we've done in the last couple of years has been a sellout. We do well as the late night act at festivals.

HotBands - Have you had much airplay in the UK? I'm not sure how that works over there.

LSO: Ben - Not mainstream airplay really, other than locally; the local radio Folk guy is a big supporter of ours. Part of the problem is we're not full time, as we all have other jobs and lives and kids and stuff, so we only tend to gig about once a month in the winter months, and do a few festivals in the summer. We're hovering right on the edge of doing it professionally, but none of us are prepared to step over quite yet. It would take a lot of marketing and kow-towing to the industry. The other thing is we share the money between 8 of us.

HotBands - What a pity…your band is fantastic with a sound that would fill a big void in popular music these days. Are all of you still writing and recording? How often do you release albums at this point, and is there another in the making?

LSO: Ben - We've only just finished our 2nd album. It took a year because the studio's hard drive went down with no backup, so we lost 6 tracks completely and half of the rest. In the meantime, we released the live album to make up for the gap, as it'd been a fair time since the 1st one. We have at least another album's worth of material that we play live, but need to save up gig money again to pay for studio time.

HotBands - Who is the main front-person for the band?

LSO: Kate - Dave and Ben are both front men.

LSO: Ben - Well, Dave & I both, really, as we both do the main singing stuff, but I'm the main leaper about-er…especially since I interact a lot with the audience, I get a lot of energy flowing both ways through me.

HotBands - Do you think the melodies are a joint effort or does the songwriter arrange the parts?

LSO: Kate - I think they are a joint effort

LSO: Ben – It depends. Generally, with Dave's songs, he'll have a melody, but it's liable to change. Dave is always willing to change things. Sometimes words morph in rehearsal before our very eyes. Dave is generally accepting of arrangement suggestions - odd note changes etc. With my own music, - I'm very precious about it not a note gets changed.

LSO: Kate – Oh, is that what you think? J

HotBands - Your music sounds so 'old world'. The feel of the music seems like it's centuries old. I was wondering if you try to create an old sound or if that's just the way the cards fall

LSO: Andy – Part of the reason we sound that way is because we’re not using computer-generated music.

LSO: Ben - I think we have a very "English" sound. Some of that is because with the 7 of us - the fiddle, flutes, accordion & whistle obviously contribute to the genuine folksy thing, and all of those instruments have been around for donkey's years. Another reason we may sound old world is because some of the music is old world: Ebol Melyn is at least 500 years old, as is Arthur McBride; Recruiting Sergeant is 18th century and Sir Patrick Spens is 14th century, I believe.

LSO: Kate – And at least one of Dave’s song is about ancient Greek mythology, which is very old.

HotBands - Was it magic when you first started playing together? I've always said that when all of the right band chemistry is there, the band can act as a lightning rod between the energy of the cosmos and the energy of the audience, but I also know that you can trade around with a lot of different players until you get the right chemistry. If you could define your vision of LSO, what would it be and how is it unique to you?

LSO: Kate - We all tend to bring an aspect and then find how it fits. At some of the gigs there is a communication between us and the audience and the music that is amazing!

LSO: Ben – We’re all pretty much together philosophically, politically etc. It makes it easier to get on, but also informs what we play and sing. We like the fact that songs like Recruiting Sergeant, a 400-yr old anti-war song, is still relevant today.

HotBands - Would you say that your music is somewhat politically motivated?

LSO: Kate - The lyrics have meaning (to me anyway!)

LSO: Ben - I think politics "informs" what we do, rather than motivates it. We know when we've got a song we like when we all feel good about the lyrics.

HotBands - I'm really interested in how the Internet plays a role in shaping bands, music, band strategy and marketing and how bands feel about being recorded and having their music traded. There seems to be growing trends among popular grassroots bands in the US, to encourage live recordings of their shows. Since you're an admitted computer-geek, how do you see the Internet playing a role in your band?

LSO: Ben – The Internet is cool. We sell a fair amount of albums through our site. Since Dave and I are both web professionals, our site is Google-top for all sorts of things, including, would you believe: opera pics, opera mp3s etc. We feel a bit embarrassed about that one really. As far as file trading, we give away 3 of 10 tracks on each album, but I don’t think we’d mind bootlegs of gigs going around at all.

LSO: Andy - I don’t think any band would mind in the early years having live gigs recorded, but if the popularity sets in, we may need to rethink that question.

HotBands – Where from here? What are the short-term and long-term aspirations of the band?

LSO: Ben - I don’t think we really work that way. The only major goal, both long and short term, is to make better music. We're not really looking for "big breaks" or a major-label recording deal or anything - our raison d'etre (reason for being) is to provide good gigs for the fans.

LSO: Andy - The band started with the intention of having fun and the enjoyment of music. This was my selfish angle when putting the band together, and this feeling seems to have blown over to our audiences who seem to getting the vibe.

HotBands - I'm very honored to have had the opportunity to talk with all of you.

LSO: Ben - Hey man - it's been as gas!

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