Rachel Unthank and the Winterset have been challenging people’s impression of folk music ever since their debut album, Cruel Sister, won Mojo Magazine’s Folk Album of the Year in 2005. From there they went on to be shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 2008 for their second album, The Bairns, which received global critical acclaim.
On February 3rd, Rachel Unthank and the Winterset will be following in the footsteps of Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power and Laura Veirs by performing in the intimate confines of the Douglas Hyde Gallery at Trinity College. The starkly beautiful surroundings of the gallery mirror the ethereal style with which sisters Rachel and Becky, alongside fiddle player Niopha and pianist Stef, deliver their stories of a world gone by. Totally Dublin caught up with Rachel to find out how she became a purveyor of folk-rock to the masses without compromising the traditional foundations that the band have built their musical careers on.
What do you think it is about Rachel Unthank and the Winterset that makes music with such traditional roots so accessible to a younger audience?
I don’t know really! We love traditional music and folk music, me and Becky have grown up with it and, y’know, we’re young people and we like it and it attracts us! I think there is a core of it that is interesting because the storytelling element is so great and the story of folk is so interesting and complex. I think that if they get a chance to hear it, young people are pleasantly surprised by the fact that they do like folk music. I think also that we are people who listen to a lot of music, we listen to lots of different kinds of music, and I think that can’t help inform the way that we arrange music and maybe it’s perhaps that young people can hear something in it that’s more familiar to them.
You and Becky are sisters. Can you how tell me how Niopha and Stef came into the equation?
Well when we were making The Bairns album we were looking for a new fiddle player. Niopha is from St. Albans and both her parents are Irish so she’s grown up very much in the Irish music scene, the London-Irish music scene. She has come across to Ireland and played in lots of fleadhs and stuff like that. She moved to Newcastle because there’s a folk degree course there, so she knew she going to come over to do the degree. We were looking for a new fiddle player and everybody kept recommending her. She’s a great singer as well as a fiddle player and she’s kind of got a real grounding to the way she plays. We met Stef when we were looking for a new piano player this time last year. Our old pianist Belinda, who actually played on The Bairns didn’t really… the touring life wasn’t for her, so em, we found Stef on the internet! It turned out that when she had a really boring temping job, she’d put herself on a site for piano players and our manager, Adrian, happened to come across it and sent her an email. She didn’t really check it very often but she just happened to [check it] one day and got in touch. She lives in York, it’s not far away so we went down and met her. She’s a great pianist so we snapped her up. She did a music degree at York and a jazz masters and now she’s doing a PhD in composition, so folk is a little bit different for her really. In fact her first tour was when we came to Ireland last year.
You’re from Northumberland, which is often attached to romantic notions of Olde England, and your music has a very atmospheric feel to it that compliments that notion. Was where you grew up very influential to the music that you write?
Definitely. Tyneside (the area on the outskirts of Northumberland where Rachel and Becky grew up) is a very vibrant area. Along with Newcastle it’s kind of helm, so there’s lots of songs about the sea and about the mining industry. And then Northumberland is quite wild compared to the rest of England. It’s got massive big open spaces that are quite weather-beaten and beautiful, but in a very wild and empty way. It’s full castles and things like that so it aches with history. I suppose it is quite romantic in a way because that was a long time ago and it’s quite peaceful now so it’s quite a contrast anyway.
Your parents were a great influence on you musically, when did you and Becky realise that you had inherited their gift?
They got into folk music in the 60s and kind of never left it behind so it’s just a massive part of their lives. My dad sings in a group called The Keelers. Keelers were like boatmen who went up and down the Tyne in keels. He sings in a sea-shanty group that sings lots of local songs as well. We grew up dancing too, my dads a rapper dancer, which is like sword dancing from the North East, and we grew up clog dancing. Mum loves to sing as well so it’s just a really big part of our family. But that’s because they made it part of our family and they enjoyed it so much. I don’t know if we’ve always known we could sing, we just always have done! It’s like indoctrination from birth really and it’s just always been a part of our life. We never really imagined that we would end up making out living from it though. I guess I feel kind of amazed and grateful that we can get away with it really!
You performed at Hal Wilner’s Rogues Gallery for the Analog Festival last summer alongside Lou Reed, Shane McGowan and Tim Robbins. As a member of the audience it was pretty surreal, how was it from your side?
Imagine being on stage with those people! It was like, ‘Oh my god, what is going on?!’ People who were much more famous would be looking at me going, ‘Do you know this one…oh right… what’re the words?!’ It was just a really surreal thing to be thrown onto stage with people like Shane MacGowan, who I’ve never met before, with Tim Robbins standing next to me bellowing away. It was very bizarre but we really enjoyed it. Particularly the Dublin gig actually, there was a really good atmosphere because it was outside.
You’re coming to Dublin again to play at the Douglas Hyde, which is an art gallery. Where is the most unusual place you’ve played or recorded?
Em… maybe our house! We did play in Portugal last year at a lovely festival. We played on a lovely stage watching the sun go down but then the rest of the festival was in a castle. We were only there for a day so it was a bit crazy. We were in this beautiful setting for a day and then taken out of it again, it was very odd because we went straight back to a festival in England the day after so it was a real contrast.
I believe you just got married, congratulations! Has it been a hectic time for you?
Thanks, I just got married on Friday! We hadn’t really made much wedding plans until we got home. We were on tour until Christmas Eve and then we had Christmas and New Years so then we were like ‘right, right, we’re actually getting married,’ so I’ve just been thinking, ‘wedding, wedding, wedding’ since January! But we had it last weekend and it was fabulous, really lovely. We’re postponing the honeymoon until June!
Festival season is fast approaching, have you anything lined up?
We’re about to go off to Celtic Connections this weekend, which is why we’re not having our honeymoon yet! It’s great because I used to live in Glasgow and go along to the festival as a punter so it’s nice to be playing there. Then we’re coming across to Ireland before we go to Australia in March. It was our first time [in Australia] last year and we had such a fabulous time so we’re really looking forward to that.
What are you working on at the moment?
We’re starting to work on our new album so it’s all busy. It’ll probably be out next autumn but it’s very early stages. We’re a bit behind, what with weddings and things getting in the way!
Words by Sheena Madden
