Sister Ray Davies may hail from Alabama, a state synonymous with bluegrass and the Americana sound, but last year’s album ‘Holy Island’ was inspired by a small tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. Andrew McFetrich chatted with Adam Morrow to find out more and to discuss the band’s upcoming UK tour.
Congratulations on the album. You captured a really great sound. How did a band from North Alabama end up writing an album about a small island off Northumberland?
I’d been touring with Lee Bains from The Glorifiers, who play this really punky, rock ’n’ roll, very political sound. We were driving from our show at The Cluny up to Edinburgh and decided to go up the coast just to see some nature. Then we saw this castle on an island. I quickly looked it up on Wikipedia and realised the tide was out, so we just went for it. Lee has a morning ritual where he plays Gregorian chanting in the mornings, which gave us the perfect soundtrack as we drove over the causeway on this beautiful spring day. We spent a couple of hours there and it just felt like a really special place. About a year later, I was making songs with Ben, and we joked about making an album about these monks on an island. From there the whole idea just started to grow.
Is there an arc to the album about Christianity, with another track called ‘Iona’?
Not necessarily just Christianity. There’s something about how strongly people believed in it – the sheer strength of their conviction – and then how it all came crashing down in such a violent way. There’s a sort of ‘ending of Eden’ element to it all. We thought about ending the album with something really violent to mirror that, but it didn’t feel right. Although the final track, and half of the one before it, play with that idea a little bit.
It feels like the album is tied to a specific place. Is that fair?
It’s not just a place. We wrote the album before Trump won his second term, and it just felt like things weren’t getting better. There was this lingering feeling of pessimism that wouldn’t go away. Usually we feel like our lives are going to get better and better, but that probably hasn’t been the case for the last ten years. It feels like things have been going backwards, really.We had Covid, Brexit, Trump – it just feels like we’re living through difficult times, and in very unexpected ways too. That atmosphere inevitably found its way into the music.
What role can music and art play in these difficult times?
It was often said when Trump first came in that at least we’d get some good art out of it. That’s what usually happens during darker times. But art isn’t just there to comfort us. It’s aspirational. We’re part of this great continuum of existence, and art helps us connect to that.
There’s a spiritual element that can transcend time. There’s a great quote from Gabriel García Márquez: “Sooner or later people believe writers rather than the government.” That idea has always stuck with me.
How do you think your record will hold up over time?
We loved making it, and I’m still sort of amazed that people listened to it when it came out. The songs are deeply personal, but they’re also tied to universal human experiences. If someone finds it in a record shop in ten years’ time and decides to give it a listen, I’d be delighted.
So what can we expect from the upcoming UK tour?
Ah man, I love touring. It’s always an adventure. I want to get off the beaten track and see places we wouldn’t normally visit. We’re playing live as a duo, so there’ll be a drum machine and dual guitars. We’ll also be sampling parts from the record. We want to embrace that feeling that something might go wrong, because that’s part of the excitement of playing live. But it’ll definitely be an engaging show. We’ve got that wall-of-sound approach dialled in and we’re really excited about it. The UK audience really understands that whole fuzzy shoegaze thing.
Sister Ray Davies play The Cluny on Tuesday 21st April, supporting Acid Mothers Temple. Tickets, priced at £15.00 in advance, are available at thecluny.com.
