interview: Steve tilSton © Bryan Ledgard Steve TilsTon A life time at the cutting edge of Britain’s folk scene has taught Steve Tilston a thing or two. He talks to Noel Harvey.

t’s tempting to describe living as a musician. It’s been Steve Tilston as a stalwart precarious at times but it seems of the British folk scene. to be pretty good now, and I’m You start off in fairly narrow confines, but you But it’s fairer still to say he’s still at it. Obviously it would be really one of the governors. After nice to…er…’ He breaks off and have your ears open and you’re exposed to all all,I he’s been around since the pauses for a moment. ‘You know, these different influences early 70s, his discography is well I don’t know… I’m actually quite into double digits, and his songs happy with the situation. I never have been covered by Fairport had that real killer ambition that Convention, Dolores Keane, John a lot of musicians seem to have. I club – every town – had its great start off in fairly narrow confines, Wright and many others. What’s remember John Martyn. Now, he guitar players, and there were but you have your ears open more, he’s not just ‘still around’. really had it. I was ambitious, but people going round playing some and you’re exposed to all these As he showed with his last album not in the same way.’ wonderful songs that I haven’t different influences. That’s always Ziggurat, he’s at the top of his And he started young too, heard since and were never informed my music. I mean, game. And in a business as fickle playing his first gig at the age of recorded. They coined the phrase things like playing with Ballet and unforgiving as music, that’s 15 and turning professional in ‘folk baroque’, and I think it suits Rambert – who’d have thought in no mean feat. Yet you’ll still find 1970. ‘Wizz Jones saw me and the style well. Americans know it. a million years that would have him referred to as ‘folk’s best kept invited me down to London,’ he They regard that period as having happened? From there I got a bit secret’ or ‘the musician’s musician’. explains. ‘He introduced me to a a particularly British stamp on of flamenco, and South American Wasn’t that a bit of a backhanded lot of the clubs, and that’s how I it that’s exotic to them, and they music, and then there was the compliment? Tilston shrugs but ended up playing at the Cousins still hold it in high regard. When rock band in Bristol. It’s been a nods in agreement. ‘Yes it is,’ he folk club on a regular basis. It was I go over there I play mostly in great musical journey, places I says, ‘but what can I do about it? a great “in” and Wizz was quite a that style.’ wouldn’t have chosen to go, but I’m out there doing it. I’m in my mentor in those early days.’ Not that Tilston hasn’t seen a that’s just the way it’s happened 50s now and I suppose I’ve been Was it really such a golden age? few changes over the years, both in the process of earning a living.’ taking stock of where I stand ‘Yes, without a doubt. But in true in his music and in the business. The last remark prompts me musically, and that kind of thing. English fashion we didn’t realise ‘At the end of the day,’ he says, to ask about ‘A Pretty Penny’, I’ve always managed to earn a the worth of it. I remember every ‘you have to earn a living. You Tilston’s polemical song about

34

34-35 Steve Tilston.indd 34 14/01/2010 10:11 I try to create a kind of musical stiletto and twist it, rather than bash people over the head with a musical lump hammer

the banking-bonus culture. own sound, her own voice, her © Paul Floyd Blake Floyd © Paul Wasn’t it prophetic? ‘Yes,’ he own audience. It’s really great.’ says with a wry laugh. ‘I wrote Almost reluctant to change it about eight months before the the subject, I ask about Tilston’s just that I like having a pretty full crash. It just seemed such an guitars. Was he still playing accompaniment and being able ZiGGUrAt obscenity. I was just so angry that the Coles? Yes, but he’d taken to do the whole thing.’ I had to write something down, to playing a Moondog Grand And it isn’t just with music wHY tHe but I thought if I just fi ll a song Auditorium when he went abroad. that Tilston likes to do the whole with a load of invective, a load of ‘Th ey’re designed by a friend of thing. He’s a skilled archer and BABYLOniAn titLe? anger, then it’s not going to do it. mine, Tim Nicholai, from Cardiff . has made his own bow out As a kid I was always in uenced by You get the point across better Lovely guitars, but my fi rst love of Welsh yew. ‘Th at’s my big that area and I wrote a song about if you’re subtle. I try to create a are my Coles, of course. I’m just passion,’ he says. ‘I’ve just got two the Iraq war. A lot of the antiquities kind of musical stiletto and twist loath to put a hand-built guitar Grand Master Bowman scores were getting trashed, and ancient it, rather than bash people over on an aeroplane. Th e one that with the longbow, but they don’t sites were getting bulldozed over the head with a musical lump Martin Cole made me – that’s the count because you have to get and used as helicopter landing pads. I hammer. Quite a lot of my songs one I designed with the 14/12 – them in competitions, but at least had to ask, why exactly are we there? are protest songs, but not overtly it’s still my fi rst love. It’s really a I can manage it on the fi eld!’ We were supposed to be a civilising so. It’s just the way I am, really… wonderful guitar and it just gets So who did he identify with in uence and bring democracy, but quietly seditious.’ And he gives better and better.’ more? Robin Hood or Alan-a- there’s been scant regard for what another short, wry laugh. It’s I remind him of the last time Dale? Tilston laughs, as if it was a was there thousands of years ago. diffi cult to imagine Tilston as a he spoke to Acoustic in 2005, matter he’d never thought about I know the phrase gets bandied conspirator. He’s far too likable when he said the only thing he before, but something that might about a lot – the cradle of civilisation for that. couldn’t do was play any Django warrant consideration. ‘Well, I’m – but the city states were created I mention that I’d seen his Reinhardt. ‘Well,’ he replies, ‘I obviously a combination of the there, so the area is of fundamental daughter, Martha, performing did get a book of Reinhardt’s two. I’ve got a pretty Zen-like importance to us all. Some people the previous evening, and taking solos and there were a couple approach to life, and the archery thought that the whole CD would be an equally eff ective tack. He’s of pieces I could just about comes in to that. It’s traditional themed on the title, but it’s quite a instantly the proud dad. Did she? manage, but very, very slow. archery, that’s the only one I’m small part of the album. There’s quite Did she have a good set? I missed Th ere’s a part of me that would interested in, and hitting a target a bit of anger in some of the songs, it. Was it good? Ah, great! So still love to play like that. I still at a hundred yards gives me an though. They were written over quite what’s it like, seeing your daughter like playing a bit of classical now amazing buzz. It’s diametrically a short time frame after a period of up onstage? ‘Well, I’ve got two and again, and I’ve written a few opposed to music in some ways, writer’s block, so there’s a kind of daughters at it now: Molly Jones, instrumental pieces. Funnily and it’s hard to correlate exactly musical correlation. my youngest daughter, she’s in enough, I wrote one recently how it fi lters into my music, Liverpool and she’s coming on. called ‘Davey G’. I started it last but it’s an important part of it. Oh yeah, it’s great, obviously I’m October and he died, sadly, only We all have passions, and men very proud of them both. I think two months later. I called it particularly have obsessions, Davey Graham and Bert Jansch, Martha was wary of keeping our ‘Salute To Davey G’ because it and this is my trainspotting. I thought, well, that’s the kind of musical identities separate when seemed that every lick I played If something really engages music I want to be playing. she fi rst started. She was very sounded like a Davey Graham me, I always like to do it to the I want to play to that standard. conscious of the fact of being my lick. But I regard myself as a best of my ability; it’s been the I always knew I had it in me.’ daughter but now she’s got her songwriter fi rst and foremost. It’s same with music. When I saw Noel Harvey

35

34-35 Steve Tilston.indd 35 14/01/2010 10:11