Skerryvore’s Martin Gillespie helps launch Oban Unsigned
HARD work, gigging and getting your name known are the way to make it in the music business says Martin Gillespie of Skerryvore as the search for Oban’s next big band gets under way today.
Oban Unsigned launches this week – an opportunity for Oban bands and musicians to play during a prime slot on Saturday afternoon at the town’s biggest gig, Oban Live, during the first weekend in June.
And to celebrate the prize of performing on the main stage of the town’s biggest festival, founding member of Skerryvore Martin spoke exclusively to The
Oban Times – which included a few tips on how to make it in the Scottish music scene.
Martin said the hard work and determination of musicians in the early days will pay off and help to sustain earning a living from music for the longest time.
He explained: ‘Sometimes people can burst onto the mainstream music industry and within a year they are no longer in it.
‘What we do is something dif- ferent to that. We are constantly thinking about what we are doing.
‘Our first CD was fairly traditional in that we were using existing tunes and bringing them together.
‘Over the years that has changed. We are writing and performing our own music. It allows us to be different, to include our influence on Celtic music in Scotland and throughout Europe.’
Martin started playing music as a young boy. His mum was the music teacher on the island of Tiree.
He praised the Feis movement which encourages children and young people into making music from ‘the chanter, to tin whistles’.
‘People would come from all over the place, what felt like hundreds of children over the years,’ he said. In Tiree, the Feis runs for one week in July. Like many places in the Highlands and Islands, the Feis, meaning festival in Gaelic, brings young people together for a week of tuition in West Highland music and culture.
Martin explained that through that movement he and his older brother Daniel learned to play the instruments they would eventually build their career upon.
From taking part in the Feis children learned how to perform – at concerts and school celebrations. When the Gillespie brothers went to Gordon Conner for tuition they got to play with his ceilidh band, opening up another world.
The boys then started gigging in island pubs before progressing to dances.
Fellow Tirisdeach, Angus MacPhail, then encouraged the brothers to take on an island tour.
The brothers, along with island-visiting childhood friend Fraser West, his university friend Alec Dalgleish and band members, undertook an island tour to Kilchoan, Uist, Barra and a home- coming to Tiree.
As the band’s reputation grew ,they were invited to play at parties and weddings. They also started studying in Glasgow. Martin studied at the Royal Academy of Scotland Music and Drama.
Martin said: ‘ We were gigging all the time at ceilidhs. We started to go to festivals, performing at fringe gigs to begin with.
‘ We did that for a long time, maybe two years, until we were getting on to main stages at festivals. Gigging, working away the whole time.’
At this point two more members, Craig Espie and Barry Caulfield, joined the band. ‘The constant evolution of Skerryvore,’ Martin argues, ‘is one of the reasons for its success.’
From there the band continued to become one of Scotland’s premier Celtic and traditional music outfits, joining only a handful who have an international following.
The band can be found performing in England, Scotland, Europe, America and further afield to audiences of upwards of 8,000 at festivals and events.
Martin says the biggest part of the band’s success is ‘ believing in what you are doing and be sure that you want to do it’.
Martin continued: ‘Enjoy what you are doing and don’t expect things to happen overnight.
‘Be prepared to get out and gig. Work hard and be persistent.’