Aberfeldy are Riley Briggs - vocals/guitar/keyboards, Sarah McFadyen - backing vocals/ fiddle/ glockenspiel/ mandolin, Ruth Barrie - backing vocals / keyboard / glockenspiel / harmonica, Ian Stoddart: drums/percussion, Ken McIntosh: bass. The five-piece were formed by like-minded folk in Edinburgh’s art cafes and pubs and the band's name emerged from a conversation Riley had with Jim Sutherland, their record producer, because, " our first gig was coming up and we had to think of a name. He said I should name the band after somewhere great I went on holiday, and I remembered going to my granddad’s caravan in Aberfeldy with my parents. I liked that at the time, in a Mull Historical Society sort of way."
The Aberfeldy material, mainly gorgeous romantic ballads and breezy upbeat summer music was mainly written by Riley Briggs, the band's singer sonwriter & guitarist. He, along with Ian Stoddart and Ken McIntosh started out demo-ing the songs alongside Sutherland at a studio upstairs from the old Bongo Club on New Street. Riley was also playing acoustic gigs on his own at the city’s folk pub, the Royal Oak, where he met fiddler Sarah McFadyen (pictured) from Orkney. Sarah, a stalwart of the Edinburgh folk scene was already making a name for herself in the folk/ pop band Harum Scarum. Deciding that the new band needed two female singers, they recruited Ruth Barrie, a documentary filmmaker McFadyen knew from Edinburgh College of Art. At the time, Barrie was working in the cafe at the Bongo Club, where Briggs just happened to hear her sing with a group of African performers who were over for the Festival.
Having just made an album with prestigious label Rough Trade Records, Aberfeldy look set for major success. |
|