Kris Drever is the son of singer-songwriter Ivan Drever, formerly lead vocalist with Celtic rock supremos Wolfstone. Having self-confessedly spent his adolescence listening to Metallica and Pantera, meanwhile learning the guitar and ruining other people's sessions at the Orkney Folk Festival by playing all the wrong chords, he left home for the mainland at seventeen, eventually gravitating towards Edinburgh's burgeoning session scene. The Tron Ceilidh House was then, in the latter 1990s, the place to be, a haven for musicians from across all manner of genres, and Kris was soon playing there several nights a week.
Having temporarily switched instruments to the double bass, he subsequently returned to the guitar and began honing the style - a highly individual blend of rhythm and harmony, folk, jazz, rock and country inflections - that now finds him in near-constant demand as a session player. In late 2000, Kris began sitting in at the weekly session at Sandy Bell's, Edinburgh's most famous folk pub alongside the regular co-hosts Nuala Kennedy, from Dundalk, on flute and whistles, and Edinburgh-born fiddler Anna-Wendy Stevenson. As Kris said, " A guitar's like a portable piano, in terms of its range. I like to try always to use interesting colours in the chords and harmonies I play, rather than just doing the obvious. We do a lot of mid-tempo stuff, nothing totally hell-for-leather, so we can really make the arrangements count." From this collaboration grew the highly acclaimed trio "Fine Friday" which went on to tour in the UK, Europe and Australia. The band recorded two CDs on the Foot Stompin' label before the three went their separate ways to concentrate on individual projects.
Kris's earlier live and recorded work includes collaborations with Cathy Ryan of Irish-American supergroup Cherish the Ladies, Scottish fiddlers John McCusker and Bruce MacGregor, Irish accordionist Leo McCann and Gaelic band Tannas, well as tours of the US and South America with the Irish dance show Celtic Fusion.
More recently, Kris has increasingly been attracting plaudits for his singing as well as his playing, with his warm, soulfully resonant vocals featuring in five of the thirteen tracks on Fine Friday's debut album. His choice of songs ranges from the traditional Cold Blow and the Rainy Night to Steve Tilston's Slip-Jigs and Reels; from Boo Hewerdine's Hummingbird to the classic Scots ballad The Selkie. I like either to do songs that haven't been covered much before, he says, or folky standards that are open to a different interpretation. I try to steer clear of that kind of typical folk-singer sound, and put my own mark on things. Kris also plays with The Kate Rusby Band and Session A9.
In 2005 joined forces with Aidan O'Rourke and Martin Green to form the trio LAU. In Autumn 2006 saw the release of Kris ' debut solo album " BLACK WATER" . This album which was produced by John McCusker, featured Kris with friends Kate Rusby, Donald Shaw, Andy Seward, Andy Cutting, Roddy Woomble, Eddi Reader.
You can also hear Kris's excellent playing and singing on the Fine Friday CDs "Gone Dancing" and "Mowing the Machair" and with fiddler Sarah McFadyen on the white label CD "Sarah McFadyen and Kris Drever". Check out Kris's new band Lau. Kris can also be hear5d alongside Eamonn coyne on the CD Honk Toot Suite |
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