One of the 'showcase' bands at this year were Borders based act TARRAS. The band recently signed to Topic Records from where they released their debut album. Unlike many of the new wave of folk bands breaking through, TARRAS have a multitude of musical influences, including classical.
I dropped backstage for a quick chat with the band to find out more about their past, present and future.
#N=Neil #JC=Joss #R=Rob #JR=John #B=Ben #E=Emma

#N You've been described as a Borders band. It's a description that I understand you're not entirely happy with?

#B We're happy about where we come from, but yes it's not something we're entirely happy with. I'll tell you where everyone comes from and why we're not totally happy with the description. Rob comes from just over the Border and he was one of the founder members. We started to rehearse there when we started as a band. Some of the original influences came through Rob, more from the Scottish side. As new members joined, they brought their influences so it changed from being a Borders band to a band. We've drawn inspiration from the Scottish side, from the classical world, which Emma brought with her. There's a NorthEast thing that Joss brought with him and the Real World type thing that John brought with him.

#R The thing is with the Border is that there's two sides to it. I'm on the Scots side, but Ben and Joss are on the English side, in Alston in the Pennines, which isn't that far from the Border. Emma's in Carlisle, which is on the Border; it's the big Border city. And John is from Durham that used to be closer to the Border when Scotland had more land before the English thieved it.

#N You mentioned the change in dynamics of the group. Has it simply been that a new arrival becomes absorbed into the bigger sound or is there more of a fight than that?

#JC It just evolved. It started with me and Rob jamming when Rob took up the cittern.

#R The cittern's a ten string. There's lots of guitarists and not enough cittern players.

#N There's a few northeast bands that use them. It's not as widely used as some traditional instruments.

#R It was originally a medieval instrument….

#B Called a gittern.

#R A gittern, yeah.[laughs]. The bazouki came across from Italy at about the same time. In the 60s and 70s it exploded in bands like Fairport Convention, traditional English folk bands used them. In the late 80s Donal Lunny and some of the Irish musicians started to incorporate them into folk music again.

#B There was never any vying for influence because we're all such different characters from such different backgrounds, we try to accommodate them. If two of us write a song, we'll take it to a third person, who might change it. Then it'll go to the forth and then the fifth, by which time it's got the band's sound.

#N That's five of you, which is like a huge process, do you get collisions ?

#JC There's collisions there, but not as many as you might think. Every band has problems when they're writing, because people have different ideas as to how a song should be. We do try to accommodate people.

#R Everyone has their own style and sometimes I don't know how it comes together, but it comes together really well. If it works, why question it.

#B We're all changing and evolving musically anyway.