An interview with Colin Clyne.
I first came across Colin Clyne when he was playing at Carnivale at Mad Hatters last year alongside Cara Mitchell and Hannah Finlayson. Our paths crossed again at North Hop in Aberdeen where I took the opportunity to catch up with him in advance of an appearance at The Eagle in Inverness this Friday (24 April).
The last time we met up Colin was about to release his album “The Never Ending Pageant”. Now that it was released I asked Colin how happy he was with it and how well was it received. Colin is positive “I was absolutely delighted with the album, it turned out exactly how we planned. It has had great critical acclaim and brilliant reviews and it reached number 6 on the iTunes UK Country album charts in amongst some big names. I’ve got to be pleased with that.”
Colin’s success comes of the back of 10 years in Southern California where he picked up a number of awards including the San Diego Music Award for Best Acoustic Act in both 2011 and 2012. It appears that his ‘Doricana’ goes down well stateside.
He has a lot of time for his US fans. “I built an audience and a fan base there over a number of years, America made me the artist I am, my American fanbase are as important to me now as they’ve always been, I really would love to get back there soon and tour.” I asked if there were any comparisons between the music scene of the north east of Scotland and San Diego. “It’s a question I get asked a lot. It’s hard to compare, it’s apples and oranges.”
Looking ahead with festival season coming up and the excitement that that brings I asked Colin what do the coming months hold for himself and his band (together they are known as Colin Clyne and The Carrons). “We’ve got a lot of exciting news that we currently can’t share but what we can share is we’ll be playing the Americana Cavalcade Festival in Perth in June, we’re due to play the Montrose Music Festival and a few other festival appearances are on the cards, we’re also doing a lot of concert hall / village hall concerts with the band.”
Although it’s not the band that will coming along to the Eagle on Friday night Colin was happy to let us in on what to expect “It’ll be more stripped back for this gig, just probably myself and Clare Hesketh performing as a duo. It’ll be nice and intimate.”
So if you want to catch an act with some North American commendation catch Colin and Clare, combining with harmonies, just after 9 this Friday 24 April at The Eagle.
