Returning to Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival this summer, Lewis Wiles steps onto familiar turf—but this time, under his own name. Formerly of the band Footerin Aboot, Wiles makes his solo festival debut, bringing his blend of indie folk-pop, rich with traditional fiddle and Moray roots, to the Free Range Folk Stage.
With a string of acclaimed singles and support from BBC Radio Scotland, he’s crafting a bold new chapter in his music career. We caught up with Lewis to chat about what it means to return to Bella, the evolution of his sound, and what fans can expect from his upcoming set.
You’ve played Belladrum before with Footerin Aboot, but this year marks your debut as a solo artist. How does it feel returning to the festival with your own material and band behind you?
It feels great to be returning to Bella under my own name with my own songs. Some of the best gigs we had with Footerin’ were at the festival and Bella gave us such a great platform for a young, relatively local, upcoming band. In a way, it’s even more exciting to be coming back to the same stage I played with Footerin’ in years gone by at the Free Range Folk stage. Knowing exactly what playing that stage feels like I think helps calm some of the pre-gig anxieties and reduces some of the unknowns that playing another stage for the first time might bring.
It’s great having a really clear vision of what to expect from the stage and its’ audience as well
While 45 minutes is a really meaty set time, I know it’ll pass quickly when we get into playing it so having experience of the free range stage I think will really help me, personally, settle in and feel at home and you just hope that reflects in our performance. It’s great having a really clear vision of what to expect from the stage and its’ audience as well. That’s been a great motivator in our prep, to have that feeling of previous gigs there to chase and improve on.
I’m really grateful to Bob and everyone behind the stage at Glachbeg Croft for having me back there in this new guise.
Your sound blends indie folk-pop with a Speyside twist—how has growing up in Moray shaped your songwriting and musical identity?
Moray has been crucial to my musical upbringing and my Moravian-ness (if that’s even a word!) still plays a big part in my music, and life more generally.
Personally, I feel really privillaged to have grown up around Fochabers, a real epicentre of trad music, during my teenage years. Going to Milne’s High School, I was lucky to be asked to play guitar for the Fochabers Fiddlers. It was with them I really first cut my teeth playing ceilidhs, sessions and local concerts all the way up to gigs at the Royal Albert Hall and the Highland Military Tattoo at Fort George. A lot of the toolbox of musicianship skills I built up being a Fochabers Fiddler, under the leadership of the legendary James Alexander, I still carry with me today. The group celebrated 45 years since it began in 1980 with a concert at the Fochabers Institute in March and that was one of my favourite gigs of the year (so far) to be a part of. Playing alongside the breadth of generations of fiddlers who all came together and, with only an afternoons practice, rolled back the years and smashed it out the park for a couple of hours was a pure joy. Even better than the Oasis reunion gigs last week! The love in the room and the queue out the door for tickets that night is a testament to the special musical legacy James created and, even though he’s sadly no longer with us, that culture still lives on and hopefully we can continue to nurture it to continue long after we’ve stopped playing!
Attending Speyfest every year, which is to this day bringing a great variety of top quality artists to Fochabers, was also a massive inspiration and fuelled a real desire in me to write and gig. I’m delighted to be playing the Duncan’s of Fochabers stage at Speyfest this year, the weekend before Bella, and I’m really looking forward to returning to my roots there.
Having moved back to Moray from the central belt a couple of years ago to live, work and raise a young family, it’s a strong part of my identity and I hope that comes through in the tunes.
From ceilidh bands to Celtic Connections, your journey’s been rich with trad influences. How do those roots still echo in your current work, even as your style evolves?
Trad and the fiddle still plays a key role in what I’m doing at the minute. I’ve been working with Briony Stewart, also a former Fochabers Fiddler, on the recent singles I’ve been putting out to really craft fiddle parts that speak to my journey with trad but also fit within the context of the stuff I’ve been writing. It’s been a real conscious effort to keep the fiddle at the heart of the songs and front and centre of the mix. Some of the songs I’m working on I’ve taken with me from my trad bands so it’s been fun trying to rework those parts into something fresh.
We’ve also been working with a strings section for some of the tunes so that’s been a real joy trying to match those parts up with the lead fiddle. It’s the fiddle that leads and the string parts that follow on from there though so even as we evolve and try new things, the fiddle remains. We’ve not played the songs live yet with the fiddle so I’m buzzing to hear that work in the studio come to life over festival season.
You’ve cited artists like Jake Bugg, Radiohead, and David Keenan. What is it about their music that resonates with you—and how do those influences surface in your own songs?
I take different things from each, I suppose. Radiohead the overarching influence of my teenage years and a band I always come back to when I try and spark some creativity. Thom Yorke, in particular, and his mastery of blending incredibly fragile falsetto parts with overwhelming powerful belts that take the songs somewhere else is something I really love. I think he’s also great to watch as a frontman. Appreciate some might find him awkward to watch but I love it when he’s playing live and he goes into himself to connect with what he’s playing. Some of that probably comes from his infamous stage fright but I often find myself connecting with my tunes in a similar way.
Jake Bugg’s penmanship and songcraft, I love. The ‘Hearts that Strain’ album in particular, which I found myself glued to while on a trip to Germany, and its ability to feel familiar but unique is something I try and emulate in my own writing. The way the songs differ from each other but also come from a really strong golden thread core of instrumentation themes that make it hang together is also admirable. It’s well worth a listen if you’ve not had the chance to explore some of his later stuff. The album he put out last year too was equally brilliant and ‘I Wrote the Book’ is one of my favourite songs from 2024 and one I like to cover.
If anyone in charge at Bella has got this far in my ramblings, please please please can we have him for 2026?
One of my Irish uni pals put me onto David Keenan a few years ago and now I’m a full convert. Lyrically, I love where he takes things and his work to date’s been clearly grounded in prose and storytelling. That leads to songs that feel like soothing streams of consciousness which feel so good to engage with. Listening to him lyrically, you can’t help yourself sometimes but try and write like him. A fantastic guitarist too, a real troubadour. I’ve seen him a couple of times live now, both as a solo artist, and he’s one of these guys you can’t take your eyes off and you feel the room going wherever he wants to go.
I put a cover of his song ‘El Paso’, an ode to his hometown of Dundalk, up on my socials and he liked it on instagram so that was a real fan girl moment for me! If anyone in charge at Bella has got this far in my ramblings, please please please can we have him for 2026?! His new tune ‘Amelioration’ seems to be peeling off in an exciting direction too so he certainly has my vote (not that that counts for anything)!
Your recent singles have gained strong support from BBC Radio Scotland and others. What’s it been like seeing your solo work connect with wider audiences?
It’s been surreal but amazing at the same time. I’ve really appreciated all the support I’ve had with each of the four singles we’ve released so far this year (with more on the way). Releasing a single per month, I wasn’t sure if folk would maybe switch off after the first couple but the feedback has been lovely and the support continuos. For me, having not had the chance to record and release these songs since I wrote them a few years ago, it’s more relief I feel in getting them out there and everything on top has been a bonus for me.
To be featured on BBC Radio Scotland, as you mention, was a real highlight. I was bathing my 2 year-old son, Harris, when the email came through from Roddy’s producer that we’d be featured on the show and I nearly dropped my phone in the bath! For someone as respected as Roddy Hart is to pick my songs to play on his show, it’s a real genuine honour. That honour really hits home when you see your song on the shows’ track list next to the likes of John Lennon, Hamish Hawk and Bon Iver!
Along with personal pride of hearing myself on the beeb, I had an overriding feeling of shared giddiness for everyone involved in the project. From the entire gang of Moravian musicians who brought the songs to life to Phil Wiles of PBaudio who mastered the tracks to producer Blaire Mackenzie who’s given me the time and space to bring forward the best version of each of the songs to friends and family who’ve supported me to get my tunes out in the wild. It was a big collective win and it makes you want the next one even more.
You’ve spent years building a songbook—how do you decide which older tracks to bring forward, and what’s the process like blending them with new material?
The first run of singles have been top priority as the ones I wanted to record with other projects but haven’t been able to. They’ve been a part of my set list for ages so when I came to choosing core songs to start with, those where the ones I plumped for. The oldest of which, I’m Not a Robot, has been with me for 8 years now so they were the itches I needed to scratch first so to speak.
Beyond that, the first test for songs I’ve had for a while is, ‘how do they sound live now?’ So I’ll try take them to my solo acoustic gigs first of all and try and initiate them back into the set in the corner of pubs. See how they feel, how well they go down and what the limitations of the song might be. I’ve wanted to work backwards from how the song works live rather than record for the studio so I don’t get ahead of myself and make a record we can’t accurately recreate live.
From that starting point, I come with a rhythm acoustic guitar part, lyrics and we work a demo from there. At this point, we then go through the song, instrument by instrument trying to find a part that sits well in the mix and gives space for some top melody. Drums and bass and keys go down next then it comes to the likes of electric guitar and fiddle. As I don’t play everything on the record, I like everyone involved to own their parts and bring what they see fit. I’ll maybe have a few starters for ten but I like to hear parts as each musician hears them rather than dictating to the letter.
Once you’ve gone through all that, you’ve got an entirely different song from the one you wrote in your bedroom donkeys ago, and hopefully one that can be moulded into something live and living. Now I’m getting some older songs down, I’m finding myself writing new stuff to fill in gaps rather than the other way round. It nice to keep making progress little by little, single by single and seeing pieces of the jigsaw of your songbook come together
Belladrum’s theme this year is “Bella Goes to the Moovies.” If one of your songs were a film scene, which would it be—and what kind of story would it tell?
Nice one! ‘Two Weeks’ is definitely the ideal soundtrack to a sun-tinged montage sequence or a hedonistic high point scene in a film. We tried to create that in the video for the song where I asked folk on social media to send us in their holiday snaps and memories to make a scrapbook video. Maybe my answer’s a bit tainted now I’ve got that scene and video in my head! ‘Come to the Coast’ goes down a similar nostalgic route.
‘False Starts’ I can definitely see in the soundtrack for a point of separation or distance in a rom-com maybe? The bit before the protagonists all fall in love again and leave you wondering what all the drama was for…
They’re filming Christopher Nolan’s new film, ‘Odyssey’, with Matt Damon just along from where we are on the Moray coast at the minute. Not sure any of my tunes would work for an Ancient Greek epic but I’ll need to try find Matt while he’s in town and see if he’ll put in a good word for us!
The ‘Bella goes to the movies’ theme should be fantastic. Currently considering whether to go fancy dress for one of the days of the festival but will maybe wait till after our set on the Friday for that one!
With a Scottish tour and album on the horizon, what are you most excited to share with audiences in the months ahead—and how do you hope your live shows will evolve?
I’m excited to continue surprising folk with releases over the next few months. The next couple of singles we’ve got lined up, which you’ll be able to hear live in our Bella set, stand as a nice contrast to what we’ve put out there already.
I think folk get caught up chasing a ‘sound’ that makes things a bit prescriptive or predictable so I’m enjoying being able to pivot from single to single while still keeping the releases identifiably Lewis.
The live show I’m looking forward to developing over festival season. In many ways it’s still in its infancy as the focus for the project thus far has, rightly, been on recording and releasing. I’m learning and adapting my set list from gigs we’ve already done to keep it high tempo, energetic, full of sing-a-longs and chances for folk to get involved and create something unique every time.
As a gig-goer, I know what I want to see (especially at a festival) so I like to think we can keep developing the live show to something very watchable and engaging. The preps going really well for Bella and we’ll be well-versed for a lively, breathless, proper Friday night set by the 1st of August, fit for the occasion!
With festival buzz building and an album on the horizon, Lewis Wiles is clearly an artist on the rise. Rooted in tradition yet pushing forward with originality, his Bella set promises energy, heart, and hometown spirit. Don’t miss the chance to catch him live as this exciting new chapter unfolds.
Catch up on all our Belladrum coverage, from artist interviews and stage previews to photo diaries and behind-the-scenes stories. Whether you’re heading to the Highlands or following from afar, we’ve got you covered. Explore more Belladrum content here.
