Solstice are one of the most dynamic and interesting bands around. Brilliant albums and a stunning live act. They are: Andy Glass (guitar, vocals), Jess Holland (lead vocals), Jenny Newman (fiddle, vocals), Steven McDaniel (keyboards), Robin Phillips (bass), Pete Hemsley (drums), Ebony Buckle (vocals, keyboards), Dyanne Crutcher (vocals) and Leoni Jane Kennedy (vocals, guitar).
I caught up with Andy, the band’s founder/ guitarist and also, as he wryly calls himself, ‘band dad.’
I thought rather than ask you for a mini-history of Solstice, we could just jump in at this big change with Jess joining? Yes, sounds good to me.
What was the band’s situation before she joined? Since I’ve been with Jenny we’ve been going to a thing called Folk Camps and that’s where we met Jess, she would have been 13 or 14 at the time. It was immediately obvious that she was incredibly talented.
At these camps we have sing-arounds where people can get up and do something if they want to… read a poem, sing a song, tell a story. Jess would get up with a keyboard or guitar and sing like her life depended on it. She was also writing her own songs, and I remember offering to send some of these songs to my publisher, they were that good. So anyway we had a friendship of sorts from early on.
In 2017 Jenny started a band called the Folk Camps Party Band which is a Ceilidh band. It’s a 23 piece festival band, huge fun, very colourful and big spectacle made for the festival stage. We’ve played numerous folk festivals with Jess as bass player and occasional singer which further developed a musical relationship.
In 2019 Solstice was at a low ebb in terms of energy, enthusiasm and motivation. It was clear that what we needed to do was to address that, and it really came down to finding a new singer. Emma (Brown) had been with the band for 24 years, but it felt like her heart wasn’t really in it anymore. It just sort of felt like we were in decline.
It was Jenny who said, ‘Why don’t you ask Jess?’, which had never occurred to me because Jess had absolutely no interest in the prog genre. She was aware of Solstice of course because we’d talk about it, but she hadn’t really listened to it. So I thought well yeah okay, why not – I know she’s a brilliant musician – so I gave her a call. At the time she was living in Bristol, had finished her degree and working there, but I think a little bit rudderless at the time.
Anyway she came up and I got her to sing a couple of songs, see what she thought, and see how it worked. It was immediately obvious it would work well… she just got it! We recorded Cheyenne first, which actually ended up on the Sia album as a kind of extra thing. The other song I was working on was Shout which of course required a more powerful vocal, and she could do that too. I just thought this is fantastic, it’s brilliant. She was really enthusiastic and, having now listened to the music and worked on it, seemed to connect with it. The songs resonated with her.
Was she nervous at the audition. She always seems so confident. I’ve never really seen her nervous. If she was she certainly didn’t share it. I think I was probably more nervous than she was.
I guess all of the band had views on who the singer should be. Because if you were a bit in the doldrums at the time, then they must have been as well. Absolutely, the whole band were. And so we did those couple of little demos very early in 2020. And I shared them and my thoughts with the band and they all thought it was fantastic. They loved what she was doing. So we made plans at that point to do some gigs together and see how that went. I had a few gigs lined up for April but then, of course, COVID happened and we got locked down.
So those plans to work together were scuppered. At that point it was actually only me and Jenny that had ever met Jess. Anyway the lockdown provided unique opportunity to work on new music, albeit remotely, and that’s what we spent much of 2020 doing. It was a golden opportunity for me to spend as long as I wanted in the studio. Fortunately Jess had studied music tech and she’s very au fait with it, so I lent her some speakers and a microphone. She knows what she’s doing, as do the rest of the band. So we all recorded parts remotely, which would then come to me and I would edit them and put them together to create what became Sia.
So, incredibly, the band didn’t actually meet Jess until the album was completely finished and we needed to get some band photos to launch the new line-up. By this point, we were all completely sold on Jess as the singer in the band. There was never any question of that not happening.
The only unknown was whether she could front the band onstage. At university she’d done a couple of things with a band that she’d put together, but she was more of the keyboard player who did a bit of singing. So it was a complete unknown how she would cope or manage fronting this band that had been around for years, and can get pretty loud and powerful on stage. So we planned a secret gig at the Craufurd Arms in Milton Keynes with just invited friends and family. She was amazing!!
One of Jess’s many talents is to write these beautiful harmonies. During the course of recording Sia she built all these harmony stacks which sounded wonderful. We had to consider how we were going to approach that live. One option is you just use tracks and play to a click, and you have all this stuff on the computer, which I really don’t like. Playing to a click is imprisoning you in a way. You have to do everything exactly as is programmed.
The alternative was to find singers, and at that point, we weren’t in a position to pay professionals. So I spoke to Johanna Stroud, who I’d also met at Folk Camps and known for years. She is a lovely singer and fiddle player who’s now the regular backing singer with Pendragon by the way. She had not long finished a performance degree at university and she knew lots of other singers. So she put together a group of three singers who came along and we spent three or four days rehearsing – us, Johanna, Meg Knightsbridge and Olivia Armon. We did the gig at the Craufurd and Jess was just incredible. She’s just a natural force of nature on stage.
This was all transformative – writing that album with her involved was thrilling and incredibly inspiring. The way she interpreted my song ideas and the way that she developed them and made more of them. This was something that for me was always missing with previous singers. Going back to the beginning, which we’re not going to do in any detail, myself and Marc Elton, the fiddle player, were the creative partnership pushing the band in terms of material, and since Marc left I hadn’t really had that with anybody else.
So for the first time in forty years I had this kind of creative muse and partner who was bringing stuff to the table, making things better and had an opinion. That was thrilling for me. The whole period around 2020 felt like a new band, a new project.
It obviously inspired you a lot because it wasn’t long before you were back in the studio for another album. Light Up was an incredibly strong follow-up album wasn’t it? Thank you. Well, as I say, I was very much on a creative roll. Once we finished Sia I just wanted to crack on and start writing the next one. And the same was true after Light Up… and I want to crack on with the next one now, having completed those three albums (including the latest – Clann) but I’m somewhat a victim of the band’s success. I’m running everything, administer everything, handling the mail outs etc. I’m swamped with work for the band, which I love doing, I’ve no issue with that but it’s a lot. It’s still a real buzz for me when people order stuff and people want to talk to me, but there’s also booking gigs, flights, hotels, transport and so on. You wouldn’t believe how how much needs to be done, and we’re a crew of 10, it’s a lot to deal with.
What I am struggling with at the moment is finding the time to write the next album. That’s something I’m working on, and we’ve had a few releases that are sorted now so I’m really hoping that after the April tour I’ll be able to really get my head down. There’s no shortage of ideas and I really want to get the next album happening. Anyway, it’s not a bad position to be in because the band is enjoying a real uplift in its profile and success. So I couldn’t be happier. but practically speaking I need to make space for creativity.
It must be almost a rest for you in some ways to be on stage playing guitar. At last I can do what I’m supposed to be doing (laughs).
Well, it’s the bit that’s right in the middle of Solstice world – you playing the guitar. Exactly right. We had the first two albums, Sia and Light Up through GEP, who were fantastic, but I felt that we could do more. I guess they had a way of doing things, and I had a vision of how they should be done, so I am probably just a control freak. For Clann we moved to Progrock Essentials.
My experience of labels is generally that I end up doing so much that I may as well be doing it myself. So now we’re releasing stuff through our own ‘Clann’ label. The Silent Dance reissue came out through that, and so did the latest live album (Clann: The Stables Gathering) which has just come out. So that’s another layer of things that I’m dealing with, and I really do need to find someone to help. That’s a difficult one – to find the right person. I have Richard Swan from Wild Thyme Records, he’s dealing with our vinyl releases, and that is a massive weight off, because he’s someone that I know will do a brilliant job. I can rely on him, I’m not going to have to correct mistakes and keep looking over his shoulder.
I’m manifesting that someone will get involved and allow me the space to focus on the real job. This is why bands have labels, you know, to try and take that load off. I think, to be perfectly honest, you have to be signed to Inside Out or a big label who actually have the set up to really do something for you and/ or some kind of management. We’re kind of in between, our profile’s growing but we’re not big enough to entice really good professional help. It’s a tricky one but the solution will present itself.
My first Solstice gig was Jellyman’s Mill in Kidderminster last year, followed by the Town Hall, also Kidderminster, in February this year. I recognised a few people in the Town Hall audience. Yeah it’s amazing. It’s a lovely community of incredibly generous supporters and just the best audience really. We supported Big Big Train on Sunday and there were lots of familiar faces from our gigs. I’m very much aware and thankful that we have something that resonates with people . Steven Wilson came to see us last year at the Stables and he said, ‘Andy, you know, you’ve got something really special there, right? You know that, don’t you?’ And I do know that, that’s why I’m so motivated.
I still go to work because I’ve got to earn money, so I work three days a week and on Solstice every other hour God sends.
What do you do when you’re not doing Solstice? It’s all music related. For 25 years now, I’ve run a rock school two nights a week for secondary school-age kids, which I absolutely love. It’s great to connect with that age group. For years I’ve been witness to young musicians discover music and enjoying it. I see kids from rock school that came 20 years ago. They come up to me in the street and go, ‘Oh Hi Andy, I’m still playing.’ So this is really rewarding. And Jenny’s the same. We both teach in schools too – I teach guitar, Jenny teaches fiddle.
When you were that age how did you get started on guitar? I think I was in the last year of primary school. Some kid came in with an acoustic guitar and immediately got the attention of the room. I said, ‘let me have a go.’ Obviously I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I looked down and I was bleeding on his strings, just awful – for him anyway. So that was my first ‘Oh, yeah, this is great’ moment. My parents were really supportive and got me lessons with Mrs Mottershead, the village guitar teacher. This was in South Wales and she taught me a couple of Bob Dylan songs.
But I met a guy, he was probably only two or three years older than me but seemed like an adult while I was a kid. He had long hair and a Deep Purple t-shirt and played electric guitar. So I went round to his and he showed me some stuff and that was it. I was sold, you know. I was probably 13 or something when I started getting serious about wanting to do it.
So the first song you ever played on electric guitar was Smoke On The Water then? Of course it was, which is now banned in my rock school by the way (laughs), but still the first riff that every guitar player learns if they want to play rock and roll guitar. But what a riff!
At 14 I was in a studio with my first little band and my neighbour was an apprentice technician at the BBC in Cardiff, so I got some lucky breaks early on to experience some of the possibilities with playing a guitar and just loved it. I played all the time.
The musical heart of Solstice for some years now has been yourself, Jenny, Steve, Robin and Pete. Could you tell me about their contributions to the music? Well, over the years they’ve all made a huge contribution, bringing their character and ideas to the music. With any band it’s a chemistry often greater than and sum of its parts that make the music unique. I guess the most obvious would be the folk element that Jenny’s playing brings. In the first incarnation, Marc’s brilliant playing was far more informed by his classical upbringing. As I’ve got older I’ve realised the significance and value of a unique creative chemistry. I always say to young musicians, if you’ve found that, hold on to it!
Thinking of your playing Andy, I have seen you compared to David Gilmour. Yeah, well, that’s not surprising. I was 12 when Dark Side came out in 1973. I remember me and a few mates sitting in my parent’s garage, lights off, candles burning, a little Dansette record player playing Dark Side Of The Moon. It was a life changing experience. And then when I was 14, an older friend, I don’t know why, took me to see a band play at the Capitol Theatre in Cardiff. I had absolutely no idea who or what I was going to see, but it turned out to be Yes. So, you know, these moments were incredibly influential for me. If people think I sound like Gilmour, then happy days.
I love it on stage the way you and the band are so happy. There’s the lovely interchanges that you seem to have with everybody on the stage at some point. You were leaning right over Steve’s shoulder at Kidderminster, and his reaction was a picture as you were looming over him. Well the thing is we’re all old friends, so we know each other really well. And obviously Jess has been involved in the band now for six years. And because of the generational age gap in the band, it has this kind of family feel to it. It’s great actually having that age range. And of course Dyanne, Leoni and Ebony are all much younger than some of us :))
I love the vitality and energy they bring and they tell me Solstice feels like a safe space which is wonderful. For female musicians it’s not always like that. We are a mutually respectful space. There’s no weirdness and there’s no issues socially; everyone’s there to have a good time and make music.
You mix and change the setlists around don’t you? Yeah. we could do that more, but everyone in the band is a professional musician that needs paying so we have limited resources. Rehearsals are expensive – hiring the space and paying everyone something to do it and to travel to it. So at the beginning of the year we have two days of rehearsals, and that’s it for the year. So you can only do so much in that time.
We prepare two hours of music and most of the shows are an hour and a half, so it does mean that we can swap things around. We do fairly short tours, and there’s a small group of people who will be at all of those gigs, so for them, as well as ourselves, it’s good to change things up. You want to be able to play something that they haven’t heard for a while, or they haven’t heard before, so yes we try and do that.
You surprised me at Kidderminster with the cover of Yes’s Your Move. Pete, our drummer, pitched that idea last year sometime, and he was convinced that our audience would appreciate it. I was a bit nervous about touching a Yes song because I’m a massive Yes fan and I could understand some people taking umbrage. It’s sacred ground isn’t it? But we did it and it seems to be generally well received.
My favourite song live is Wongle No. 9, particularly the middle section with you and Leoni. I like how you showcase all of the vocalists too by the way. Yes I like that one! Leoni is amazing. Obviously these young musicians working with us all have their own careers. Ebony, Leoni and Dyanne Crutcher all have projects that they’re committed to which is great. So inevitably there’s going to be a sort of revolving door of young musicians coming through the band.
Ebony couldn’t do a tour last year because she was touring in the Netherlands and I said to her, ‘I’ve got to go find someone, any thoughts?’ She said, ‘well you could try Leoni’, who she’d met on a gig somewhere. And what a find Leoni was! She’s a brilliant guitar player, singer and great songwriter. So I thought, ‘oh, wow it would be great if we could do something together.’ What happened was she sent me a video of her jamming along to Wongle, because it’s her favourite thing as well. She was just jamming this great solo over the top, so when we got into rehearsals we had a go and it’s just brilliant fun. Leoni also plays all of the acoustic guitar parts in the set, which is really nice.
When we did the acoustic set on Sunday with BBT Leoni really came into her own. She’s playing bass pedals, she’s singing these intricate harmonies and playing amazing acoustic guitar- she’s doing three things at once. She is just an incredible musician. Her first album of original music comes out this year, so at some point she may not be able to do the gigs and we’ll be on the hunt again. But it’s wonderful to work with these great musicians. I’ve just been really fortunate to find them one way or another.
Ebony is amazing. Ebony is a friend of Steve’s and a close friend of Steve’s daughter. She came to see the band a couple of times in 2021 and I asked her if she fancied singing. I didn’t really think she was going to say yes, but she was really into it. That really set the bar for a harmony singer. She’s incredible and now everyone has to measure up to Ebony, and Leoni does. So does Dyanne. Dyanne’s solo project, which is called Cult(ure) is also bloody fantastic.
What are the differences between the three of them as regards the harmony and backing vocals? Dyanne has got that real powerful soulful voice. She could sing The Great Gig In The Sky or whatever. She’s that fantastic. And then Ebony’s is a kind of more classical voice really – pure, beautiful and sublime. And Leoni’s somewhere in between. So they’re all really different and they all bring different skill sets. And of course their personalities have a big influence on the audience perspective and just what happens on stage. They’re all such different characters. Love it!
I really like it too that we have different people that come up and play with us. At the Stables last year, we had Theo Travis come up on soprano saxophone. As you probably know he been part of Soft Machine for years and he’s played on Steven Wilson’s last album. He’s an extraordinary musician and a really lovely guy. Ten years ago I could never have dreamt of having someone like Theo Travis get up and play a couple of songs with us live. And of course he’s on the new live album too, Clann: The Stables Gathering. That kind of thing is just phenomenal. We had a four piece brass section on that gig as well! I love the idea of bringing new elements in and adding colours to what we’re doing, it keeps it really exciting.
You mentioned Steven Wilson? Do you think he’d play with you? He’s been to lots of our gigs over the years but I don’t think he’s likely to get up and play… but I guess if you don’t ask. He’s been really supportive, we asked him to be part of the Shaun Blake documentary we put out called New Light that formed part of our Return To Cropredy live release, and Steve was like, ‘yeah, sure, come down to the studio.’ He gave up an afternoon of his very, very valuable time to chat about his historical interest in Solstice. He used to come and see us as a kid and he still does now, which is magic. But I don’t feel ready to ask him to get up and play. I think he might say no to that.
I think he’s probably just waiting to be asked. He’s just too nice to say, ‘I would play if you asked me.’ (laughs) You think he’s waiting to be asked? When he came to the Stables last time he brought Steve Rothery with him. So these two legends were sitting up in the balcony watching us, it was kind of slightly intimidating to be honest.
Do you vary how you play some of the songs? Are there moments where Steve for example could just take off as the fancy took him? Are there any jamming sections in the set where you don’t quite know what will happen? Well, yeah, to an extent but the real jamming seems to start when I introduce a member of the band. Pete often starts playing a groove on drums and you never know where that might go and sometimes leads to other’s joining in and we’re off on some nutty jam. It’s important not to take yourselves to seriously 🙂
There was a great bit at the last Kidderminster gig when you all broke into Zeppelin’s Rock ‘N’ Roll for Leoni’s introduction. (laughs) Yes. I mean we tweak arrangements to play the songs live but they’re more likely to change unintentionally because of mistakes. But sometimes solos can be drawn out or it just feels like we should go around something again, I mean, the band know each other well enough to do that, and also to recover from the most awful train wrecks. It’s not a jam band though, the music’s quite complicated and you have to really concentrate, or we do anyway, to get through it and do a reasonably good job of it.
I will be seeing you in April in Nottingham at the Old Cold Store. Oh great. Have you been there before? It’s a tiny stage and a small venue but it was a great vibe last time we played there. It’ll be fun for sure.
My thanks to Andy for his time. You can read my review of the Jellyman’s gig here.
For more information on Solstice, their records and future gigs go to: solsticeprog.uk
The band’s new live album (above) Clann; The Stables Gathering is available here.