Interview with Glasgow guitarist Mark Copeland.

Hey Mark, its been a minute! Hows it going, we hear youre releasing a new album?

Hey guys! Im doing great! And yes, Im releasing my debut album, Roots & Reverie on May 20th! Really excited to get this over the line, after two years of hard graft.



Sounds cool, talk us through the album then and its inspirations?


Ive been a huge Americana fan for a long time, and this record represents the culmination of that. But Ive always felt Americana music has a Celtic soul: it has its roots in the Celtic folk tales that the early pilgrims took across the Atlantic. The album in a sense pays homage to that. I know country music has had a surge in popularity lately, but its a broad church. The stuff that appeals to me is the rustic, roots driven stuff. Hank Williams, Gillian Welch and John Prine were huge inspirations. For me its not about star-spangled banners and pick-up trucks, its about people: love, loss and legend. Its not about bottles of bourbon, its about the reasons why you reach for the bottle.



Nice, so is it acoustic or full band?

Ive been really lucky to be able to call on some incredible musicians from Glasgow on this and beyond. Everything on the record is live, recorded in Southside Vintage Studios, with Roger Shepherd. Theres a place for all approaches, but these songs just demanded a more organic, live approach. I think that feeling comes across in the record, and theres just no substitute from people that know their instruments: be it pedal steel, dobro, fiddle or whatever else the song needed.


Awesome, any particular tracks we should pay attention to?

Ha - apart from all of them you mean!? Well the one that usually gets some attention live is Glasgow Cowboy, its a fun folk tale about a mythic Glaswegian cowboy, complete with worn oot chaps and bottles of tonic wine. My personal favourites on the album are For A Mandolin and Jackson. The former is about a mandolin I was given as a gift from Campania, Italy. It was fun to write about the experiences it must have had, being owned by an Italian family and making its way across the sea to Scotland. And in some ways the lyrics of Jackson are the beating heart of the album. Dreaming of Nashville and the deep south from a Glasgow bedroom, via classic vinyls and a little bit of reverie. The album actually finishes with a piece of prose I wrote that attempts to capture the blood of the record as well.


Brilliant good luck and we cant wait to hear it. Whats next after the release, where can we hear you play live?

Thank you! I have a launch night on May 29th at the Old Toll Bar, with a live band. Its a great bar and ideal for the launch. Following that, I have a festival slot down in London for the Bread & Roses roots festival, and a gig in a Donegal Lighthouse tavern of all places! Oh and the Old Toll Bar promises to have a special themed cocktail available on the 29th to celebrate the record.



Awesome, well take a double and see you there! Can you leave us with one of your favourite lyrics from the album?

Nice, and sure. One Ill go with is, "a wise man knows some things exist in between lies and truth". Thats folk songs in a nutshell for me - theres a lot of truth in the fiction we spin, and a lot of myth in the truth we tell about ourselves and each other. Sometimes making something up is the best way to find out something true about yourself. In a sense thats what the best songs in folk music and country music manage to achieve.

Nice line. Thanks and best of luck with Roots & Reverie!

This article has been viewed 40 times