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The Lorelei are: The Lorelei formed in 1990 in a garage in Dyce with
Jonny and Beefy being original members along with Martin Watson,
the original singer. Over the next 2 years The Lorelei settled on
a line up which apart from John.S.Martin, The Lorelei’s new
frontman, remains to this day. The Lorelei spent 7 years touring from Lerwick to London doing more than 100 gigs a year. Gigs ranged from playing in small bars to a few locals to playing to a huge crowd at the Royal Concert Hall as part of Celtic Connections in 1995. Managed originally by Rob Swan and then by Tam Balloch they built up a solid fan base across the country, becoming regular features in venues throughout Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. Touring was constant and The Lorelei way of life was based around travelling, playing, drinking and laughing – their reputation for having a good time preceeded them. This was part of the whole charm of The Lorelei, and something that remains with them to the present day. Fans of the Lorelei are loyal – known as the Clangers, and The Lorelei continue sell the first two albums all over the world. After constant touring and living in a yellow transit van together for too many years, The Lorelei split….Until now!
In summer 2005 Jonny and Beefy met at The Tartan
Heart festival and got talking (engineered in part by Rob Swan!).
On the Saturday night of that weekend Jonny, Beefy, Flossie and
Keith sat down and played together and talked about days gone by
and how much they missed playing together. That afternoon, Beefy
and Flossie bumped into promoter Rob Ellen who immediately asked
“Are the whole band here? ‘Cause we could get you on for
a slot!” This was the point that the seed was sown in Beefy’s
head about getting The Lorelei back together. After 6 months of emailing and discussing getting
back together, The Lorelei finally met on the 9th of January 2006
at Beefy’s house to have a go with a new singer Mr John .S.
Martin. John was a close friend to The Lorelei as he had played
in The Dawntreaders- another Aberdeen band who had spent many years
touring all over Europe. It was clear immediately that it was going to work
and they decided on that afternoon not to try and relive old glories
and have a public early mid life crisis but, The Lorelei would concentrate
on writing new material and move on. This has all been tied together with The Lorelei
releasing an EP of new recordings in August 07. The EP entitled
“ Home” is 6 brand new tracks written by The Lorelei.
They are highly charged and emotional tunes and the band have retained
their high octane approach to folksy rootsy rock. The songs are
about life experience from a personal and collective point of view
as musicians, teachers, doctors, community workers, husbands, wives,
fathers and most importantly observers. The title track “Home”
is simply about the band getting back together not really being
a choice but a need. The Lorelei now look forward to a brand new and
more positive outlook on their musical career. They lost their way
once before and are even more determined not to loose it again –
to enjoy playing, writing and growing old together until they can’t
any more. Older and wiser maybe? Older and wider…definitely! The Lorelei have
been described in many ways: “The Lorelei have managed to
create a new musical genre – Total Thrash Speed Folk. “Though born of the folky, rootsy
rhythms and acoustic afternoons spent busking, “ The Pogues and The Screaming
Trees swaggering home drunk” “ The Waterboys after too much
marching powder” “Truly contemporary, like some
mental post-modern hardcore world music pathfinder general, “Live, there is no other band
to touch them for a stomingly good gig, sort of like a punk ceilidh.” ““….Folk tinged with
sub-pop guitar grunge is perhaps the best way to describe The Lorelei’s
“Their music has been described
“adrenalin driven anthems of urban energy born of folksy |
