Music > Interviews

The Unthanks

25/02/15

Folk sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank have had music in their blood since a very tender age, when they first sang together. Since then they’ve released several albums, been nominated for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards as well as the Mercury Prize and can count Elvis Costello and Martin Freeman as fans. They’ve done a whole album of covers of Antony and the Johnson and Robert Wyatt songs, written songs to accompany a documentary on shipbuilding and toured with a brass band. Their brand new album, Mount the Air, takes folk songs and traditional music in a brave and new jazz and orchestral direction. It’s a heartbreaking and heartlifting collection of songs. I spoke to Becky Unthank about her musical heritage and whether she’d ever been on Unthank Road.

Were you self taught? How did you learn to play and sing?

My parents have always been into folk music; it’s always been a big part of our lives . Since we were tiny we went to festivals all summer, camping and at family parties everyone has always sung songs, and we were taken to lots of gigs. We’ve always been surrounded by singing. Anyone can sing, you don’t have to think you’ve got a brilliant voice, it’s more like everyone having a go. Rachel and I started singing together when we were tiny ‘cos it was fun. We tried out harmonies and stuff. Luckily, we’ve ended up doing it as a job!

Folk music is generally sung in a round or certainly in an environment where everyone is on equal footing. Was it difficult at first to get up on stage and sing to an audience?

Well, at the small festivals we went to there wasn’t a big divide between the audience and the performers. It was certainly nerve wracking but it didn’t feel like a huge at first, until we became a professional band. Rachel thought about it more than I did as she’d always wanted to be a folk singer professionally, so she was quite nervous about the transition onto the stage as a performer.

Can you tell me more about the residential singing weekends you run?

We had four in January; they’re really really lovely things for us to do. We hire a bunkhouse and a couple of cottages on the Northumberland coast and about 40-50 people come and we cook for them all weekend and do workshops. The ethos of it is about singing together rather than teaching how to sing. It’s such a pleasurable thing to do, to sing as a big group. It makes you feel great! We teach simple harmonies and we encourage people to sing on their own if they want to. Some people come every year, some people go home and join choirs or write their own songs and it’s so nice to know we might have had something to do with that. Some people come on their own and make friends really quickly. It’s fantastic to see singing enriching other people’s lives. It was sort of a plan to see how else we could make a living other than touring, but we love it as much as everyone else.

I wanted to ask you about the shipyards. Your beautiful album Songs from the Shipyards was written to accompany a documentary about the history of shipbuilding on Tyne, Tees and Wear; then you were on Sting’s album The Last Ship, also about shipbuilding and your dad is in a folk band named after boatmen. Is the water and shipbuilding a favourite theme of yours?

We’ve always lived near the sea and the river. In folk music people are inspired by their surroundings. We’re inspired by the wild Northumberland landscape and by the sea as well. There are so many stories about the sea. Doing the shipyards film soundtrack was really interesting for us; we have sung a lot of songs about mining, being from the North East, but we didn’t know that many stories or songs about shipbuilding, so we had to learn about it and ask people about it, which was great.

Your new album Mount the Air is very full sounding, orchestral and cinematic; it reminds me of Elbow and John Grant. Where did you find your songs for this album?

Finding songs on a certain subject like the shipbuilding albums is simple, but with an album you just need to find great songs. I try and find songs all the time from books or records but the best way to find songs is from people. So I go to folk clubs and sing in rounds and try to pick them up that way. Some of them I found in Cecil Sharp House in London, like Mount the Air, and Hawthorn is a song I heard at a singing session I set up in Manchester. I heard this song and as soon as they started singing it I knew it was a special song. For the first time we’ve been a bit brave and written a little bit as well. Adrian (manager, member of the band and Rachel’s husband) usually writes at least one song per album, but he’s been badgering me, asking when I’m going to sing some of my own songs. I’ve always said I wasn’t ready but then I thought I have to try, so we’ve all written for the first time.

Your album covers are all really varied with different artists. Who has done the cover for Mount the Air?

It’s a girl called Natalie Rae Reid; she’s a Scottish girl who lives in the North East now. All her artwork is based on a song or a story. She was a friend of a friend and people kept telling me to go and look at her art. Adrian was looking to commission an artist to create the cover for the album, and so I though that’s perfect. We’ve also started a clog-dancing club together! She’s a new friend and a very talented one.

The first track on the album, Mount the Air, is over 10 minutes long…that’s quite a brave choice for the first track of an album! How did you come to place this first, rather than last?

We did have this debate, whether it should go first or last! It was a little ditty I found and I gave it to Adrian and he got a bit obsessed with this piece of music and it became bigger! He likes making bold choices and really wanted people to hear it.

Magpie on your new album is incredibly dark and primal, and is my favourite. I really like the dark sides to folk music; murder, grieving women, that sort of thing! Is there something about sharing tragedy rather than joy that brings people together more?

I think that’s a good point actually. It lowers your defences and opens you up…how do you deal with tragedy? How do you move on with things? Singing about those subjects is very therapeutic; I certainly find that in my life. Sharing those stories puts things into perspective perhaps.

What does 2015 hold for you?

We’re going on tour and then loads of festivals! We’ll be at FolkEast in Suffolk, which is a great festival. I can’t wait to sing the new songs live.

Did you know there is an Unthank Road in Norwich?

Yeah! We stayed on it the first time we stayed in Norwich! We had to leave at 4 in the morning the next day to go on somewhere, and it was raining, but we still got out of the van to have out picture taken with the sign.

The Unthanks play at Open on 6th March. Tickets from www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk