“It’s like this” says Will Pound and then demonstrates on his harmonica the ‘triplet’ technique that he and Eddy Jay have just been attempting to explain to me. I nod, giving them my full attention while pretending to understand…
Despite my lack of musical comprehension, as I sit listening to the amazing sound emanating from Will’s harmonica what I clearly do understand is that I’m in the presence of musical genius. The prospect of a duo made up of harmonica and accordion may not instantly resonate with everyone; it’s certainly not a recognisable format. However, when the harmonica is in the hands of Will Pound, three times nominated for a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award and widely acknowledged as one of the best harmonica players in the world…and the accordion is under the stewardship of Eddy Jay, someone who can ‘make his instrument sound like an orchestra’, the result is something…well, really quite spectacular. The explosive debut album ‘Ignite’ is the initial product of Will and Eddy’s collaboration. In Folk Radio UK’s recent review of the album, Johnny Whalley observed that “Ignite is well named; the blue touch paper is lit right from the first track…”
As I chat to Will and Eddy before their sellout performance at Buxton’s wonderful Opera House, I come to learn that a significant amount of time, effort and ingenuity went into the creation of their groundbreaking sound…
“We’ve known each other for ten years” Eddy explains, “We’ve watched each other’s career do various amazing things. Then last year I got a phone call from Will saying ‘are you busy?’”
That phone call led to a long and intense period of joint creativity. Using a portable digital recorder as a musical notepad and without any obvious frame of reference to work from, the pair set to work creating something brand new. “I had a recording studio in Chippenham” Eddy continues, “and Will came down to my place every week for about two months. We did some serious rehearsing.”
“We developed a sound just because we threw so much rehearsal at it” Eddy recalls. “There was new stuff coming out and we just bottled it. We put it down, cut it into chunks and then put it on a CD. We had no idea how it would be received because it doesn’t really sound like anything, at least nothing that I remember.”
“It could have been awful’ Will laughs. You never know with these kind of things, it’s a bit of a test really…”
The groundbreaking album contains material from a variety of sources. “There were some tracks where we already knew the tunes because we’d played them before over the years” Will explains, “but there was other stuff that we just picked up. Eddy came up with this amazing 7/8 Balkan tune. It was a really interesting process because both of us were learning things during the rehearsal process. We came up with different techniques for our instruments to compensate for a lack of drummer.”
The wonderful percussive sounds on the album, which were created without any percussion, is something that I’m keen to find out more about;
“It developed during rehearsals” Eddy recounts. “We had discussions very early on…I said ‘Will, we need a drummer’. Will said no! Having that limit made both of us work harder.”
“It’s not as if we can just play melodic lines and that’s it” Will continues, “Eddy’s having to do the chords, percussion, I’m having to play the melody and percussion…and then we’re both doing improvisation as well. People don’t expect it when they come and see us. They know it’s just accordion and harmonica, but then they’re quite shocked because there’s a percussive side to it. We’ve both drummed in the past. I used to be a drummer…a bad one, admittedly! But it’s a good thing to have; we can’t afford a drummer so we may as well just do it ourselves.”
Given the similarity in timbre between the harmonica and the accordion, Will and Eddy had to spend time on the arrangements to ensure that the overall sound worked;
“It’s not easy” admits Eddy, “Will has the advantage that he has vibrato and a lot of stuff that I don’t have, but I have the chords so I generally pretend to be everything below middle C, underneath what Will’s playing. Then sometimes we’ll switch roles. It’s a very respectful kind of dance…you’ve got to keep out of the way.”
“There have been comments” says Will, “where people have said they didn’t know who was playing at one point, whether it was the harmonica or accordion…which is interesting. There are some stages where on the harmonica I’ll do a technique called tongue blocking, where it sounds like there are two things going on at the same time, along with the accordion doing a similar kind of thing. In one of the tunes Eddy is playing the melody, but also doing the chords and shaking the bellows. That’s five different things going on at certain points and then I’m doing percussion as well. It’s almost like having five instruments.”
Eddy continues with an example; “I had to invent a technique to keep up with Will. Will said ‘this is a triplet’ and I thought ‘how am I going to do that? Bellows just do ‘two’; in and out! I had to get a three from somewhere else. So I developed this thing where I knock the heels of the bellows together to get the ‘three’. I’ve been looking around, I asked my friends…and no-one’s heard of this!”
Will laughs “It’s quite unique. You can hear it in ‘Floating Candle’…the accordion shouldn’t make that sound, that fast. But it’s also about being tight with these things, that’s the difference. You can be individually good, but to make it work together and be tight is difficult. That takes time and that’s why we rehearsed so much.”
So with all this technical complexity, how does Will and Eddy’s music translate to playing live? Remarkably well, as I observed later that evening during their performance to a packed Buxton Opera House;
“When people hear the CD” says Will, “they go ‘Wow, that’s cool…it’s quite a big sound’ and they’ll wonder if they’re going to see that live. We deliberately made it so that whatever we played on the CD is what we play live so you still get the impact of that sound. It’s partly due to Eddy making the sound really good. When it comes to soundchecks we make sure that the sound is right. I know it sounds weird but some bands will busk through a soundcheck and go ‘yeah that’s alright’, whereas we’re quite specific about what we need to make that sound from the CD.”
Sure enough, I watched Eddy during his soundcheck, patiently but deliberately working with the sound engineer to EQ out a resonant frequency from his accordion;
“There are only two halves to my accordion” explains Eddy, “so if one of them doesn’t sound right, the whole sound is 50% wrong. If you’ve got a band of six people and the accordion’s a bit quiet, it’s less of a problem. So we take soundchecks quite seriously.”
“I think that’s good” reflects Will, “because you feel confident you’re going to put on a good show. We’ve both had to up our game significantly, because there are less musicians. You haven’t got four or five people…we haven’t got back up. We’ve got each other and that’s it! Also, standard wise we feel we’re getting better every single show. We’re just more comfortable musically with each other. Last year it started a bit rough and ready whereas now I feel confident on a gig that we can get a really good sound every time.”
The crux for Will and Eddy was how the album would be received…Eddy in particular found that part of the process stressful;
“I’ve never had my name on the marquee before” he explains, “This is the first time I’ve had my name in the newspaper, saying ‘he’s done this’. You’re up for judgement, you’re quite vulnerable…I’ve had to start learning how to cope with that.”
“It’s quite nerve-wracking when you’re waiting for a review from, say a newspaper like the Guardian or a folk magazine” agrees Will, “You’re essentially being judged by one person and they can help or harm your reputation. Luckily we haven’t had a bad review yet! It’s helped us to just be a bit more confident about our playing and our show. We’re still working on things… sorting out our set lists and our banter and stuff. It’s work in progress.”
The reviews of the album have actually been unanimously good. “We had no idea” admits Eddy, “I was expecting two stars, just because the folk police would be out there going (puts on an officious voice) ‘No, that’s not how you play Phil Cunningham!’”
Will laughs loudly; “Actually the response has been really positive. Floating Candle is the track that we released first. We recorded a video of it and the response we got back was amazing. We weren’t sure what would happen, but people were saying ‘It’s really good! Keep doing it!’ We’ve also enjoyed seeing people’s faces enjoying it at the gigs. Sometimes you can see their eyes lighting up and thinking ‘What? That should not happen!’ People have told us that it sounds like we’ve got three or four people on stage, so that’s nice.”
The duo are already discussing a second album and taking their music to a wider audience. “I definitely view it as a long term thing” Will explains, “in fact we’ve just been chatting to our agent about a two-year plan to go and visit other countries…Australia, Canada and America. We obviously want a good base here, we’re doing tours in the Spring and Autumn, but we want to have other bases as well. The music is quite accessible; even if they’re not into folk music people can come along. I guess in a way we want to them to say ‘a harmonica and accordion? Really?’ and then come out of the show saying ‘we really liked that’. It’s not to convert people…just to challenge their perceptions of the instruments.”
“Definitely” agrees Eddy, “The accordion gets quite a hard knock I find! It’s nice to surprise people…”
‘Ignite’ by Will Pound and Eddy Jay is available to buy now through Proper Music.
Tour Dates
June 11, 2016 KENILWORTH Festival,
July 15, 2016 PETWORTH Festival
July 16-17, 2016 Harbourside Festival, BRISTOL
August 5, 2016 DRANOUTER Festival
August 8, 2016 BROADSTAIRS Folk Week
August 13, 2016 Campfire Convention, HEREFORDSHIRE
October 4-5, 2016 The Portland, CAMBRIDGE
October 8-9, 2016 The Winemakers, LONDON
October 9-10, 2016 The Bell Inn, BATH
October 29-30, 2016 Ropery Hall, BARTON UPON HUMBER