Dan Walsh leans back in his chair and thinks about the question I’ve just asked him. It’s the first point in our conversation so far where he hasn’t responded with an immediate and well articulated answer. As I wait for Dan to respond, I look up through the sunlit window behind where he’s sitting and notice people starting to file into the venue for tonight’s gig.
I’m in Leicester to see Dan on his UK solo tour and it’s a tour that’s seen increased audience numbers as more and more music enthusiasts get the message about the clawhammer banjo virtuoso. Despite not hailing from North Carolina (Dan’s actually from Stafford…not generally known as a breeding ground for bluegrass), he’s established himself as one of the best banjo players in the UK and earned a BBC Radio 2 folk award nomination in the process.
Eventually he looks up;
“To genuinely create something different and innovative…and to keep improving” he carefully explains, “you’ve really got to drive yourself to do that, especially as a solo artist. Ultimately no-one is going to do that for you.”
Dan continues, making reference to the innovative work he produced in collaboration with Indian classical artist Suhail Yusuf Khan, experimenting with scales and techniques taken from Indian music and applying them to the banjo;
“If I play the funky thing or the Indian thing, people find that quite impressive. I could just rest on my laurels and do that for the rest of my career, but people would get bored of it and I would get bored of it. It’s more important to keep driving and keep creating.”
Innovation has indeed been part and parcel of Dan Walsh’s career to date. Having not had any understanding of the musical context or history of the banjo before taking it up seems to have worked in Dan’s favour, as it allowed him the freedom to explore his wide musical taste through the medium of a fairly niche instrument. “I had no idea in my head about what the banjo did” he laughs, “I didn’t even take up the right banjo. I was listening to Scottish and Irish stuff so really I should have taken up the tenor banjo, but I didn’t know anything…I had no idea that different banjos even existed.”
With three solo albums under his belt, including last year’s acclaimed ‘Incident and Accidents’, a collaborative period with Will Pound and his recent work as a member of the fantastic Urban Folk Quartet, intensive touring has become the norm for Dan. This particular tour is a pre-cursor for his fourth solo album planned for next year;
“I’m trying to filter new things in really” Dan explains as we discuss his current set-list, “Incidents and Accidents came out last year and the tour was long. I’d had a lot of solo festivals as well and I did quite a few foreign tours last year, like a big tour of Canada and then I was in Europe quite a lot as well. This year I did New Zealand in February which has always been a strangely successful place for me…it’s a great place to go. That was the last tour of the Incidents and Accidents release. So this tour is an airing of new stuff alongside some of the Incidents stuff.”
Despite touring being part and parcel of Dan’s chosen career, it’s not something that sits easily with him;
“When I go abroad it can be really exciting…playing in new places, seeing new places. There’s lots of it that I love” he reflects, “but I really hate having to be away from home all the time. I’d love to be able to click my fingers and be at home sometimes. I find that constant ‘on the road’ thing isn’t something that comes naturally to me. I think some people genuinely crave that; I definitely don’t. I do it because it’s part of the job and I’ve had to do it to achieve what I want to achieve.”
While he admits to never being fully happy with anything he produces (back to his inherent need to constantly improve), on reflection Dan is pleased with how Incidents and Accidents ended up, particularly in terms of it’s coherence as an album. Experimenting with weaving different styles of music onto the banjo has been a key feature of Dan’s development as an artist, however he feels that this previously caused his recorded work to lack a theme;
“I think in my first two albums there was quite a lot of ‘I’m going to show this, this and this…all the things that I do.’ That doesn’t always make for a massively coherent piece of work. What I like about Incidents and Accidents is that it feels a bit more like a cohesive album. Also I think the song-craft is better than I’ve ever done …as much as anything, just through life experience and having more stuff to write about.”
Dan’s wide musical tastes are borne from his early musical development. Whilst he didn’t come from a musical family, Dan’s parents were music fans and so he was listening to a variety of influences from an early age. Having hence developed an unusually wide taste in music, Dan was twelve when he first showed interest in playing the banjo;
“I’d heard the banjo in Irish folk stuff and thought I’d like to give it a go” he explains, “Incredibly luckily, there was the most amazing banjo teacher on earth who lived in Cannock! The great thing was about George (Davis) was, like me, he wasn’t from North Carolina…wasn’t particularly steeped in it so, again like me, he loved the banjo doing different stuff. He thought that was a great thing.”
Dan’s choice of instrument led him to explore more traditional forms of music and eventually to study a folk degree in Newcastle, which opened him up to a world that he previously didn’t know;
“I didn’t know the folk scene existed. Mum hates camping, so we never went to festivals! So I didn’t know about the whole folk festival thing, didn’t know about the folk club thing particularly…that whole scene was totally news to me. So just realising that existed and connecting with people who knew about it…that alone would have been worth doing the degree to be honest.”
Whilst Dan quotes many benefits from studying his degree, one of the more notable outcomes was being encouraged to sing. Having originally assumed that he would be outshone by other vocalists, a vocal module led by Sandra Kerr changed Dan’s perception of his own singing ability;
“Sandra said “you should so some singing, your voice sounds good.” So that really encouraged me to keep singing and to keep improving on that. I was able to play the banjo quite well but my voice has taken more work to get it where I’d like it to be.”
Having firmly made music his career, aside recording and performing (which Dan openly admits to loving), he’s also found a different kind of fulfilment through his involvement in the prestigious Live Music Now scheme;
“It’s amazing work” Dan explains enthusiastically, “They audition young musicians at the beginning of their careers and give them paid work in places where music can make a really massive difference to people…places like special needs schools, care-homes, hospitals, hospices…even rehab centres. They’re reaching out to people who can’t go and get music themselves but who can really benefit from it. I’ve had some amazing experiences from it, some really profound reactions from some of the kids, even the rehab centres. They can be quite daunting places to play but people have said it makes a real difference to their lives.”
He continues; “I was at a conference the other day about the arts in care-homes. If people have got dementia, that cognitive ability to think has gone…and nothing is more powerful than the arts. Even if they can’t talk coherently any more they’ll be able to sing something they know from start to finish. They’ll be able to draw if they couldn’t before. It re-identifies them, it gives them their personality and identity back. It’s superb work. It’s amazing to do and see the results, it’s really inspiring. Plus, it’s something we might all go through ourselves. I like to think that one day if I’m in a home, a musician might come in and remind me what I used to do. It’s made me realise how powerful music actually is.”
Despite all the positives that Dan has experienced as a musician, he admits that there are aspects to his career that are challenging;
“You’re constantly presenting your art, which is something that’s very personal to you” he reflects, “That takes its toll on you I think. Not that I’ve had any horrible stinking reviews or anything…generally speaking people seem to enjoy themselves which is always good…but there’s still that pressure in your mind. Every time the venue isn’t full or every time you think people haven’t quite got it…it cuts through you a little bit because it’s so personal to you. Also the grass is always greener; I can imagine there’s something quite nice about people having a structured life where they’re in one place and they know what’s going on…but then they might say it’s really boring and they want to do what I do!”
Nonetheless, any challenges are far outweighed by the enjoyment Dan gets from simply doing what he does best; “I love performing” he smiles, “I love being on a stage and I love playing my instrument…I love playing the banjo. It’s the thing that makes me happy and it’s the thing I know I can do. Everybody needs that I think, feeling like you have something to offer.”
Looking forward, there’s a slight shift in emphasis in store for the new album;
“I seem to be writing a lot of tunes at the minute” Dan reveals, “I have written a few songs as well…but that Irish and Scottish stuff that was my first real love I suppose. Over the last four or five years I’ve gone down the Americana, Bluegrass and Indian(!) route, but I felt like I had a bit of unfinished business with just traditional tune playing. So I’ve been revisiting that just lately. There will be songs definitely on the next album; I suspect it’ll be quite a similar to Incidents in that it’ll be quite stripped back and it’ll be a mix of songs and tunes…but it might be a bit more fifty-fifty rather than seventy-thirty.”
With the audience for this evening’s show still growing (plus I need to grab a couple of quick photos!) we wrap up our chat with what’s happening next for Dan:
“I’m going to Canada next month (June) after this tour finishes and then a summer season of festivals in the UK and Europe, both solo and with Urban Folk Quartet, and then in September I’m doing a little tour with John Dowling who’s another banjo player from Cornwall. He suggested we get together to just talk banjos and have a bit of a jam, but then we thought it would be really fun to head out on the road together. It’s good to have another project there to keep the creative juices flowing. Then the new album next year…with undoubtedly silly tour schedules to accompany it!”
Dan has a number of solo tour dates coming up including Maverick Festival and FolkEast. Check his website for full details here: www.danwalshbanjo.co.uk