I started writing songs when playing in cover bands. Though we played a few 'own compositions, you knew what would pass as 'pop' for the audiences you were playing for. Quite quickly my efforts were too far out of the envelope for the band to consider appropriate, so the songs stayed in the file, but the file kept growing.

Between bands I discovered folk clubs. Suddenly I'd found other people writing the same sorts of songs as me.

None of the songs I'd written were intended to be 'folk' songs, they came about because I had something to say or as story to tell. Perhaps that's the secret - just write how you feel, and let others decide if your effort are folk, country or anything else.

Ian Fyvie