The Scotsman Sessions #437: Alec Dalglish
Welcome to the Scotsman Sessions, a series of short video performances from artists all around the country introduced by our critics. Here, Alec Dalglish of Skerryvore performs new track Fly, which appears on the band’s upcoming album Beautiful Mistakes
No need to ask how Skerryvore have and are spending their summer. It’s a fiesta of festivals for the blockbusting Celtic rockers. Hardly surprising for a band who launched their very own festival, the boutique triumph that is the Tiree Music Festival, on the island home of founder members Daniel Gillespie and Fraser West.
“New boy” Alec Dalglish has fronted the band since 2003 and is happy to confirm the excitement in the camp around appearances at the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, Linlithgow’s Party at the Palace and Heather on the Hill, a new bespoke one-day hoolie at the Royal Highland Showground with a line-up of mostly homegrown bands and DJs curated by Nathan Evans and Saint Phnx.
“We recently got to hang out with Nathan and the Saint Phnx lads out in Boston during the World Cup so we look forward to another great party with everyone there,” says Dalglish. “Normally we'd head over the US about three or four times in a year but we've pared that back a little and it's great to be in Scotland for a few more events closer to home.”
Dalglish originally hails from West Lothian but is now based in Glasgow from where he beams in his Scotsman Sessions rendition of recent Skerryvore single Fly. “I recorded it at home in my wee home studio,” he says. “It's the place where I write all of the material and I'm sat in the very spot where I would have first come up with the original idea and begun to demo the track for the rest of the guys to hear.”
Fly is the first single taken from Skerryvore’s upcoming album Beautiful Mistakes, the follow-up to the Scottish chart-topping Tempus. “It kind of sums up our formative years together,” says Dalglish. “I was trying to capture that feeling of brotherhood and raucousness from the band's early days. This new album came about in a slightly more organic way, recorded with everyone playing live together in the studio.”
As suggested by its title, the album is themed round the idea that “perfection is overrated”, not to mention illusory. Working with producer Jamie Squire, the touring keyboard player with The 1975, the band set about capturing the natural verve which has made them such confirmed festival favourites. “He really helped us to embrace the beauty in the imperfections and pushed us harder than ever before,” says Dalglish. “I think that this album has achieved a greater sense of maturity for the band and we hope folks can feel the energy that we've tried to put into it.”
Beautiful Mistakes is released by Tyree Records on 6 November. Skerryvore play Heather on the Hill, Royal Highland Centre, 22 August; the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, 6 November; O2 Academy, Glasgow, 7 November; Tait Hall, Kelso, 12 November; Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries, 13 November; Nevis Centre, Fort William, 14 November; LiveHouse, Dundee, 5 December; Queen’s Hall, Dunoon, 17 December; Albert Hall, Stirling, 18 December; and Music Hall, Aberdeen, 19 December.
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