Interview: Rising Stars – THE YOUNG FOLK

The Young Folk consists of Anthony Furey (vocals/guitar), Tony McCaughlin (bass/mandolin/vocals), Paul Butler (keyboards/vocals) and Karl Hand (drums/vocals).

With the current popularity of folk music, particularly that in the more alternative/popular end of things like Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes and Bellowhead, Young Folk fit right in and their debut album is well worth your time…

1. What have you got planned for the next few months e.g. recording, touring etc.

With the release of our new album ‘The Little Battle’ and single ‘Way Home’ we have a very busy few months ahead of us. We will be extensively touring the UK and Ireland followed by a tour of Scandinavia and a hell of a lot of festivals promoting as much as we can over the next few months.

2. Brief history of how The Young Folk got together…

We all met at music college except Tony, Karl met Tony on a dating sight and they’ve never looked back since. BassPlayers4DesperateDrummers.com and if this site does not exist, it should.

3. How was your recent UK tour?

As we speak we are in the Hare and Hounds, Birmingham, our third last show of our first headline UK tour. It’s going really well. Highlight for us was the Chapel Arts Centre in Bath. A very intimate show, we even heard there were a few stars in the crowd, No names to be mentioned.

4. You have a new single just out, ‘Way Home’. How important is it to have a video up on YouTube for this, and do you find social media and YouTube help get the band new fans?

At the moment we create a lot of our own videos so we find social media to be extremely important for us. People that came to our shows on this UK tour have found us through a lot of social media sites so they have said.

5. Your debut album ‘The Little Battle’ is out ion September 8th. Could you take us through some of the song highlights? E.g. how the songs were written, ideas behind the songs etc.

The songs have been written over the past few years through a lot of highs and a lot of lows. Musically, the songs take time to mature or reveal themselves and thats when we get the highlights of any song that we play. ‘Way Home’, our new single is actually one of our oldest and lyrically very light hearted songs but with our not so light hearted songs we like people to have their own interpretation of what the song is about.

6. What have been the live highlights so far and why?

We were giving the opportunity to play with Midlake which was a big one for us because we are such big fans of their music. Another highlight this year was SXSW in Austin Texas which is one of the biggest music festivals around but we don’t remember that much of that week and sorry if we offended anyone!!!

7. Have you seen an upswing in the interest in folk/alt folk in the UK and Ireland in the past few years following the success of bands like Mumford & Sons and the Fleet Foxes?

Yes for sure and anyone that says different is living in the wrong bubble but funnily enough we are not really influenced by folk bands. We all have our own individual influences such as Tom Waits for Paul, James Brown for Karl, RadioHead for Tony and a little bit of The National for all of us.

8. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time away from music?

Oh the usual Superhero stuff but…. I’ve said too much.

Message for you fans…

Our brand new album ‘The Little Battle’ on 8th September, and you can pre-order it here

The Young Folk Official Website
Album review

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.
In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.

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Power Plays w/c 11 November 2024

ARCANE MOON Hello Sun (indie)
S8NT ELEKTRIC XTC (Long Branch Records)
ARCANA KINGS Here We Go (Curtain Call Records)
KLOGR face The Unknown (Zeta Factory)
BEYOND UNBROKEN Dance With The Dead (FiXT)
REVENGIN Decadent Feeling (Wormholedeath)

Featured Albums w/c 11 November 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Singer Songwriter)