The Open Day Rotation

There’s a line on Willie Campbell’s debut solo album that neatly sums the singer-songwriter’s new found confidence and contentment. The lyric “any life is a better life than yesterday” reflects Willie’s happiness at finally breaking away from what he considers to be the “false nonsense” of the music industry. He’s closed the door firmly on the unhappiness of the past and produced an album full of wonderful life-affirming songs that talk of change, cures, empathy and the breathtaking redemptive power of love. It’s a record that brings to mind Levon Helm’s assertion that, at their peak, The Band produced truly righteous music. It’s often said –mostly by me when drunk - that if there was any justice in this world, Willie Campbell would be a star by now and playing sell-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall. But as any Scots Presbyterian will tell you, there is precious little justice in this world and Willie currently makes do with gigs in local bars of his hometown, Stornoway. Anyone who has heard Willie perform will testify; London’s loss is Stornoway’s gain. And it’s a situation that Willie himself is more than content with. Speaking to him you get the impression that he’s happier now than he’s ever been both in terms of his musical career and his private life. A gifted songwriter/guitarist and blessed with the voice of a dissolute angel, Willie is a native of the Isle of Lewis in the far north-west of Scotland. He grew up in the village of Tolsta, a district where the Gaelic language is still strong and shines through into the local music. Willie was educated at the local Tolsta primary before transferring to the main secondary school on the island – the Nicloson Institute in Stornoway – but he readily admits to hating almost every minute of his time in both schools. He still has lasting affection for his home village though and believes that living there has helped his craft as a songwriter. “Tolsta was a great place to be brought up and I’ve only fairly recently began to appreciate how good it was, lots of space to ride bikes, go to the beach, maybe steal the odd gate and swap it with someone else’s! I can't say I was ever influenced greatly by the local Gaelic and traditional music scene but when I moved home from Glasgow a few years ago, the peace and stillness of the glen helped me write some songs I couldn't have come up with while living in the city.” Willie first started playing guitar seriously aged 15 and learnt his trade by strumming along to tapes of bands like R.E.M and Sugar in his bedroom. “I never took guitar lessons so learning to play was heavy going at times and must have been even more so for my poor mam and dad who had to listen to me practice! In school people that knew little bits and pieces passed things like chord shapes onto each other... but I’ve never been a great guitarist. I think my writing has got better over the years but my guitar playing hasn't. I was always more into songs but I loved the guitar sound that Bob Mould had in his band Sugar - so I bought a Strat with insurance money on my eighteenth birthday, purely because that’s the guitar he played. Peter Buck was maybe another influence, not advanced but really distinctive and effective. As a teenager I was obsessed with music, I loved Neil Young and Nirvana and Lou Reed, Teenage Fanclub, Crosby Stills and Nash. I liked being into bands no one else had heard of like Sebadoh… lots of my friends were getting into rave and some of it was okay but it's the words and melody that I was hooked on right away. You only need to know half a dozen chords and be able to hum and you can write a song.” Around 1995, Willie’s talents as a writer and performer led him to join his friends, fellow Tolsta musicians Charles Clark and Gareth Russell in the group Astrid. They flirted with fame for a few years, releasing three albums which got rave reviews. But like so many Scottish bands of the 1990’s, Astrid ultimately failed to make the big break through and eventually split up amid some acrimony. Looking back, Willie is admirably honest about the highs and lows of his years with the band. “Astrid had already formed when I joined –I was playing with a band called Kite Monster and we were doing fairly well and getting lots of interest from labels. Charles and Gareth poached me away from that group! But really, they were my best buddies so it was an easy move and being in a band like Astrid was a brilliant experience for me. The best times were when we first got together and did our first gigs in London and Glasgow. Around that time there was loads of excitement and potential surrounding the band, it was a real buzz. “I think Astrid followed exactly the course it was meant to take, obviously we made some bad mistakes and decisions but we had some fantastic experiences and did things I’ll always look back on fondly. We got the record deal and the good PR people but somehow we just couldn’t get to the next level. After we lost our British record deal we struggled on for a few years, the music we were making was in my opinion our best, but when you've been dropped by a label you are tarnished and it's really tough to come back from that. But I also can't deny the fact that I lost my way and lost sight of the fact I had some ability, I squandered lots of it. “Being in a band that’s looking for a deal is a really disheartening experience so we were used to disappointments. We were about to sign with Geffen in America and we even had the contract but they pulled out at the eleventh hour - that was in the early days so we got hardened to it.” The break-up of Astrid eventually led Willie to return to Lewis where he has spent the past few years playing in a number of guises: solo; as a member of the hard-rock outfit Our Small Capital and – most intriguingly – in sync with the award-winning Lewis author Kevin McNeill, who wrote the bestseller The Stornoway Way. Earlier this year Willie also released a solo album, Down by the Head, under the name Open Day Rotation and he says the record marks the fulfilment of a long-held ambition. “ For years, I’ve wanted to do an album on my own but I always felt that I needed the security of other people’s input, I suppose I was lacking in that extra confidence. But being settled at home and being away from the city helped me come up with songs that I was happy with. I just thought these songs would suit a more gentle approach than Our Small Capital’s sound. I just thought ‘why not try and do it?' “Actually, it’s a lot easier being the only writer, there’s no arguments over whose songs you’re going to play. It’s a solo album with a collective of musicians that come and go around the songs; it's been a really good experience but hard work at times. The theme of the album is change and closing the door on the past and having a new concept of what it is to be content, the things I enjoy and love about life are completely different to four years ago. “I didn't want to use my name because I think the market is saturated with male singers and I like the listener to hear all the music; because the truth is I just wrote the songs and the other musicians make them sound good. All the songs on the album were written close to each other and didn't take that long, I find if I’m labouring with a tune it probably means it's not great. But the way I write is changing all the time, there’s no set rules.” The album got its premiere earlier this year at An Lanntair arts centre in Stornoway and many of those present swear it was the best live performance seen in the town for years. The record shows Willie’s growing maturity as a songwriter and is a real showcase for his wonderful soaring vocals. The fact that what many consider to be his best song – Leading with the Chin – isn’t even on the album hints that there is more great things to come from Willie. Newly married and with ambitions to start building a home in Tolsta soon, Willie has lots of high hopes for the future; “I want to keep going with the writing and playing. At the moment I’m getting into writing songs for other people so that should be interesting. I’ve recorded an album with my friend Kevin McNeil, which will be out later on in the year. I honestly want to just continue without letting all the false nonsense of the industry get me down, I think I can see a lot of it for what it is now – just an illusion! I have got a lot of joy out of playing these last few years and i want to hold on to that feeling.” Another telling lyric on the new record has Willie pleading for whoever is in charge to “start up the nightmare; the sooner it’s over I’ll dream.” Listening to him speak of the past and the future it seems that the nightmare is now over. We’re all now really looking forward to the dream.biog by john neil munro

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