WHEN the film of Alex Salmond’s career after his time in Parliamentary politics is made, there is no doubt who will provide the backing music for the soundtrack.
For one of the pleasant discoveries of the Alex Salmond Unleashed tour has been The Carloways who will appear with the former First Minister when his latest show takes place tonight in his home town of Linlithgow.
As they have been doing since the outset back at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year, The Carloways have provided the music on this Spring Tour of the show which will also be in the Glasgow Citizens Theatre on Saturday.
The Perthshire-based band have been good for the show and Alex Salmond Unleashed has been very good for the image of The Carloways.
Mikey MacLennan is the co-founder of the band and lead singer of The Carloways and he explained that it was a chance hearing of their music that saw them join the Salmond caravan.
They got the gig because producer Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh heard them playing at a fund-raising gig when she was still the MP for Ochil and South Perthshire. She thought their music was fresh and very much in tune with the upbeat nature of Alex Salmond Unleashed.
“She asked us about a month before the show was due to start on the Fringe if we could play on the stage and of course we said yes,” MacLennan said. “It’s all worked out very well, though Alex is so quick with the banter that’s it’s difficult to keep up at times.”
The schedule in Edinburgh last August would have exhausted most performers but the subsequent visits to places across the country have been enjoyable, according to the band.
MacLennan said: “We are used to touring all over the country and at least with Alex we are playing in proper venues.”
The band was disappointed when the shows scheduled for last Friday at the Caird Hall in Dundee and the Eden Court in Inverness had to be cancelled due to the weather, but are looking forward to playing on the revised dates – April 27 and March 17 respectively.
The Caird Hall will be the biggest venue they have yet played: “You don’t get much bigger than the Caird, and we can’t wait,” said MacLennan.
There’s been some comment about whether The Carloways are a country rock or straight rock n’roll band but MacLennan has his own description.
He said: “I am just calling it rock n’roll but with a touch of Americana. I don’t want to be so bold as to call it country rock because that makes a lot of people think of Billy Ray Cyrus and that’s not what we’re about at all.”
There is some exciting news for the band’s growing fan club – this is the year they will finally make it into the recording studio.
MacLennan said: “The nucleus of the band is myself, bassist Steve Liddle and guitarist Charlie Haggart and we have been together since we started playing music in primary four.
“The Carloways came about over three years ago when we began touring as a band singing cover versions and we have been a live act ever since.
“We have had a couple of false starts but have saved up the money to go into a studio and record our own music and I’m delighted to say we will be recording our first EP or maybe even an album in a recording studio in Glasgow at the end of this month.”
The highlights of their careers so far have included the Fringe shows, playing the Belladrum Festival three years running and visiting Stornoway for a gig that gave the band the chance to visit MacLennan’s mother’s home village of Carloway after which the band is named. You get the feeling that name will be more famous in the future.
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