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Award winners at Celtic Connections and firm favorites live, The John Langan Band talks to Emaho about their independently released debut album Bones Of Contention. Bones of Contention is The John Langan Band’s debut album, arranged and performed by John Langan (lead vocals), Dave Tunstall (double bass/backing vocals) and Alistair Caplin (fiddle/backing vocals).

  Tell us a little about your latest album Bones of Contention. How did you come to write it?

Bones of Contention, is a collection of songs and tunes, both old and new. Tracks like ‘Demons’, ‘Pumpkin Pie’, ‘Charlie and Auld Jimmy’ were written a few years ago by John and have been slowly evolving into what they are now. They have been recorded before but we felt we had to put the newer, more mature versions on the album. They are definitely fan favourites. ‘Winter Song’ and ‘Midgets’ were written around the time we started recording. ‘Midgets’ is one of my favourites; it originates from a Morris Dancing accordion tune called ‘Jump at the Sun’ by John Kirkpatrick. We took that tune and changed the time signature and key and in the process came up with a new genre, which we like to call Morris-step. It was a lot of fun. Other tunes, like ‘Aquaplane’ and ‘Piano Miniature’, were originally the creations of Ali, our fiddler. He wrote the fiddle tune “Aquaplane to Cambridge” after a very manic rushed drive from Glasgow to Cambridge. John took the tune and added lyrics and as a band we structured it till it became what it is now. It has been very much a joint effort to create the album, with each of us putting in our creative license, including Hazen Metro, our engineer.