Seek and ye shall wind

Once you’ve seen the name, noted the glaring Yeats reference, and spotted the arsenal of cellos and violins they have at their disposal, the temptation may be to dismiss The Winding Stair as stout-supping, finger-in-the-ear folkies.

Spend some time in their company, however, listen to them enthuse about everyone from Stockhausen to Hanson (“I’m a sucker for melodic guitar bands,” admits Clare Galway, “I even went to see Busted a few years ago,”) or recount their experiences in venues more suited to spit-and-sawdust rock than winsome fiddley-dee, and you may be forced to recalibrate your opinion. Take for granted that certain members of the band have a classical background, and that vocalist Mary O’Halloran holds a life-long love of jazz, but what’s most striking about the Belfast four piece is a can-do attitude that, when you boil it down, is pretty much, well, punk.
“We do get annoyed getting called ‘that quiet band’,” says cellist, Tom Hughes, “but hopefully we’ve gone beyond that now, stuck to our guns, and enough people have seen us to know there’s a bit more going on. I think we’ve had to suffer a bit under the novelty of our band, but we’re getting there. Slowly but surely.”
Taking their influences from the English folk of the 1960s (Pentangle, The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention), while also citing the likes of Blue Murder and Devendra Banhardt, The Winding Stair are not your average Belfast combo. Chances are that in previous years they’d have stuck out like a member of the Scissor Sisters at a DUP convention. But not now.
At venues all across town, amps have been dropping a notch or two. And now it seems like they fit snugly into one of the North’s most intriguing musical narratives. The head-down guitar band template that held sway for so long has, of late, found itself challenged by a new breed of rootsy and unabashedly folk-influenced acts – with the likes of Cat Malojian, Paddy McKeown and The Delawares all gaining impressive fanbases.
“I’m not sure we’re really a part of any movement,” says Hughes. “We’ve played with those and liked them, but we’re playing with Tracer AMC next week, and I’d say we have just as much in common with them. I’ve always loved those moments in a piece of music when you have something very quiet, but also really intense. Nick Cave’s really great at creating that kind of mood and atmosphere, and I think it’s a real challenge trying to achieve that with acoustic instruments – suggesting great powerful emotions, but not hurting anybody’s ears.”
This softly-softly approach has served them well thus far. And even though they’ve refrained from banging their own drum too loudly (maybe because they don’t actually have a drummer in their ranks), word has spread. For example, Paul Charles from Asgard Promotions has taken a shine to the group, resulting in an invitation to play the acoustic stage at this year’s Glastonbury.
“It’s amazing,” says Galway. “We’re all getting ready to buy some new wellies.”
Hughes, though, is careful to ensure that the band remain level-headed despite their good fortune.
“We played The Empire three months after we signed, and now we’ve been on TV (ALTTV). Since the band started we’ve got used to being asked to do really cool things out of the blue, but we’ve made sure we haven’t got dizzy because of it. Same with this – when we found out, it was ‘fair enough’ but we need to work. It’s very easy to sit back and feel pleased with yourself, but you can’t allow yourself to get complacent. At the end of the day, what’s important is that our songs get better and better, and we all know that. Saying that, it’s going to be great. We can’t wait.”
Before their mid-summer beano, though, comes the task of recording their first album.
Main songwriter, Ciaran Tracey has gathered enough material together; the only problem now comes in deciding where they’ll pitch their wagon.
“It’ll either be in Ciaran’s house or in an old church hall somewhere,” says Hughes. “We want somewhere with a bit of character. It’s chamber music, pretty much, so we should record in a wee space – not a huge, cavernous one.
To be honest, it doesn’t need to be that great a studio – we discovered after our first recording session that we can’t really do it any other way than live. We just want to get it down as honestly as we can.”