Interview: Shane Mitchell of Dervish

2:02pm Saturday 2nd February 2008

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TRADITIONAL Irish band Dervish make a welcome return to the UK, including a gig at Burnley Mechanics. We caught up with accordion player Shane Mitchell.

WHO ARE DERVISH?

Cathy Jordan: vocals, bodhran (Irish drum) and bones (Irish percussion - literally two pieces of cow's shinbone, clicked together, sort of like castanets), Tom Morrow: fiddle, Liam Kelly: flute, Shane Mitchell: accordion, Michael Holmes: bouzouki, Brian McDonagh: mandola.

HOW DID YOU GET TOGETHER?

We grew up together in Sligo. The name is Turkish. We chose it because it evokes the passion, energy and slight edge of mysticality that is found in real Irish music.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND?

Irish traditional roots music with a uniquely distinctive vocal from our singer Cathy Jordan. If you've been on holiday to Ireland and enjoyed the sessions in the pubs, then you'll enjoy Dervish. Our music has its roots in the Sligo tradition and we have then developed that for the wider stage. You can't play in a concert hall exactly as you do in a pub session, but we make sure we don't lose that essential grassroots flavour that should be in all good Irish music, whether you're playing in somebody's kitchen back home in Sligo, in a pub session or on stage at a festival in front of thousands.

YOU'VE RECENTLY BRANCHED OUT WITH SOME UNUSUAL COVER VERSIONS - TELL US MORE.

Our music is rooted in the Irish tradition but from time to time we take a more contemporary song and give it our own treatment. We will always be a traditional band, but when somebody writes a great song today, that shouldn't stop us from doing a version in our style. We feel the Irish tradition is something we can bring to the wider world of music, rather than being a straitjacket that prevents us from touching any song that wasn't written by an Irishman at least 100 years ago. Maybe in 100 year's time, people will think Cher's Gipsies, Tramps and Thieves was originally an Irish song now that we've done it in that style on our new album.

WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BAND HIGHLIGHT?

Playing to 240,000 people at one of the world's biggest festivals, the Rock in Rio Festival in Brazil. We were invited to represent Celtic music among a line up of rock and contemporary bands. They loved it.

WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF HAPPINESS?

A pint of Guinness and a chat with a close friend at a session of Irish music. I'm a man of simple pleasures.

WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF HELL?

Idiots who gather in pubs to shout at TVs when a bunch of chaps are running around a field after a leather ball of wind (football games in pubs).

WHAT'S THE MOST ROCK'N'ROLL THING THAT'S HAPPENED TO YOU?

Something that happened on a roof of a hotel in Finland about 15 years ago - I can't tell you any more detail than that.

WHAT HAVE YOU MOST REGRETTED DOING WHILE DRUNK?

The above. However, on tour two years ago, we went to the house of Mike McGoldrick (of Capercaillie). When we got back to the hotel at 3am I woke up half the guests playing Irish jigs on the bell at reception.

ANYTHING TO ADD?

Our vocalist Cathy Jordan was voted one of Ireland's top 10 voices and top 10 sexiest women. Among all the Irish bands, she is always picked out as the finest, most distinctive interpreter of traditional song. I'm a bit jealous that they don't vote me the finest accordion player as well!

See Dervish at Burnley Mechanics on Monday, February 4. For tickets call 01282 664400.