Tony Cummings interviewed Calum MacDhonhnaill, better known as Calum MacDonald of the band RUNRIG

Runrig

Maybe it's my Scottish ancestry but if there's one live concert above all others that I would like to attend this year, it would be Runrig's 40th Anniversary show, to be held at the Black Isle Showground, Muir Of Ord, near Inverness on 10th August. Runrig are, for me, the greatest ever exponents of Celtic rock who down the years have produced such stunning albums as 1987's 'The Cutter And The Clan', 1989's 'Searchlight' and 1991's 'The Big Wheel' and although hardcore Runrig fans might suggest that the band have never been quite the same since lead singer Donnie Munro departed in 1997 to enter the world of politics, there are still tens of thousands of fans of Runrig's epic and enormous musical soundscapes. Last year two of the founding members of Runrig, bass guitarist Rory MacDonald and brother percussionist Calum MacDonald took time out from their Runrig duties to record an album under the name The Band From Rockall. From his home in Contin in the Scottish highlands Calum spoke to me about Runrig and 'The Band From Rockall' album.

Tony: Why record a side-project?

Calum: It's something we've wanted to do for many years. Because of the work with Runrig, we never got the time to do it. We took a year and a half off. Everyone was doing side-projects; it was a good diversion from the band, a good way to recharge the batteries, and fulfil an ambition for ourselves.

Tony: Were there things that would've been impossible with Runrig?

Calum: It's completely different, yeah. For Rory and me, because we're songwriters, we always wanted to do a solo project reflecting something of the early content of the songs. We didn't want the album to be polished or overproduced - a big, massive sound - we wanted it to be about the songs. We recorded it, more or less, in home studios to give it that kind of feel, to retain the heart of the song. It was a labour of love.

Tony: What was the inspiration behind the songs?

Calum: I don't know if you know the history of Rockall. It's halfway between America and the Western Isles of Scotland, where we grew up in the late '50s, '60s. It was a fantastic place to be. Musically, you grew up with a strong Gaelic language, music culture, and at the same time rock and roll was coming in on the radios - the pop revolution was starting. Growing up with these two things, it was a really exciting time. We wanted to retain on our album something of the freshness of that first experience. Rockall was an image: a place that's halfway between America, the rock influence, and the Western Isles, more traditional Gaelic.

Tony: You've got some very interesting guests on the Band From Rockall project.

Calum: To be honest, Rory did all of the guitars, most of the keyboards; I did the drums. The extra musicians we brought in were icing on the cake - but very significant and very good nevertheless. We used a couple of jazz brass players - a saxophonist and trumpet player - we used Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis, in a very minimal way, and we used a lovely singer from Denmark, Sine Lauritsen, who was recommended to us - we were looking for a foil to Rory's voice, and she worked out really well.

Tony: One of the themes on the album is a deep affection for family.

Calum: The most difficult thing for this record was deciding on the actual songs. We wanted to write some new stuff, but we've got decades-worth of songs sitting on shelves, and a lot of them are songs that for one reason or another wouldn't be Runrig songs. We've often thought, 'It'd be nice to do something with that someday'. So we had many songs to choose from; that was very difficult to tie down to a CD which is ten or 12 tracks. But when we did choose them, you could see there was a very strong personal attachment to certain songs - the family scene, which is always part of our work anyway - not just in a personal sense, but in a wider sense of where you've come from, influences. A lot of the songs have that sense of family.

Tony: What does your family think of 'The Band From Rockall' album?

Calum: They love it - absolutely love it. We're working on a film at the moment: we filmed the process of doing it. There's a one-hour documentary film which came out on the BBC last year. It's called The Band From Rockall. That has been great, because we've been able to tell the story not just in song, but on film as well. Making the film was like making a song. And you're able to expand on things like family, deal with it in other ways. It's often very frustrating, songwriting, because you write this song, you've got three verses and a chorus - a middle-eight if you're lucky - when you really want to write a novel. You really want to get into it and tell a big story. The film gave us a chance to broaden the perspective.

Tony: Runrig has taken you around the world. Have you grown tired of the rock and roll lifestyle and living in Holiday Inns?