With a fluid, revolving line-up and myriad eclectic influences, Solas are a very modern kind of trad act, writes Siobhán Long
Seamus Egan is evidently a man with an appetite for a challenge. Chief cook and bottle washer (aka founder member, composer, arranger, flute, low whistle, banjo, guitar and piano player) of the traditional music conglomerate named Solas, he was born in Philadelphia but reared in Foxford, Co Mayo, until the age of 13, his criss-crossing of the Atlantic served him well, as he thrived in the city of brotherly love when his family returned to finally settle in the late 1970s.
Egan attributes one early glimpse of Matt Molloy on television to his lifelong love of the flute.
"We didn't have a television, but my parents knew that there was going to be a programme on featuring Matt and James Galway," he smiles, "so we went down to our neighbour's house to watch it, and I taped it, just with an (audio) cassette up against the television. That for me was the moment, watching Matt play, that changed my mind completely. Something just clicked. From that moment on, I was obsessed with the flute.
"I never even considered that I'd stay playing traditional music when we moved back to the States," Egan says, recounting the world of fleadhanna that he assumed were solely a feature of Irish life. He wasn't long in Philadelphia though when he met folklorist and musician Mick Moloney, who took the young player under his wing, introducing him to countless musicians who gathered chez Moloney for regular sessions.
"Mick was a professional musician," Egan adds, his eyes widening as he recalls his utter amazement that such an option might even exist. "The thought that it was possible to make a living from music was totally new to me, and I just couldn't believe it. So music quickly became a renewed obsession for me at that point."
SOLAS'S TAKE ON traditional music is as distinctive as it is erudite. Initially characterised by John Doyle's driving guitar rhythms (the fulcrum of the band's sound for the first few years), by Karan Casey's graceful vocals and by the twinned lynchpin of Egan's flute and former Cherish The Ladies member Winifred Horan's fluid fiddle style, it's a sound that's weathered more than its share of storms, with the departure of Casey and Doyle, and their subsequent replacement by Deirdre Scanlan and Dónal Clancy. It seems that Solas were destined for a recurrent pattern of stepping out and stepping in again, with Clancy departing for pastures new (with Danú), and with Mick McAuley bringing accordion, whistle, vocals and composition to the table, while guitarist and singer Eamon McElholm has brought yet another very particular rhythmic style of playing to what is now the Solas quintet.
In between, there have been soaring contributions from Chicago box player John Williams, bassist Chico Huff and drummer Ben Wittman. Solas have never been a "ready to wear" outfit, washed, ironed and starched for each night's performance. In fact, they're a band that thrives in the heady currents buffeting their course since inception.
"Some of the musicians who play with us, like Chico and Ben, wouldn't have had a background in Irish music at all," Egan offers, by way of explanation, if there is to be one, of the band's trademark calculus-like rhythms. "There's a real interesting thing that occurs when musicians get together from diverse backgrounds. Chico's just a fantastic bassist. He has an innate feel for whatever he plays. Although he mainly plays jazz, he can 'sit in' with anything. I think what I learned most from them was that you didn't have to do it 'this' or 'that' way. That there was no 'right' way." This discovery was of Columbus-proportions to a young musician who had thought that the rule book was central to the tradition.
"Most certainly, I felt there were boundaries that had to be recognised," Seamus nods. "I knew there was some wiggle room alright, but I was highly aware of the limits at the same time. Using the piano as a really propulsive force, using it almost like you might use a guitar or a bouzouki, was so refreshing to me. It felt like an organic coming together of musicians with such different reference points. It was hugely exciting to me."
Linguistic jousting is an exercise that Solas engage in with refreshing abandon. One of Winifred Horan's tunes is gamely christened Charmy Chaplin, while the band's manic trademark Who's In The What Now? is credited to Egan. He first began composing on a Cuban eight string "tres" guitar in his early teens. The instrument was ideally suited to the nascent composer's ear, its quiet intricacies perfect for night-time composing while the rest of the house slept. For him, the ultimate arbiter of a tune was, and is, the strength of his own gut reaction to it, and not its proximity to any notional musical frontier.
"IF IT FEELS good, that's the overriding thing for me," Egan insists, laughing heartily at the odd slingshot that has come his way from listeners who presumed he was motivated by a commercial imperative which, they maintained, must have far outweighed any creative impulses he might have had.
"My own feeling was, if I was aiming for 'commercial', I certainly wasn't doing a very good job of it! I honestly had never even thought of that, but it suddenly became the elephant in the room, because some early reviewers made reference to it."
Bands often struggle with the competing demands of their members: the lure of the solo career has marked the death knell for everyone from Wham! to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Solas's secret, if the band has one, lurks somewhere in its DNA, where the two founding members of Seamus Egan and Winifred Horan continue to mine a genetic lineage that shows little sign of evaporating into the ether.
"Win and myself are the thread that's run through all the stages of Solas," Egan says, "and we were always adamant that whatever changes happened within the band, it was crucial that a new member could join, safe in the knowledge that they could be themselves, and didn't have to 'fill anyone else's shoes', so to speak. That meant that Solas could grow and develop in different ways."
These days Egan's listening tastes stretch from The Kronos Quartet to The Bothy Band (and all points in between and beyond, he hastens to add). He's scored music for The Brothers McMullen and continues to enjoy the challenges of writing for the big screen, in between Solas's touring and recording activities. With their recent appearance at the inaugural Whit weekend festival, SligoLive, the band reacquainted themselves with their Irish audience and plan to return to Dublin before the end of the year, burgeoning airline fuel surcharges permitting.
"As far as our audiences go, I don't know that there's a huge difference between audiences here and in the States," Egan says, "because a good reaction is a good reaction, and a bad reaction is a bad reaction - wherever you are. I think the real difference is in our reaction. When we play here, we're aware that there's a different understanding from the audience. We're very aware of the fact that there are often some great musicians in the audience: they know what you're doing! Now that can be hugely intimidating."