Portsmouth date as Steeleye Span explore Conflict
Steeleye Span head to Portsmouth’s Theatre Royal on May 16 – a little matter of 57 years after they first formed as a band.
Led, as ever, by Maddy Prior, there's no reason why they won't make their 60th anniversary, says Maddy. The point is that the enjoyment is just as great as ever, plus – and Maddy is loving the fact – they are genuinely attracting younger audiences.
“I think the thing is that we do something very particular. We look at traditional music in a particular way, and I suppose you either get it or you don't. But there are quite a few young people coming along now. A chap came up to me the other day when I was doing a signing and asked me to sign for his grandmother, and I said ‘Please thank your grandmother for introducing us to you.’ And he said ‘No, I introduced you to her!’”
The latest tour comes on the back of the album Conflict, released last year, their first full studio album in more than five years.
“It was the first album for a while. We put out a compilation album with a couple of new things on it and then we followed it up with a proper studio album. It's about different sorts of conflict. It's not just about war. It's about our relationship with the planet as well.
“We had some songs that seemed to go together in that direction and we just thought what could we do with them. It just expanded out from there but as I say we didn't just want it to be about war. After two or three songs we wanted it to be about other things.
“Some are written songs and some are traditional and somehow they work. And that's the great thing about traditional music. You can make it your own. It is interesting to be still moving forward but still changing and still trying to reinvent. We have never been a tribute to ourselves! The repertoire is just so vast, and I don't know how many albums we have done now! We started in 69 as a band. It seems like just a moment ago.
“But actually we started doing clubs in 65. We went around the folk clubs and I heard so many songs back then. And then we built up through the colleges. We played all the universities in the beginning and then we moved into the public halls and went to America and the big arena tours with other people and then we just became our own thing.”
Inevitably All Around My Hat and its massive success was a huge turning point: “It gave us profile, and it still works as a song. I think it's been very helpful.”