Three piece East Midlanders The Elms Estate have crafted a gorgeous concept album, Electric River. Full of harmonies, chiming guitars, psychedelia and Moodies style narration it’s essential listening. Jason Barnard speaks to multi-instrumentalist Ian Short to hear the story of Electric River.
Electric River album cover designed by Ben Webster
Hi Ian, can you introduce The Elms Estate?
Ian Short – 41 from Derby. I play guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and backing vocals on Electric River. I produced the album in my home studio which is full of guitars, keyboards, drums and a large black dog Alfie (who can be heard in the background on a couple of tracks!). I’ve been in bands since the mid 90s including Coloursound (not the Mike Peters one!) Document 4, The Ministers and The Witchfinders. I’m currently enjoying bands including Can, The Birthday Party and rediscovering Paul McCartney’s solo output, Ram being a particular favourite at the moment.
Martin Colemans – 40 from Chesterfield. Guitars, bass guitar, keyboards, Mandolin, Bouzouki, backing vocals. Martin was also in Coloursound and The Ministers. Martin speaks fluent Welsh and Italian. His main influences are bands such as Pink Floyd, XTC, Procol Harum, Jethro Tull and Genesis.
Marc Johnston – 37 from Leicester. Marc is the lead singer and also plays guitar and percussion. Marc was lead singer for The Junipers and can be heard on their debut album Cut Your Key. He then went onto sing for the Silver Factory. Marc enjoys guitar bands from the 70s such as Badfinger, Rocking Horse and the Hudson Brothers. In addition to his vocal prowess Marc speaks fluent French.
The Elms Estate: from left to right, Martin Colemans, Marc Johnston and Ian Short
When did you form The Elms Estate?
We officially started the band as a recording project back in 2015. Since then we’ve recorded lots of material, however we decided to record a series of songs specifically for an album. All three of us have contributed songs to Electric River.
We started putting the album together in 2016, finishing it off at the end of 2017.
All three of us have spent years in different bands, doing hundreds of gigs between us. Personally I’ve been in bands where I’ve played guitar, bass guitar, drums and vocals (not at the same time). Martin is a fantastic guitarist who can also play bass guitar, drums, keyboards and sing. Martin’s playing mandolin and bouzouki on some of the songs. Marc plays guitar and is the main singer. He has a natural (and extremely useful) ability for arranging and executing interesting vocal harmonies. Between us, we can cover everything we’ve needed, musically, so far. We got help with the narration from a our friend David Battye.
We all live in the East Midlands – Derby, Leicester and Chesterfield.
How did you meet?
Me and Martin have known each other since the age of 10, we went to school together, and have been in bands together since 1992. We formed Coloursound in 1996 and went onto to form The Ministers in 2000. Since then we’ve played together on various projects.
Marc was introduced by a mutual friend back in 2012. I’d heard his previous band, The Junipers who I thought were fantastic. I was really excited to be working with someone who’s music I thought was great.
The Elms Estate: from left to right, Ian Short, Martin Colemans and Marc Johnston
Who are your influences?
Each of us has a broad range of different influences, but there is a large amount of shared influences, mainly from the 60s and 70s. They include, The Zombies, The Hollies, Pink Floyd, Badfinger, Queen, Wings, Supertramp, Captain Beefheart, Julian Cope – the list goes on…..
What’s the album about?
The album begins with another airplane crashing into a moor, high in the hills. Eventually the energies driven into the earth create an energy which finds its way into the water. Through the brooks, streams and eventually the rivers, signals from the energies are transmitted from the waters to all the animals. Over a short time the animals begin to take over the land and humans are drawn into the river – chaos ensues!
It was partially inspired by seeing some of the plane wrecks up on Kinder Scout, which is large area of moorland in the Derbyshire Peak District. Parts of it are the highest part of the East Midlands.
Why did you choose to record a concept album?
It would have been too easy to record a dozen unconnected songs. We wanted the challenge to write and record a series of songs which had a theme and told a story.
I think it changes your approach to writing a song if you have a theme to work from. It was a challenge, but we really enjoyed putting it together and it seemed to bring something out of us.
What are your favourite concept albums?
My personal favourite would probably be The Pretty Things’ SF Sorrow. It’s one of the first of concept albums and I think it still sounds awesome all these years later. Defecting Grey is one of the stand out tracks for me.
Martin’s favourites are The War of the Worlds, Thick as a Brick and The Wall. They’re the three obvious ones. Also, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis is great.
It’s SO hard to pick just the one!
What was the writing and recording process like for The Electric River?
All three of us have contributed songs to Electric River. For me there’s never any usual process for writing. Sometimes I’ll get an idea from a certain phrase I’ve thought about and other times the music will come first. I still haven’t settled on a formula. It’s usually the case that an idea will come to me when I’m nowhere near a guitar or pen and paper.
Both Martin and I have home studios, so we tend to demo the songs first and then agree on the ones to pursue. Once we’ve decided on the tracks we begin recording in my home studio in Derby. It’s great having easy access to your own studio as you can spend time experimenting with songs without clocking up huge costs and unwanted attention. We had great fun recording the album and although it took around eighteen months to complete, the sessions were very productive. In all we recorded around twenty five songs, of which we ended up using seventeen.
After recording we took some tracks to Abbey Road to be mastered. That was definitely a career a highlight as we were shown around Studio 2 and Studio 3 where some of our favourite albums were made. The mastering suite we used had just been used for Paul McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt re-mastered album.
Marc at Abbey Road
Which tracks from Electric River would you recommend new listeners seek out and why?
That’s tough! I think the song Cloudburst nicely sums up what we’re about. That track has one of my favourite vocals on from Marc and it also has an interesting mix of instruments – including synths.
Up the River is also a good starting point too. Martin really gets to crank his guitar up and give the album some grit.
Butterfly written by Marc is also a highlight of Electric River. To me it’s got a George Harrison feel to it. I really enjoyed recording that one.
I think those three tracks would be a good start as all of them show a different side of our work and yet they all represent our sound.
Any plans for playing the album live?
Yes there are. We’re currently working out the best way of doing it! We’d need to get some help from our friends to cover all the parts, as there are only three of us in the Elms Estate. An alternative option is to do a stripped down version – maybe an acoustic rendition. We’re still working out the details, but watch this space….
Where is Electric River available?
The album is now available on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Google play and Amazon Music.
Will there be a physical release?
It seems to be getting lots of listens on the streaming sites with modest promotion so far, but we’d very much like to release the album on CD or better still vinyl. The album’s only been out a couple of weeks, so we’ll gauge demand for it and then make a decision.
The Elms Estate – Electric River is out now. The band can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook.
