UK country music sibling trio ORFILA are back with their brand new single ‘Raise A Glass’ which is a touching tribute to their late Grandfather, drawing inspiration from a self-written note that was read out at his funeral.
Here we speak exclusively to the band to chat everything ‘Raise A Glass’;
You had a big 2017, what was your biggest highlight?
Last year was great for us and we were lucky to do some really cool things. The year meant a lot to us because it was out five year anniversary and recording our latest EP, “Built With A Dreamer’s Hand”, was definitely a highlight of the year. The process was so much fun and it was great to be surrounded by some wonderful musicians and an awesome producer too…and we ended up creating a product that we’re really proud of. C2C was also a huge highlight of last year. Having played it in 2016 we hadn’t expected to play again but we were really grateful to perform. Being on that line up was really special.
You’ve kicked off your 2018 with the release of your new single Raise A Glass, how excited are you to share your new music with the fans?
Very! We recorded Raise A Glass for our second album in 2016 and we always wanted to release it as a single at some point. We felt like it would be good for us to revisit the song at some time in the future and it felt like the right time. It’s one of our favourites and we hope people enjoy it!
Can you talk us through the inspiration behind the single?
The song is about our Grampa who sadly passed away a few years ago when we were writing for our second album “Never Slowin’ Down”. We had gotten home from the funeral and were all feeling a little down so we decided to get the guitar out and try and write a song about how we all felt. We find that songwriting can sometimes be a healing process and originally that’s what we intended on doing but we really loved the song and decided we had to put it on the album. Although written specifically about our Grampa we wrote it as a song about loss in general which we think people will be able to relate to. The last line of the song, which is also the last line of the album, is “God-bless” and there is a story behind that too. At the funeral the priest read out a letter written by our Grampa to be read out when he passed away. A kind of farewell speech. And the last line simply read “God-bless”. We thought this would be such a fitting way to end the track.
What do you hope listeners take from the track?
We wrote it in a way that we hope people can relate to when they are grieving. We wanted to convey the message that if you lose someone you’re certainly not alone…unfortunately everyone experiences loss at some point in their lives. It’s something that ultimately unites us. We all face that battle. But we also wanted to touch upon the idea that departed loved ones may perhaps be in a better place…and that no one is ever really gone while you still have memories of them. We wanted this to be a positive, upbeat song about a sad certainty of life.
Is the sound of this new single what we can expect from future releases this year?
I think the sound of ‘Raise A Glass’ is definitely in keeping with our style. Since we recorded it we have recorded an EP which continues with that sound. If and when we release new music this year our sound will certainly remain faithful to the style that we have come develop for ourselves over the years. The track is one of the most country songs we’ve recorded as it features a harmonica, a pedal steel and twangy electric guitar alongside our usual formula and we’re very happy with how it turned out.
Will you be releasing an album this year?
As we have just released an EP at the end of 2017 we are currently focusing on that along with ‘Raise A Glass’ so it’s unlikely we’ll be able to record another album this year…however we do plan to do some recording this year in some way, shape or form!
Along with the releasing new music can we also expect to see you touring over the course of the year?
We are always gigging and trying to get on the road as much as possible so we will be regularly playing throughout 2018. We will be playing at some festivals too, including Welshpool Country Music Festival and Millport Country Music Festival. We’re especially excited about these two as we’ve never played in Wales or Scotland before!
How do you feel your music has evolved since your debut?
I think we have certainly found our sound. When we released our debut album “Writing on the Wall” we incorporated country, folk and pop, probably with more emphasis on the pop side of things. We usually say that we became solely country on our second album “Never Slowin’ Down” but there’s definitely a lot of country on our debut too. By the second album we made three-part harmonies a staple of our sound and, as we are all huge fans of country music, we wanted to foreground country music in this album. There are still elements of pop and folk still but they are more hidden than in our debut. I think country is the genre that our music tends to gravitate towards naturally and we worked hard to ensure that that came across in the album by including traditional country instruments such as fiddle, pedal steel and harmonica. This is the point that I think we had settled on a sound and we continued down this road on “Built With A Dreamer’s Hand”.
What are your main career goals for this year?
We want to play as many festivals as possible and there are some really great ones that we’d love to be a part of. We’d also love to do some work in the studio again. And Nashville! Always Nashville.
What do you hope to achieve over the course of your career?
It would be great to continue doing what we are doing, recording and touring as much as we can. We’d love to be played on Radio 2. Even just once! I think that would be an awesome achievement. We’d also love to play at C2C again and perhaps open for an established US country act, maybe even one that has influenced us as a band. That would be a dream. But hey, if you build with a dreamer’s hand all things are possible right?
Make sure you follow ORFILA on Twitter @OrfilaMusic to keep up to date with all their latest music and tour news!
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