Celtophilia

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Today we’re very pleased to be talking to Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards. The Brobdingnagian Bards, comprised of Marc Gunn and Andrew McKee, are an awesome group out of Austin, Texas, and the recent recipients of the Best Folk Act award in the 07-08 Austin Music Awards. The guys have been playing together for about ten years at Renaissance Festivals, Sci-Fi Conventions, and Celtic Music Festivals, and you’ll never hear a better band featuring an autoharp and a recorder. And now, on with the questions!

Celtophilia: Since you guys are based out of Austin, TX, do you feel like the city’s musical culture is of any benefit to Celtic musicians in particular?
Marc Gunn: Sadly, the Celtic music scene in Austin is small. Despite the plethora of great music available, we don’t have that much variety Celtic music, and low support of it. If I really had the time or could find someone to help me, I’d start an organization who’s goal was to promote weekly Celtic music events in Austin and do some big promo for it with radio and whatnot.
Celtophilia: As a sort of followup, do you feel like Texas is a good central location for a band wanting to work on both Coasts, or does it just mean you have to fly everywhere?
Marc Gunn: For us, it just means flying more. It is a good central location, but we don’t go out of our way to book many gigs locally. Most gigs come to us. And those come from all over.
Celtophilia: What are you most looking forward to on the upcoming Bards Tour of Ireland?
Marc Gunn: I love our tour this year because it allows us to get off the beaten track. CIE trips are so finally tuned to include as much schmaltz as possible. This trip is designed to be a part of the country, history and legends of Ireland. The further we are away from that, the more pristine and beautiful I imagine it’ll be.
Celtophilia: Is there anything you can share with us about the progress of the Brobdingnagian Bards next CD release?
Marc Gunn: Not really. I don’t know when that’ll be. The next CD is tentatively scheduled to be Real Men Wear Kilts. But it’s really up to Andrew when and if that CD is next.
Celtophilia: After releasing 9(if we counted them all) CDs, do you ever get a request for a song that you just can’t remember?
Marc Gunn: Frequently. I’ve learned well that there are three types of songs: hit songs that everyone wants to hear, songs we love to play, and songs we love and recorded but that just don’t work well live. Instrumental songs are like that. Ballads are much more rare as a result as well.
Celtophilia: If you were ever in a position where you had to sing for your life (Think gameshow of the future where the wages of losing is being shot out into space with no suit.) which of your songs would you perform and how would you make your performance spectacular enough to save you?
Marc Gunn: Boy! I’d hate to be in that position. The songs I LOVE to play most are not usually the popular ones. I’d rather play “Lish Young Buy-A-Broom”, but I might get shot out into space. So “Jedi Drinking Song” has a better chance of saving my life.

Thanks again to Marc for taking the time to answer our questions. Thanks to his mastery of internet marketing, it’s almost impossible to look for Celtic music on the ‘net and not come up with the Brobdingnagian Bards, but if you want to save yourself a trip over to Google, you can find them at www.thebards.net
And, just to give those of you who might never have heard the Bards a taste of their music, one of their most popular songs courtesy of YouTube. Decidedly not Celtic in nature, but a favorite nonetheless.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 13th, 2008 at 8:02 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.