Think Country: Please introduce yourself. Please introduce your position in the band, where you’re originally from and where you are based now.
AM: I’m Ally McErlaine, founder of the band, along with my wife Shelly. I play guitar in the group, along with mandolins, banjos and anything with strings.
TC: What types of music did you hear around the house growing up? What did you enjoy listening to on your own?
AM: My dad was really into Bob Dylan and rock ‘n’ roll music, my mum loved The Beatles and The Beach Boys. I heard a lot of country at the family Christmas parties. Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, etc. I had phases of punk, metal, Bowie, so it was always very varied.
TC: How did you get your start playing and/or singing?
AM: I started playing guitar with my dad, he was a folk player so he taught me my first chords.
TC: How did Red Sky July get started?
AM: Red Sky July started as a side project for me and Shelly. I was in the group Texas and she was in Alisha’s Attic. We originally teamed up with Floridian Charity Hair. Charity has since moved back to the US, so we asked an old friend Haley Glennie-Smith to join.
TC: Tell me about the upcoming release. Give as many details as you can, especially your contribution to the project.
AM: Our new album, Misty Morning, is the first with Haley. It was recorded mostly at our home studio in London. We have Joe Hammill from the band Cattle & Cane guesting on “Utah.” Other important contributions were Rory Carlile, who did the mixing, and some bass by Ryan Small and Ross Hamilton.
TC: What are your outside activities when you aren’t doing music?
AM: We do a lot of writing with other artists and also a lot of TV and film scoring. Recent film was My Old School, the Scottish film starring Alan Cumming. We did a cover of “My Old School” by Steely Dan, featuring Lulu on vocals.
Think Country: Please introduce yourself. Please include your position in the band, where you’re originally from and where you are based now.
Shelly Poole: I’m Shelly, singer-songwriter and producer with Red Sky July.
TC: What types of music did you hear around the house growing up? What did you enjoy listening to on your own?
SP: When I was growing up we used to listen to things like the Eagles and Neil Diamond in my dad’s old Mustang; very much American-based music. My dad was in a band in the 60s (he was the lead singer) of Brian Poole and The Tremeloes, so we had music around the house all the time, lots of bands and lots of rock and roll!
TC: How did you get your start playing and/or singing?
SP: It took me a long time to get any kind of a start in music. I was doing it from when I left school at 16 and I got my first deal at 25. Before that, my sister and I were playing in clubs and pubs, etc. We were sending out demos to record companies and getting lots of rejections. We finally met a lawyer who took our demo tape to one of the people we’d already written to, and we got offered a deal straight away with Howard Berman at Mercury Records.
TC: How did Red Sky July get started?
SP: Red Sky July got started by just Ally writing a piece of music on his guitar and me singing a song over the top. I wanted a harmony on it, so my friend came over to sing for us (our previous band member Charity Hair), and we loved it so much we started the band on the spot. The song was “Morning Song” and it was on the first album.
TC: Tell me about the upcoming release. Give as many details as you can, especially your contribution to the project.
SP: On this album it took a while to get it into place. We wrote songs, we scrapped them. We wrote some more, we scrapped them. Every time I produced them up (and it took ages) and we still scrapped them. There was something not quite right about the feel of it. I can’t say why, and even though I’m really trying to think of an answer, there isn’t one. It just didn’t feel right. This final one feels like it came together in the right way. The songs were written from the heart; we tried to use different instrumentation and not really think about what you should use for certain genres like Americana. We used our really good friend Rory (Carlile), who we worked with on the first album, to mix.
TC: Ultimate goal for Red Sky July? Is this the band we will always see or are there plans to add any new members? Special venues you’d like to play?
SP: The ultimate goal for Red Sky July is that we want to continue to play our songs to people. We will probably make another album next year and we just want to keep singing and playing together, as it’s fun. It’s a very good release from the day job of composing for TV and sync. We really enjoy the art of producing music like this too, and we don’t get much of a chance to outside of Red Sky July. So when we all get together to do what we love, we will keep it going in whatever capacity we can.
From: https://thinkcountrymusic.com/music/q-a-with-uk-trio-red-sky-july-new-album-misty-morning-set-to-release-february-28th/
