WHEN Dublin folk duo Hudson Taylor reached the number three spot in the Irish charts last year with their album Singing for Strangers, a hectic summer tour was almost an inevitability.
The pairing, which consists of brother Alfie and Harry Hudson-Taylor, have just played five back-to-back gigs in Denmark, and will be playing a headline gig at Moira Calling Festival this weekend.
Hudson Taylor formed in 2011 and have released an array of well written songs since then but, according to Alfie, the pair started out with the very basics.
“It started out at family parties – singing Happy Birthday or something like that,” he laughs. “But for the last eight years myself and Harry have been writing songs and doing a lot of busking together.”
Playing music professionally with your brother can be difficult for the Noel and Liam Gallaghers of this world but Alfie says that things couldn’t be better for him and Harry.
“We get along really well so it’s easy,” he says. “We’re always family at the end of the day and it works in our favour most of the time. We have two opinions so we can just bounce off each other. If we have to make any huge decisions at least there are two of us to talk about it.”
“We might disagree about something that then brings us on to something class because we find a great solution – that can be in songwriting or talking about set-lists, or anything. We always wanted to go travelling and now we’re travelling everywhere together – for free. It’s great to experience it with someone.”
Harry and Alfie are living out a personal dream this summer and the pair couldn’t be happier.
“The festivals in the summer are really fun,” Harry says. “One of our favourite things to do is playing live – especially at festivals because you get loads of people who don’t know you, or maybe know you a little bit and you get to play your whole set for. You get to meet lots of people as well loads of other bands which we absolutely love doing.”
Although he and Harry have been playing together for around eight years Alfie believes that their summer festival gigs have given them the opportunity to improve musically.
“Since the first festivals this summer we’ve been improving – we’re getting much tighter after every festival,” he explains.
Fans of the duo will be glad to hear that the relentless gig schedule have given Hudson Taylor plenty of fresh ideas for new songs.
“You can be very inspired after playing at festivals,” Alfie enthuses. “We play with loads of different bands so there are always songs coming from that, so after the summer we will take a couple of weeks to write it all down.”
Moira Calling will be the brothers' last festival gig of the summer which Alfie says will be a momentous occasion
“The last one is always an emotional one and one we always put everything into,” he says. “To headline a festival is huge especially on its first year. We’re really buzzing for it – it’s going to be really special.”
Although they are headlining the festival, Alfie and Harry plan to make the most of the Moira Calling experience.
“We’re getting up there early so we’ll be there the whole day,” Alfie says. “I plan on walking around and seeing a bit of all the musicians. We’re going to be getting in at around 10am so we’ll have plenty of time."
They're excited about the gig and they hope to make Moira Calling even more of a family affair.
“We have a lot of family from the States at the moment because my cousin from New Orleans is getting married,” Alfie says. “We’ll have our band with us who we’ve been playing with all summer, and possibly some American relatives. We’ll be playing loads of songs from the first album and a couple of new songs as well. We can’t wait.”
:: Hudson Taylor play Moira Calling Festival on Saturday September 10. For tickets and full line-up, see www.moiracalling.com
