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Spiers & Boden have announced that they are back on the open road in February / March 2025. As well as revisiting venues they’ve performed at in the past, they are also looking forward to trying some new ones.
As well as playing tunes and songs from all six albums, they’ve said that they “will also be trying out some new things we’ve been working on.”
After a lengthy hiatus as a duo, John Spiers and Jon Boden reunited in 2021 for their sublime and highly anticipated album Fallow Ground. In a KLOF Mag interview, the duo chatted to Billy Rough about how they had always intended to perform together again.
“We stopped for practical reasons,” says Boden, “For one, Bellowhead was really taking off, and it just felt like we were sort of fighting against ourselves a bit for time, for material and everything. So, that was why we stopped, but it was always our plan to come back, and over the last couple of years, we’ve had a few little conversations about how maybe, you know, now would be a good time, but we needed a new album. There was no way we were going to come back without a new album because it just needed new stuff.
“That was really the process, but it’s kind of difficult doing an album of traditional stuff because you’re always looking for good material that hasn’t been done much before, and it gets harder as you go along. You know, it feels like there is sort of a limited number of songs and tunes out there that are suited to any particular line-up, or you know, or they’re destined to be Spiers and Boden tracks.
“So, it was a couple of years thinking ‘oh yeah, we need to get some material together,’ but that coincided with lockdown so we were both able to go back to our bookshelves, get the books and CDs out and start listening and reading and just trying to find some stuff that jumped out at us and fortunately it did!”
As Spiers adds, the process was “absolutely classic Spiers and Boden methodology! Work out that you want to make an album first, and then go scouring in whatever resources you’ve been playing in the years or weeks and months before to find stuff that you just want to explore!
“Jon’s always very good at firing off hundreds of song ideas,” notes Spiers, “and now you don’t have to meet up in a pub to suggest like twenty songs that you could do they all came via WhatsApp. Because we live on opposite ends of England, it made sense to do it remotely for the first few bits, just getting material and seeing if the other one enjoyed playing them, sending little recordings and things to each other.”
“One of us would come up with an idea, record it, and send it over,” adds Boden, “then the other would put something down, send it back, and then we could tweak it and muck about with arrangements that way. It was actually quite a practical way of doing it. It’s not a very romantic way of doing it, but in the context of lockdown, and in the context of us living two hundred miles from each other it worked fine.”
Watch them performing Bluey Brink in a field near The Gate to Southwell Festival some summers ago. This was the opening track of Fallow Ground, although, as Boden revealed in our interview, this wasn’t always the plan:
“We had thought that maybe ‘Butter & Cheese & All’ was a natural opener just because of the lyrics, but actually, when we tried that, it was like no, we need ‘Bluey Brink’ to go in, you know, to hit it hard! That was a great find. It’s a pretty obscure song, and I must have heard it, but I didn’t remember it at all. I was listening to a Peter Bellamy album and I was like, what the hell is that song?”
Spiers agrees, “I don’t even think Jon thought there were many legs in it. I just went ‘well, we absolutely have to do this, I’d never heard it before, how have I not heard this song before?’ It doesn’t quite feel traditional, but it also doesn’t feel like a pop song. I know its history; it’s as traditional as many other folk songs, it’s just that it came via the music halls and then A.L Lloyd and then Peter Bellamy, that’s how it got us.”
“Our version actually starts to get quite rocky,” adds Boden, “a sort of 80s rock anthem feel! So, we went with it, you know!”
“It’s such a ridiculous subject for a song!” notes Spiers, “You want to hear the story because it’s funny and manic, the story of a crazy bloke who would drink anything and somehow not get damaged by it – I think we’ve all met someone like that! And we tried to make the music that went with it.”
“Such a weird type of hero,” says Boden, “sheep shearing and drinking acid. Brilliant!”
Spiers & Boden Spring Tour 2025
Ticket links: https://spiersandboden.com/live-dates
February:
Wed 5th Pavilion Theatre, Worthing
Thu 6th The Lantern, Bristol Beacon
Fri 7th Ludlow Assembly Rooms
Sat 8th Brewery Arts, Kendal
Sun 9th The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Gateshead
Wed 19th Cecil Sharp House, London
Thu 20th Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot
Sun 23rd Epic Studios, Norwich
Mon 24th The Stables, Milton Keynes
Tue 25th The Apex, Bury St. Edmunds
March:
Wed 5th Hutton Rudby Arts
Thu 6th Pocklington Arts Centre
Fri 7th Halifax Minster
Sat 8th The Tung Auditorium, Liverpool
Sun 9th Canolfan Ucheldre Centre, Holyhead
Mon 10th The Welfare Ystradgynlais
Tue 11th Taunton Brewhouse
