Emily Maguire has had an incredibly successful few months in the UK; Several great festivals, then a 30 date tour. Word spread about her and out of the blue she's asked to support Don Mclean on his tour of Ireland and the UK. We interviewed Emily whilst she was taking a breather in Cambridge before the last few dates.
You're only down the road. Did you live in Cambridge for some time?
Yeah, I did yeah. For many years, actually. I went to school here. I used to work at The Junction in Cambridge, I don't know if you know it? I worked there before I moved back to London.
Yes, I spent many a blurry night there! I remember The Junction when it was just a building site... So, you've been busy though, haven't you?
Yes, I have! Very busy actually. Lot of twists and turns to this tour, it's been quite interesting actually. I was supposed to be back on the farm in Australia by now, but it hasn't quite worked out like that.
Yes, I was going to check, you don't have your own goats do you? They'll need milking by the time you get back!
No, no. They're kind of pets now. We did have a huge herd and now we've only got a few. My partner and I took over the cheese business, run by his family, and most of the herd had already gone, we just have a few goats left.
So, that must take up quite a bit of your time in summer?
Yeah, the way it worked was, we'd come over here and do gigs and some touring, then we'd go back to Australia, and be making cheese, just to raise finance to keep on with the music; that's how we financed our record label, by making and selling goat's cheese, a slightly unconvential sort of life! I became the cheesemaker, and my partner would go to the market and sell it and we'd use that money to buy our plane tickets back to the UK to do another tour.
Yeah, I mean you've got your own studio at home haven't you, so...
Yeah, we didn't record the albums there though, we did record some parts of it, the new one, but we actually recorded both'Keep Walking' and 'Strange Place' in a studio down the road, so it wasn't actually on the goat farm that we recorded it!
The albums fantastic, really good...
Thank you.
Do you think that's some of the reason you've had people like Don McLean asking you to come on his tour?
Yeah, we've had a really good response to it. The title track is being played on a lot of radio stations now, and getting quite a bit of airplay on BBC radio around the UK which is fantastic, and it's been on the national playlist in Australia for ABC Radio there for about six months now, so yeah, it's been brilliant the reaction. We've had some very good reviews as well. It's been great.
Yeah, it stands out, certainly. Seeing you at the various festivals, you stand out vocally as well, so it's understandable where the interest has come from. But, you'd planned a 30 odd date tour anyway...
Yeah, we'd come over to do three months on the road, 32 dates. The Cambridge Folk festival had asked me to come over and play, so, on the back of that, we'd booked a pretty big tour, up and down the country. We were into the last week, and I'd just done a gig at Bournemouth Folk Club and this guy saw me play there and decided to send in a CD of my songs to Radio 2, and Aled Jones heard it and decided to feature me on his show. So as a result of that, I was approached by a manager and then I was offered the tour with Don McLean. And the tour actually started on the day I was supposed to fly back to Australia so I cancelled my ticket!
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