The Rolling River Band: Bio
The Rolling River Band
For fans of Dylan, Springsteen and all the other great songwriters come The Rolling River Band. Timeless songs with a modern fusion of folk, rock, country and blues.
The Rolling River Band comprises two twenty-something singer songwriters who share a mutual appreciation for great music. Inspired by years of listening to - Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Bonnie Prince Billy, Townes Van Zandt and Van Morrison (to name but a few) - we began writing and producing our own original compositions.
BEEN A LONG TIME
The first album produced by the Rolling River Band is a deep collection of emotionally charged acoustic songs covering the theme of love lost and found.
Been a Long Time has an intimate sound with intricate acoustic melodies surrounding honest, soulful vocals.
SUCH IS LIFE
Such is Life is our second album. The follow up to Been A Long Time is a collection of 18 original compositions exploring a variety of styles from Indy Rock, to Folk, Blues and Country. Lead vocals are shared between the two members of the band providing an added element of interest throughout.
This album is very much guitar based with an overall laid back vibe - sometimes sweet, sometimes dark but always very listenable.
THE ROLLING RIVER BAND
The 3rd album by The Rolling River Band draws on elements from both "Been A Long Time" and "Such is Life" but leans more towards a rock album than its predecessors.
Certainly the darkest, most upbeat album of the trilogy, this CD shows a different side to the band. Haunting, dark, beautiful, gritty atmospheric folk.
All the albums were recorded in our home studio setup just outside Edinburgh in Scotland.
Steven Perrott - Singer/Songwriter/Musician
Where it all began
Throughout my youth I listened to bands like the Stones Roses, the Doors and the Kinks. Although I enjoyed (and still do) these groups it wasn't until my early twenties that my whole perspective on music changed.
I stumbled across a copy of Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" and listened to it for the first time in my hi-fi headphones that night. I couldn't believe what I'd been missing all these years, I had never heard anything so powerful and affecting in my life - the emotion conveyed in Dylan's vocals through his use of phrasing and practically spitting his words on tracks like "Idiot Wind" made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. For the first time ever I actually "heard" the lyrics and realised their importance in a good song. I couldn't get enough of it and that album remained in my cd player for weeks on end.
Here began my journey of musical discovery, after buying a few other Dylan classics such as "Blonde on Blonde" I thought I would try some other Legendery artists - starting with - Van Morrison
Yet again I was absolutely blown away by "Astral Weeks" & "Moondance" and just HAD to get everything Van had ever released (and a great deal of what he hadn't!) buying Van Morrison albums was really exciting back then as I never new what to expect and each cd had at least a couple of incredible songs on it all new to my ears. It was that whole celtic soul thing - those albums seemed almost magical.
Van led to Neil Youngs "Harvest" (and entire back catalogue), The Band - The Last Waltz Movie and practically every artist appearing in it. Then it was "American Beauty" by The Grateful Dead, Dr John and so on and so forth.
It also became clear to me that I particularly enjoyed the more poetic male solo artists - Springsteen's "Nebraska", Tom Waits "Rain Dogs" then Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Lou Reed .... the list is endless and my journey continues even as I write this with recent discoveries (to me) including Steve Earle and Bonnie Prince Billy
It would surely be impossible to listen to all this stuff and not at least own an acoustic guitar? so now I own 3 guitars (Martin, Taylor & Fender strat) and have taught myself to play over the last 6 or 7 years.
Even when I could barely play 3 or 4 chords I started making up songs - it just seemed the natural thing to do - learning lots of scales and other peoples music never really appealled to me - I found that process boring - it would have made me a better guitarist but that wasn't my aim - afterall I was never going to be the greatest guitar player starting at 21!
Some of these incredibly early fumblings eventually morphed into the completed songs "On the Beach" and "Seasons Changing" on the first album "Been a Long Time"
It became clear that perhaps I had something of a knack for writing songs with decent melodies and lyrics and also seemed to be able to write a new song almost everytime I picked my guitar up.
There was only one thing for it then - to get all these songs out of my head and onto a cd or two!
It is the creative process that fascinates me - the fact that you can start with nothing then suddenly you find a few chords that work, then a melody starts to form, then the lyrics start floating about and finally you have something that actually "exists" and usually seems like it always has done! it's odd - I'm still not entirely sure where it all comes from....
Songs arrive in a variety of ways - sometimes I have a tune and will deliberately sit and write fitting lyrics - others just seem to fall right out of the guitar with hardly any thought involved...
I have been lucky enough to have had a partner in crime throughout this entire journey and that brings us on to the other half of The Rolling River Band, my good friend and associate Mr
Colin Adams - Singer/Songwriter/Musician
I have always loved music, from my early days of listening to my dad playing his guitar (an exceptional guitar player who supported the Rolling Stones & Chuck Berry in his youth) and his Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John or Rod Stewart records.
I began playing the keyboard at about age 8 with lessons from a tutor who came to my house.
Within a couple of years I was playing in front of the school.
I drifted away from playing music and spent more time listening throughout my teenage years to the likes of the Beatles, the Stone Roses, the Doors (much the same as Steven) and was a massive Bob Marley fan, owning all his albums.
Having known Steven's family most of my life we became friends around 1995/6 and started to hang out.
We had a similar taste in music and films and like Steven I still love all of the above artists but the introduction of Bob Dylan and Co. and a subscription to MOJO magazine truly opened my ears!
I found myself buying more and more cds, Bob Dylan, The Band, Tom Waits, Creedence Clearwater Revival and having to own all the bands material I could. Steven and I would regularly go "shopping" for cds and spend ages downloading rare Bootleg concerts & outtakes .
Although our tastes are very similar we would often differ and while Steven would switch me onto the likes of Van Morrison, The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed etc I would in turn offer Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash, Steve Earle, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Will Oldham
(Bonnie Prince Billy).
We both started learning how to play the guitar (I own Martin, Simon & Patrick, Tanglewood & Ephiphone guitars) and I began sitting back down at the keyboard again (just like riding a bike!). The rest as they say...is history!