BIOG . . .

Since releasing their debut album 'Long Way to be Free' in December 2009, Dublin and Bilbao based folksters Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies have been touring almost non-stop throughout Ireland, the UK, Spain and other parts of Europe with their intimate rootsy performances, joyful sing-a-long choruses and general participatory fun.

The musical partnership between guitarist Harry Bird (Edinburgh) and fiddler Christophe Capewell (Sheffield) goes back almost ten years to their busking days as students in the north east of England, amidst folk sessions, reggae bands and anti-war demonstrations. After moving to the Basque country and Catalunya respectively, it was the Irish trad scene in Barcelona which was to inspire Christophe to set up home in Dublin, where he was eventually to meet singer and artist Maria Blackwell.

In 2008 a tour of Ireland with a German pop group landed the three on stage together for the first time. The unabashed enjoyment of the trip led to a further collaboration as Chincho por Tátou, a Basque circus band accompanying a group of trapeze artists in the fiestas and festivals of Spain, before finally seeing them come together in their current guise as Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies.

During the summer of 2009 they recorded their debut album 'Long Way to be Free', a home grown collection of songs exploring love, faith and displacement in a contradictory world of loss and laughter. Their self-produced album was recorded over five months in five different countries and was released on their brand new label, Hot Drop Records.

Outside of the tours, they were recently played on BBC Radio 2 by Mike Harding, who said he loved the album, and have been participating in a British Arts’ Council project called Songs of the Sea, in collaboration with the genre-defying, London-based jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert.