Ahead of their Scarborough debut at Mojos Music Cafe and upcoming Filey Folk Festival slots, we spoke to local contemporary folk duo, silkandcustard, also known as Chris and Siân.
Like many a musical match, Chris and Siân used to go to a lot of the same bars and venues, sharing a lot of the same friends, but never crossed paths until both were at a singaround session, where Chris used to ‘jam’ along with everyone and Siân used to sing along. One night, they explain, the organiser, Gil, said, “You two come and sit together, let’s see what happens”. They go on to say, “Gil was always so supportive. That was around nine years ago, we’ve not looked back really.” They explain that it’s taken a little while to find their feet, especially in terms of where they fit in with a genre, but they have now settled on Contemporary Folk. “This allows us to write quite freely without constraint.”
Discussing what drew them as individuals towards music in the first place, Siân reveals that she had the most amazing teacher in Junior School, an ex-opera singer; “She got the whole class singing. Not that I’m operatic! After that I tried and failed at a few instruments, played a bit of snare, bell, lyre, and bugle in a marching band for a while, but then it sort of fizzled out with work and life, until I met Chris and I haven’t looked back. Things just sort of clicked. Chris has bought me several instruments over the years, as a way for me to get these melodies out. He bought me a kalimba last year, that’s an interesting little thing, very portable. This past Christmas he bought me a couple of ukulele’s and a glockenspiel! I tinker on them all.” As for influences, she confesses to have a music collection that really does say ‘Don’t Judge Me’; “it’s very eclectic, if I like something I like it.”
Chris explains that he didn’t pick up guitar until he was 14 – “So I’ve got 25 years in the bag, and you can never stop learning something new.” Towards the end of school life, he and some friends “basically sat in a store cupboard playing guitar to each other during breaks. And from there onwards something clicked with me. My Dad plays a little ragtime here and there, but I remember as a young kid hating it, I’d put my hand over the strings while he was playing and told him to stop: now he can’t stop me playing!” Chris details how he became obsessed with the guitar, that he used to play all day and fall asleep with it on the bed. “I played in my own grunge band growing up, writing originals and playing covers.” He then went to college and university, studied music, music performance, music tech, and so on. He also frequented a lot of jam nights and played for a number of years in a Bruce Springsteen tribute act, as lead guitarist/backing vocals.
“I juggled between working long hours as a chef and teaching guitar for many years. I have spent a lot of time soul searching and really connecting to the guitar; having played electric for many years, I gravitated towards the acoustic. I sought out to write songs as opposed to solos. Alas, here we are…!”
I ask whether, when it comes to writing itself, does their process start with a story or theme, or does the tune tend to come first, then the lyrics are found to work with it?
“We don’t really have themes, we just go with what feels right, we write very emotionally, ideas come from anywhere and everywhere, it could be a line in a film that gives us a spark or a sentence in a book, or something we’ve seen or heard that peaks our interest and sends us on a new song journey. We think that comes across in our music. It’s very empathy driven, we like people to feel it, we feel it. We write about moments that everyone has experienced at some point or another in life, we write from a personal perspective but it’s very vicarious. Songs will happen quickly or they can be one verse off completion and sit there for a good year or more.”
“We have books upon books of lyrics we’ve written, verses, choruses or even odd lines, endless recordings of guitar parts and progressions, vocal melodies, that will just sit and mature and brew, maybe just sitting in the back of our minds till they take on a life of their own. We have this habit of taking a finished song and completely dissecting it, then we rewrite it from the ground up. We have to connect to a song. We know a song is ready when we rehearse it and it’s no longer a rehearsal, it’s a performance! We’ll often pause, look at each other and go ‘Yeah, that’s …yeah’. We’ve experimented with speed lyric writing, we got some pretty cool ideas in fifteen minute brainstorming sessions, that really help to get ideas out without overthinking. Songwriting is a form of therapy, it’s cathartic.”
Chris adds with a laugh that it’s a great song idea if it makes Siân’s eyes water. “That’s probably why we write about longing and loss! Writing can be really stressful though, particularly when you’re writing about something personal.” They say that their songwriting workload is pretty equal, although naturally Chris writes more for the guitar as he plays it. For example, on ‘Quicksand’, Siân was looking at a postcard with footsteps in the sand; the aforementioned Gil had recently passed and she was really feeling his loss and evoking memories of her own late Father. She wrote the lyrics and melodies in fifteen minutes on an old piano using one finger, played it to Chris, who didn’t immediately say anything, but sat with his guitar for thirty minutes and – boom – ‘Quicksand’ was born. Whereas Chris recently took ‘End in Tears’, a song they wrote three years ago, dissected it, rebuilt it, and it’s now called ‘Fade to Gray’. “So some songs take a while to grow into their own and others just spring to life. One of the nicest things we’ve experienced in writing our own music is when someone asks you for a specific song you’ve written, this seems to be happening more and more for us, with songs like Quicksand and another, called Balloon.”
I enquire whether they ever feature other instruments; they reply that they predominantly perform using acoustic guitar and two voices in harmony, but do use keyboard for notating melodies. “We have many different instruments to hand, like kalimba, ukulele, glockenspiel, shakers, various guitars and all sorts. They all add something to our writing process in one way or another and may well make it onto recordings, but for the simplicity of live performance and travelling, a guitar and the both of us allows us to pick up and go.”
I also wonder how they came up with the name silkandcustard but they explain that they didn’t! “We were named years ago by a friend and it’s stuck!” They go on to elaborate that during their early days someone asked ‘what ya gonna call yourselves?’” and whilst they were pondering it, a friend shouted, “Silk, ‘cos of his silky fingers on them strings,” referring to Chris’ guitar playing. “Someone then asked ‘What about her?’ – and our friends reply? ‘Oh….. Custard.’ Which we found absolutely hilarious as Siân doesn’t even like custard, there’s a whole other story there!”
As to their Mojo’s debut, they’re really looking forward to it; “it’s one of our favourite places in Scarborough. We will be performing a mixed set of a few covers, but mostly originals as that’s the direction we want to go in. Having said that, sometimes we give covers our own spin, silkandcustard’ize them, if you will. There may be one or two songs people will join in with, hopefully. Ultimately, we consider ourselves an originals band.”
They are also self-recording an EP with Chris producing, which they are aware is never an easy thing to do for yourselves. “We have recorded before, but we are taking a little more time to finesse things this time around. The songs have to speak for themselves without the need of overproduction. Whether it’s an EP or album, we shall see!”
Besides their own musical journeys, both are involved behind the scenes on Filey Folk Festival. Having only joined the team last year as Treasurer and Secretary of Filey Folk Festival (or FFF for short) they have been busy fundraising, applying for funding, reviewing feedback from last year, creating and designing a new website, flyers, posters and festival guide, liaising with venues, booking venues, sending and replying to emails, numerous phone calls, their list is endless. “We do all the thankless stuff that no one really thinks about during the festival weekend. We are indeed performing ourselves, too; more about this can be found on our website and social media. We are just as excited to check out the rest of the festival and build connections, especially at the organised singaround sessions where anything can happen! You should go and see as many acts as you can. It’s a great weekend for music and a great weekend for the town! But you should definitely come and see us and say ‘Hi!’.”
Mojos gig event link
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Additional Folk Festival Information:
2nd to 4th May 2025 at venues across Filey.
Filey Folk Festival has taken place on the early May Bank Holiday weekend for over 20 years, growing in popularity each year, with people coming from all over the UK and overseas to play in this iconic little town. FFF brings you a plethora of FREE events night and day, with ticketed evenings arranged by Filey Americana.
The Filey Folk Festival Committee and Organisers are working hard behind the scenes to bring you a variety of local and national musical talent, with an eclectic mix ranging from Traditional and Contemporary Folk, Americana, Country, Blues and everything in between! Last year saw well over 100 musicians perform with another several hundred coming to see them, making it a very memorable few days. They have Booked Artists, Open Mics and having listened to last years feedback and we are reintroducing organised Singaround Sessions! There is sure to be something for everyone during this weekend musical extravaganza. During this few days it feels like music is everywhere in our bustling seaside town.
In order to keep events free for attendees, the festival relies on funding and public donations. You can donate to via crowdfunder here.
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