The Wood Demons
If you go down to the woods today, be sure of a twig surprise…
“At the audition one song sounded a bit like King Crimson. That worked for me!”
“The first time I meet anyone, I tell ’em we played Glastonbury,” says Ed Kontargyris, The Wood Demons’ drummer – but he doesn’t actually mention this to 'Prog' ‘til we’re at the end of the interview, discussing band milestones.
The Glasto gig came about after the group played Tewkesbury Medieval Festival in 2023.
“We got it through a friend of mine who’s the Battle Director, and we were surrounded by people dressed as giants and leech doctors, dressed in homemade armour,” guitarist-vocalist Simon Carbery explains. “The tent we played in was run by Sally Howell, who liked what we did and asked us to play in her Croissant Neuf venue. We couldn’t refuse…”
While a thrill for the five high achievers who’ve connected with each other across eras, occupations and geography, making ley lines between the Hebrides, Gloucestershire and London. The seeds were sown when co-founders Rick Startin – keyboards, guitar, vocals – and bassist John Silver met while at school in southwest London. Years later, Silver’s path crossed with Carbery while both worked in advertising (“I once used Manfred Mann’s Paul Jones for a Tesco ad,” says Carbery, “I commissioned Mike Ratledge, Karl Jenkins and Clem Clempson,” says Silver). Wanting to stretch themselves beyond the day jobs, a nucleus formed in 2010 from the trio, initially playing what Carbery describes as “off-piste psychedelic covers with a Hammer Horror-'Wicker Man' vibe, such as vampire song 'Appointment With The Master' by Bachdenkel.”
The band name suited their MO as they began working up original compositions with their first drummer, Valentina Monsurro. But a little more musical fairy dust was required so Startin mentioned a work colleague from PRS, Naomi Belshaw, violinist for indie-soul act The Penny Sweets “who was rather good,” he says. Belshaw added the expressive element they’d been seeking.
Monsurro departed, so the final piece of the puzzle was Kontargyris, a London College Of Music jazzer who found the band via Gumtree. “I was about to give up playing, but an ad caught my eye,” he says. “At the audition one song sounded a bit like King Crimson. That worked for me!”
Debut album 'Angels Of Peckham Rye' came out in 2020, and follow-up, 'In Rabbits & Corners' has just been released. With members coming from different worlds and music tastes, songwriting is an intriguing mix of “sci-fi, psychedelic and psychological”, says Silver, and “miserable” laughs Startin, with Carbery currently using a technique of fusing news stories with magical realism. The music comprises folk, rock, electronica and a Hawkwind-like essence.
“On this album we strengthened our signature sound,” says Belshaw, now a composer, agent and chair of Gloucester’s Three Choirs classical festival. “Improvisations were developed significantly and melodies improved, especially on Rick’s 17-minute track, 'Nothing Between Us And Heaven'.”
“That was a phrase from a between-wars radio broadcast when a drunk admiral was spouting nonsense, but he came out with this visionary line,” says Startin. “It became the centrepiece for song about struggle, mortality, acceptance.”
Thematically, that’s similar to //The Great Gig In The Sky//, then. “The one track we all love,” says Startin. “We’ll take that!”
- Jo Kendall
Prog file:
Line-up: Rick Startin (keyboards, guitar, vocals), John Silver (bass), Simon Carbery (guitars, vocals), Naomi Belshaw (violin), Ed Kontargyris (drums, percussion)
Sounds like: Immersive folk rock, sprinkled with spacey electronic atmos and lyrical violin
Current release: //In Rabbits & Corners//, self-released
Website: linktr.ee/thewooddemons