Editor’s note: the Cortes Island concert, originally scheduled for July 12, has been cancelled.
Alan Morrison of the Sunday Herald described Simon Kempston as ‘One of Scotland’s very best singer-songwriters.’ Scottish Television said he is ‘a stunning Talent.’ Tom Robinson of BBC Radio 6 added, ‘Beautifully authentic guitar style & heartfelt vocals.’
Kempston will be performing in: Campbell River’s Spirit Square from noon to 1:15 on Tuesday, July 9th and in the Kameleon Cafe on Quadra Island, at 7 PM on Friday July 12th.
This is Simon Kemptson’s 9th Canadian tour and Cortes Currents caught up with him in Wells BC, where he was playing at the Sunset Theatre.
“Listening audiences are the most important thing to me, an audience that’s going to listen to you. I have a lot to say both in the songs and with the music, but also I like to tell stories and give some context and background about the song. So small art centres, churches, small theatres, house concerts: these are the type of ideal venues for what I present,” he explained.
Cortes Currents: Would you prefer a small audience that listens over a larger audience that maybe pays more but doesn’t listen?
Simon Kempston: “Absolutely! A lot of people don’t understand that, especially non-artistic people or non-musicians, but I would any day of the week. It’s far more important for me to give a show to a few people that are interested, and that come on the journey with you and buy into what you’re presenting, than playing a larger show, where maybe a lot of people that aren’t interested or they’re just out there for a chat. That’s why I’m not a massive fan of playing festivals. A lot of people are there, and they’re just drinking. They’re having a good time and they’ll come see you, but there’s no lasting connection. You’re off the stage and they’re on to the next artist, or they’re on to another stage.”
Cortes Currents: There are 17 albums on Simon Kempston’s website, including ‘You Can’t Win Every Time.’*
Simon Kempston: “This is the last tour I’m doing with it. It’s something that I’ve been working on a lot before COVID. Then COVID brought this massive interruptive period where we couldn’t get musicians into the studio, etc.”
“So there was a bit of a break, then we came back to it. It’s the longest I’ve ever spent working on an album but I think that’s to its advantage because there’s a lot more thought going into the arrangements and into the lyrics. During the COVID times I went back and I reworked some of the lyrics and I redid the vocals. So it’s probably the album I’ve worked the hardest on, and I hope that’s reflected in the final product. I hope people see the natural progression from my earlier work.”
Simon Kempston: “ I first played Quadra in 2018. I’m not sure how I came by that gig, I think a friend recommended it to me. I love that BC is so vast. There’s always new islands, or new places, new locations to go to. So anytime I come here, I always like to try going to a new place or a new location. On this occasion, one of them is Cortes, but in 2018 it was Quadra Island. I thought it looked beautiful and hopefully I would get the chance to explore the island a little. Sadly I didn’t actually have that much time there to explore, but I did meet some people that invited me back for the following year, and on that occasion I had a bit more time to explore, go for a hike, go for a run, go for a swim.”
Cortes Currents: Where did you perform?
Simon Kempston: “Now you’re going to test my memory. In 2018, I performed at the Kameleon Cafe, which is where I’m going to be performing again this year. The last two times on Quadra, I played in the Heriot Bay Inn (2019 and 2022).”
Cortes Currents: How did it happen that you’re coming to Cortes Island?
Simon Kempston: “The desire to come to Cortes has been there since 2019, when I was playing at the Heriot Bay Inn and watching the ferries leave. I said, ‘Oh, where’s that going? Oh yeah, I’d love to go there.’ And my friend’s said, ‘we’ll get you a show there.’ A couple of times we’ve tried, but it never worked out with the connections or the dates.”
This year, Bronwyn Claire Asha introduced him to Jennifer at Manson’s Hall.
Simon Kempston: “In 2022, I played in the lunchtime sessions they do in the Spirit Square, in Campbell River. The friend I’m staying with lives along the coast. So I took a run from his house. I saw a deer as I was running, the weather was beautiful.”
“I don’t know what it’s like with you just now, but it’s been raining ever since I got to Canada. So I’m hoping that the sunshine might be on Vancouver Island and up your way, because I’ve had nothing but Scottish weather since I got here.”
Simon Kempston: “I’m actually from Dundee, which is an hour north of Edinburgh on the northeast coast, but I live in Edinburgh now.”
Cortes Currents: When did you start performing?
Simon Kempston: “Probably in the second or third year of studying the classical guitar, so I would have been eight or nine. We had to do recitals once every four to six weeks. That was the early baptism of music performance and in the classical genre which is quite different, but a brilliant introduction because it teaches you rigour and technique . If you learn that when you’re young, it’s always going to hold you in good stead for when you’re older. That discipline of how to approach and practice your instrument and work hard at your instrument and never take it for granted.”
Cortes Currents: Tell me about your early years in Dundee.
Simon Kempston: “I had a fairly normal childhood. My parents were quite loving, supportive, and I was exposed to a variety of different things. Music wasn’t my only love. I also loved sports. I played rugby to a fairly high level. My dad was a rugby coach, so that was in the blood and in the family as well. That was and still is important to me. Obviously I don’t play anymore, I just support Scotland from afar, which is always a disappointing journey. I had the opportunity to do other things like acting and developed a love for English and poetry as well.”
“Dundee was a strange place to grow up in, when I was growing up there in the nineties. It’d been decimated by Thatcherism and the transition to post industrialism. We used to have a joke there – ‘will the last person to leave Dundee, please, please turn the lights out’ – because there were no jobs. They’d been lost in the eighties. So people were leaving Dundee and those vast areas of urban grey, desolate wasteland.”
“It’s strange now to go back to Dundee because it’s been rejuvenated. It’s found its mojo again and it’s reinvented itself. When I was there, it was a very different experience. I think when you grow up in this kind of gray concrete urban jungle, you find solace in other things like music, art and sport. I’m very fond of the city.”
Cortes Currents: What led to your move to Edinburgh?
Simon Kempston: “I went to university and I studied in Edinburgh.
I had the option to stay at home, and study at St Andrews University but it was important to broaden my horizons by being in another city.”
“Edinburgh’s an incredible city. It really is. It’s the perfect size, just over half a million people. So it’s large enough that you can remain anonymous if you want to, but small enough that it has that kind of small town feel to it. It’s a great walking city. It’s steeped in so much history, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of history. For writers, and I consider myself a writer first and foremost, it’s got such a great tradition from Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, right through to J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter.”
“It’s almost like Dublin, it’s very inspirational and I loved it. I do a lot of work in Germany. I pondered several times moving over, but it never quite happened. Although I love it out here in Canada, Edinburgh’s certainly where I see myself in the foreseeable future. Edinburgh has a hold on me and I don’t know if I’ll ever leave.”
Cortes Currents: Tell me about the launch of your professional career, how did that happen?
Simon Kempston: “I released my debut album in 2009. At that point, I was still working at a day job, but I was getting quite a lot of work in the evenings. The album was received very well by the Scottish press, by the Scottish critics, and gave me a lot of confidence in what I was doing. Previously I’d always been in bands and there you have a collective and shared responsibility, although it has its own issues in terms of arguments and resolution disputes, etc.”
“After the release of the album, I ended up working two jobs. Essentially playing shows at night and then working a day job. I did this for a year. Then towards the end of 2010, the situation changed with my day job. So I just took that opportunity to just go. That was 13½ years ago. I thought ‘I’ll try it for a year’ but within the first few months, I realized it was what I wanted to do. It was in me. You don’t choose to do music, music chooses you.”
“The first year was very hard. I was mostly self booking. I didn’t have a lot of experience in how to do that and how to arrange suitable terms, etc. You don’t know the venues before you’ve actually been there. It was a big, big learning curve.”
“I remember when I did a tour of Irish bars in the Netherlands. The money was quite decent, so that was good, but the audiences were terrible. They weren’t interested. Football or rugby was being shown in the background. You have people shouting for players, or saying ‘Can you just give us some Springsteen?’ They weren’t interested in a songwriter from Scotland presenting their own original material, but it was too late. I booked it. I had to do it, but it was punishing.”
“I learned a lot the hard way, selecting the venues that I wanted to play in. It takes time and it takes knowledge, but then you meet other musicians and they give you tips. You work with some agents and they help you a bit. You gradually build up a database. It was a struggle both financially and emotionally, because you’re hanging in there, but those early days some crazy things happen, some amazing stories, you meet some amazing characters, and you’re younger, freer, you’re a bit less responsible. I can look back now quite fondly on some of those early days. It was a lot of fun, but at the same time very hard.”
Cortes Currents: How many times have you toured Europe?
Simon Kempston: “A lot – I usually go out maybe two to three times a year, every year since 2011, apart from the two COVID years. So 40 or 50 times maybe.”
“When I was semi-professional and doing it part time, I did a lot in Scotland and England, so I’d built up a few connections there. The first abroad tour I did was in Ireland. The first time I went to mainland Europe was spring 2011, that was the Netherlands and came about through a friend of a friend.”
“What really changed things for me was that in the summer of 2011, I was invited to Germany. There seems to be a very good culture for the small to medium sized listening venues. That seems to be the norm in Germany, more so than most other countries I’ve been to in. In the early years, say 2011 to 2015, I went to most countries in Europe, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Sweden. Yeah, lots and lots of countries, Poland, Czech Republic. I do less of that now because of the time, but I always try a new place or try one new experience because that’s really important as an artist to open yourself to new experiences and new cultures. A lot of artists just sit on the same circuit and go to the same countries and the same venues. Like anything else, though that’s incredibly exciting the first time, it’s not going to be as exciting the 10th to the 15th time you do it.”
Cortes Currents: Tell me about your first Canadian tour.
Simon Kempston: “I can remember it as clearly as yesterday. It was September 2014 and it came out the day after Scotland lost the independence referendum, lost its chance to become an independent country, which is something I was passionate about. So I was quite a miserable person going to Vancouver. Then I picked up my hire car and I drove to a place in the Kootenays called Silverton. I presented my first show in Canada in the Silverton Memorial Hall and it was amazing. It was brilliant. The people really enjoyed it. Then the person I was with ended up staying for two or three more days. We went swimming and went hiking. It was a wonderful introduction to Canada. The drive there was beautiful and so different from what you experience in Europe.”
“I nearly didn’t come to Canada on the first tour because I only had eight shows and I didn’t think it was going to work financially. I thought I was going to lose money, but I had a friend from university who lives in Kitts, Vancouver, and he said to me, listen, please just come because I think you’re going to love it. He said, ‘it’ll work out. You’ll be okay. You won’t lose money.’ He persuaded me to come and I’m very beholden to him because that’s what started my love affair with Canada. It ended up that I made a princely sum of 20 pounds sterling.” (laughter)
“So I covered all my costs from the first tour. I was really happy. It was a major success. Through those eight concerts, I made a lot more. connections. When I came back in 2015, I was able to set up a busier tour. I think I made 300 pounds, but it was the second time I went. I had no real worries. I knew that I was going to break even.”
“The last time I was on a tour where I was worried about breaking even was New Zealand in 2019.”
Cortes Currents: Is there anything you would like to add?
Simon Kempston: “No, I just hope that the good people of Cortes Island come along next Thursday. I’m very excited to be there for the first time and looking forward to presenting my songs and telling some stories in their beautiful hall.”
Correction made July 4: * The original version of this story referred to Simon Kempston’s most recent album ‘Moon Over Mostar‘ (2023), a classical guitar album of original compositions for the instrument (no singing). He is not using a classical guitar on this tour. Kempston’s references in the interview were to ‘You Can’t Win Every Time‘ (2022).
Top image credit: Simon Kempston in Kiel, Germany – submitted photo
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