fields of harvest

Fields of Harvest were a melodic, acoustic-led indie guitar band formed in the late 1990's by two young Christians whose influences included Neil Young, the Lemonheads, U2, the Waterboys and former Energy Orchard front-man Bap Kennedy among others. Fields of Harvest were based on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles (the Outer Hebrides, off the North-West coast of Scotland) and the original lineup was comprised of:

Innes and Iain were both learning to play guitar in November 1998 when they decided to form a band. Thomas was recruited the following month and in January 1999 Kenneth signed up. Their first live gig as Fields of Harvest was supporting Phil Goss, front-man of "As If..." and Nancy Sawyer at the Town Hall in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis towards the end of January 1999.

Fields of Harvest subsequently recorded 4 demo tracks at Phil's studio, Appletree Studios in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, during July 1999 and things were looking good. Fields of Harvest were set to play their biggest gig to date - headlining a sold-out show Stornoway Town Hall on New Year's Eve 1999 - and another recording session at Appletree had been booked for January 2000 when, with almost no warning, Kenneth quit the band.

With just days to go until their "Millennium" gig and an expensive recording session already booked, Fields of Harvest suddenly found themselves with no drummer and so Iain immediately set about tracking down the slightly tipsy drummer who had gate-crashed a recent Fields of Harvest rehearsal looking for "a shot on the drums". Luck was on Iain's side as he tracked down drummer Callum Campbell the same night and got him down to a rehearsal.

Things went well and with Callum picking up the Fields of Harvest material quickly the Millennium gig went ahead and proved to be a great success. Next stop Aylesbury and the new line-up managed to demo a further 6 songs. Combined with the previous 4 tracks, all the songs were combined into a 10-track self-financed "album" which Fields of Harvest sold at gigs, online and by sale-or-return at any record shop willing to stock it. The album was entitled "My Child's Treehouse" and featured contributions from Phil Goss and Nancy Sawyer. Track listing:

Tracks 1, 2, 4 and 7 were from the July 1999 session with Kenneth on drums, the rest are from January 2000 with Callum behind the kit.

With strong, ever-increasing support and favourable reviews of the album - including one from Calum Macdonald of top Scots band Runrig - the year 2000 turned out to be a busy year with Fields of Harvest going from playing small youth events to playing across Scotland from the "Barra Live" festival to the S.E.C.C. but by early 2001, just as the band began to break into the Scottish scene, things had started to unravel and by April 2001 it was all over. Thomas left Fields of Harvest for personal reasons and Inny left to study art while both Iain & Callum ended up in Glasgow - Iain to study for a Theology degree, Callum to work.

After Fields of Harvest, Iain and Callum would team up again with a new project, "Poor Old Ben", while Inny swayed gently between art and music, as he continues to do. Thomas is happily married and gainfully employed in the real world.

Click [ here ] for a glimpse of the original Fields of Harvest Web site.

Footnote: A little-know sideline project of the Fields of Harvest boys was the "Raglin Murphys" where the boys got to try their hand at more traditional Scottish music. Here Thomas dropped his bass in favour of an acoustic guitar or even an accordion while Iain switched to bagpipes or small pipes. There are no known recordings of Raglin Murphys material available.

Hopefully. :)