It's rush hour traffic time on a weekday when Stu Venable answers my call. He asks me if I can all him back in five minutes so he can pull off the road, safely out of stop-and-go traffic. I oblige him and we settle in for a good chat about the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Southern California and Venable's Celtic/folk band, Celtic Squall.

 

"It was really my wife's idea," begins Venable. "She's more into things like Steeleye Span or Fairport Convention and that sort of English country folk/rock music. The other bands that we're in don't really do that.She wanted an outlet to do that kind of music. And we wanted to do something that was a little more relaxed."

 

All of the members of Celtic Squall sing. They also provide their own music-- Venable on upright bass, his wife Heather Greene on bodhran, accordion and recorder, bouzouki player Claire Broderick and percussionist Phil Schwardon. The group was formed in 2007 recently released a self-titled album.  The four keep busy in two other popular Faire bands as well, The Poxy Boggards and the Merry Wives of Windsor.

"(The other groups are) a real high energy, high impact, 25 minutes of killing yourself with no chance to relax and this is a little more laid back," Venable said. "It was really an outlet for us to do the sort of music that we can't do at the Rogue's Reef stage at Faire because there's a certain expectation of a certain type of music that you're going to do there and also because of the energy level that requires. We want to be able to keep doing music, but want to be able to do it in a more relaxed way."

 

Venable has played music since fifth grade and restrung his first guitar - left-handed - at age 17.

 

"I started in glee club, I was singing alto," Venable shares. "That was before my voice changed, in fifth grade and then I tried clarinet in sixth grade and found out I was terrible at it, so I went back to singing in junior high in seventh grade and my voice changed that summer. I was singing bass in seventh grade and I was singing in choirs and glee clubs all the way until I graduated high school."

 

In college, Venable received a journalism degree with minor in political science and an emphasis in public relations.

 

"When I was in college, I turned my back on music entirely, I didn't have anything to do with it at all. I had a guitar, I picked it up occasionally, but rarely and it wasn't until I got out of school and got a job." Venable recalls, "I started getting involved with the Renaissance Faire after college."

 

He, and all the members of Celtic Squall have been attending and performing at Faire for more than 15 years.

Venable and Greene have two toddlers.

 

"We go to Faire together." Venable says, "Because there's so many people within the Boggards and the Merry Wives that have kids now, we went to the Faire about three years ago and said, 'Look, we're having trouble getting people to commit to come out because of their kids and they don't have any place to take them and they don't have any daycare for them on weekends, we want to set something up, can we?' And they yes. They gave us a little plot of land, so we have a little environmental area, it's called St. Nick's School for Wayward Children. Basically all the children in there are related to either the Poxy Boggards or the Merry Wives of Windsor. And we hire someone to watch them and all of the parents take a one hour shift during the day."

 

We discuss how Celtic Squall selects their cover tunes.

 

"Someone in the band finds a song that they like that they think will be good for the group and they'll just arrange it and bring it in. There hasn't been any music yet that the band has heard that its turned down, but pretty much all of the traditional stuff that we've done, someone likes it as a favorite song." Venable explains, "Like the song, 'Samuel Hall,' that song Phil sings on the CD, I brought that one in. I originally heard a very different version of it on one of Johnny Cash's American label albums and then I found there was alternate music for it, put with that, I really liked it. It was one of my favorite folk songs."

 

Venable has been in other projects, writing songs with his first band, The Positions, and also taking a stab at reggae, but he has had better luck with material for his Faire groups.

 

"So far the songs (for Celtic Squall) are written by the individuals. There are two songs that I wrote on the disc, I think that's the only original music that's on there right now, but Phil is also a songwriter and Claire's a songwriter and my wife writes songs too," Venable says. "I've been writing songs probably since '87, maybe '86. Then I was writing angsty rock songs because I was of that age. But when I started with the Renaissance Faire, pretty much most people at Faire only did traditional music. There wasn't a lot of original music done out there because it has to have the proper language for the time period.

 

"I started writing that kind of music as soon as I started the Boggards in '92." Venable continues, "So I've been doing it for a long time and writing in that voice or writing using archaic terms, the thees and thous, started and it's become second nature. The other big thing is to avoid any common modern references and watch the way we phrase things. There are ways that we phrase things today that people would not have phrased them 400 years ago. Their language tended to be a little more eloquent and a little more flowery. You just go for the more words and that's pretty much it, but I had to learn how to do it through trial and error."

 

We discuss the music scene in general.

 

"We're pretty much a standard vocal band. It's hard to categorize what we do because first off there's a ton of vocalists normally, in Squall there's four of us singing in four-part harmony and we're all playing something. I would classify it as folk music. We don't perform at outside venues in Renaissance Faire costumes. We did that once in the Poxy Boggards, it was a mistake." Venable laughs, "You're under really hot lights and the costumes are kinda heavy.

 

"The music will translate beyond the time period we are depicting at the Faire, which I think is one of the reasons we've met with success at the Faire because it's music that has that sort of sound to it, but it's also about stuff that people can relate to without having to be from the renaissance."

 

Even though "Celtic Squall" was released in February, the group is already working on music for a winter recording. They won't concentrate on any outside gigs until the Faire run is over in May.

"There are a million good reasons for people to come out to Faire. First off, the first music group they will see when they come around the corner is Celtic Squall and we are a fine quartet of harmonizing vocalists and they will get a preview of the kind of music they will hear the rest of the day at the Faire. There are over 2,000 costumed actors that work the Renaissance Faire whose job it is to interact. And then our other two bands, Poxy Boggards and Merry Wives of Windsor, perform on the Rogue's Reef stage. They will be shocked and dismayed at the kind of music they hear at the Rogue's Reef stage," Venable laughs. "We aim to shock, but sometimes we fall short. Both groups have about four or five new tunes that we are going to debut and the Boggards have completely rewritten their show. There's tons of shopping."

 

With a hearty thank you, Venable is ready to get back on the road... but not without a chuckle and a happy "I'll see you at Faire." And he will!

 

Find out more about Celtic Squall at www.celticsquall.com

 

For more information on the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, visit www.renfair.com

 

Also visit my blogs at http://mickieszoo.blogspot.com and www.insidesocal.com/doodah