The Elders school a new generation on Celtic tradition

There’s a lot more to an Irish jig than fast picking and fancy footwork. Around here, no one knows this better than the Elders. Since 1998, the Irish-American roots band has barnstormed the metro with its own take on traditional Celtic music, writing original songs that sound as true and timeless as the Highland hymns that inspired them.

But old-fashioned this act isn’t. On the Elders’ latest album, the October-released Story Road, the spirit of the motherland dances to pure American rock and roll. Ahead of the Elders’ Saturday show at RecordBar, we chatted with singer, guitarist and mandolin player Steve Phillips about the band’s influences and community ties.

The Pitch: The Elders have been together now for 16 years. How has your sound changed over that time?

Phillips: When we first started the band, we were more Americana than anything else, but we were trying to do our interpretation of Irish Celtic music. When I go back and listen to some of that early stuff, it doesn’t sound Celtic or Irish at all, certainly not by most standards. [Laughs.] I would say it’s probably with the addition of our most recent player, [fiddle player, whistler and songwriter] Colin Farrell, it’s more traditional than it has been before.

On this new record, we have three traditional, Irish-sounding pieces, and they’re all originals by Colin Farrell. It’s the closest we’ve gotten to real folk. We started out trying to interpret it, and over 15 years later, we’ve finally nailed it — well, at least on three songs.

You make it sound like the years have made you more traditional, rather than the other way around.

Well, if you go down the song list [on Story Road] — “Meeting of the Waters” is about a poet, Thomas Moore, but stylistically, it’s kind of U2-ish. It’s a rock song, one that should be able to fit on any rock radio format. Nobody would hear that song and think, “Oh, we should put that on the Sunday Irish show.”

We don’t stay within those boundaries [of traditional Celtic music]. In fact, most traditional Irish people would look at us and say, “These guys aren’t traditional at all.” We say we’re Celtic or Irish-American because a lot of our lyrics maybe invoke stories that are from Irish immigrants or history from Ireland itself, but stylistically, we also call on our Americana roots.

Whenever we get a new infusion of talent, such as in 2012, when we hired Ian [Byrne]’s son, Kian — he kind of had a whole different set of experiences to play. He plays a lot of reggae and ska, and we use some of that, too. We’ve used some Cajun influences, Americana, straight-up rock and roll. For me, it’s an amalgamation of all these different things.

The show you’re playing Saturday is a benefit for local community-radio station KKFI 90.1. What’s your relationship with community radio?

I see community radio all across America being sort of the only way that people get a connection through radio anymore. Radio, for the most part, is owned and operated by some big conglomerate, and more often than not, it’s programmed in a different city, so it doesn’t have any local flavor or feel at all. That’s the one thing I appreciate when I look at the model that KKFI is doing, and I’m so happy that they’ve been able to stick it out and not be bought up and influenced in the way that other radio stations have. I just like to see a radio station — and the Bridge [KTBG 90.9] is another example of this — that has decided that the local music scene is important, and they’re going to support it and play it.

You guys are kind of local superstars, and you’ve played to huge crowds at Irish festivals here and in Ireland. Did you ever imagine that you would get this far on Irish-American music when you started the band?

Actually, the original idea to get together and play this kind of music was because we thought it would be fun, and we liked the idea of playing and drinking beer. [Laughs.] We didn’t really have any higher goals. It wasn’t until we actually started writing songs together that it kind of became apparent that we have the ability to write in this genre. We go to all these Irish festivals around the country, and we’re one of the very few bands that play original music. The majority of the bands are playing old songs, songs that are hundreds of years old. There’s very few bands doing original songs, and I think that dawned on us when we were writing, and that was unique to people.

It’s a joy to write in a genre that’s, up to now, been untapped and unattended to. In a way, too, I think if somebody doesn’t write new [Celtic] music, that this whole wave of Irish festivals will become a trend or a fad that will eventually fade out. It may anyway, but at least if someone is pumping blood into it, it may take on a new life of its own.