Port Folio Weekly – Article by Jeff Maisey April 2006

Take 5 with Tempest
Interview by Jeff Maisey

Tempest, the international band of swashbuckling Celtic-rock pirates, has set sail on another national tour. 
When Captain Lief Sorbye and his crew of musical Buccaneers make merriment at the White Horse Pub on Tuesday, 
they'll have a treasure chest of new gems, including "Captain Kid," "Hangman" and "Wizard's Walk."     
 

With The Double-Cross, did you setout to do a concept album?

Not necessarily. I think what happens to us is that we look at the body of work when we're halfway into it and 
usually, if you're lucky, a concept creeps up. On this one there was a little bit of a theme going on. It wasn't 
thought out beforehand; it just happened that there was a nautical theme; there were more pirates and hangmen. 
The songs pointed the way towards a loose concept.
 

Your first track is "Captain Kidd." What intrigued you about this character?

I think the whole idea with Tempest, even since day one, was we liked doing pirate songs because that was one of 
those romantic images I was fascinated by as a kid. I was always into the pirate image and it kinda followed the band.
We started out with a song about Captain Morgan I wrote years ago. Then we did another pirate, Captain Ward. And 
then we got a lot of people turning out at shows dressed as pirates. It's one of those curses that follow the band. 
There were actually some female pirates during the era that we might investigate in the future. People are coming 
to us with these ideas, too.
With "Captain Kid," we always like the image of the underdog. He's the guy that got screwed by the British government 
and ended up by default being a pirate. He went out as a privateer, which is sort of a legal pirate paid by the 
government, and the only crew he could get were pirates. He found himself in that situation where he got double-crossed 
by the Navy and the British government. It is a really different story than Captain Morgan.
These people have a colorful history and they made an impact on the culture. It's fun to tell their story in our 
songs because I think our type of music lends itself to that imagery.
 

Within the "Black Eddy" medley is a tune you wrote called "The Tater Polka."

That was one of the first dance tunes I wrote after I got into traditional music in the '70s. A Tater has nothing to 
do with potatoes; it is a word for the Norwegian traveling people. You have the gypsies coming out of Romania; on the 
British Isles you have the Tinkers. In Scandinavia you have the Taters. It's the same thing. They are nomadic people 
traveling around supporting themselves with little odd jobs, and used to be in caravans.   
  

Let's talk about "Wizard's Walk." It is a medley of four songs, but it gets really interesting about 3:30 into the piece.

Yeah. I think so too. That was something that Michael (Mullins) worked on.
A lot of our fans come to our shows and want to be slapped in the face with something big. So we were looking to put 
together another big medley of tunes that we could use as a set closer and one that we could really sink our teeth 
into and build it, and have a lot of interesting interplay between the musicians; something that will keep you on 
top of your toes and wake you up. It was designed to be a big part of our live show.