The Reporter

Celtic Rock Storm
Tempest, feting 15 years on the road, comes to Davis
By Richard Bammer/Features Writer

Friday, January 23, 2004 - Can it get any better for Lief Sorbye, the founder of Celtic rock band Tempest?

"I've been in this silly business for a living all my life," the tall, shaggy-looking Oakland resident said by telephone late last week. "I've never had a day job. Somehow I've managed to combine my two passions in life - playing music and traveling. I've found a job that combined both and I feel privileged."

Making music and traveling - he will do both, again, Saturday. That's when he and his current four-member backing unit - plus some original members from the band's early days - hold forth at a 15th anniversary and reunion at the Veterans Memorial Theatre in Davis.

Sounding upbeat and optimistic, Sorbye, a fortysomething Norwegian, said the all-ages event promises to be "a great celebration of Tempest's past and present." The reunion, part of a wintertime California tour stretching from Blue Lake (near Arcata) to Angels Camp to San Francisco, will culminate in a grand jam session featuring old and new band members.

"My whole philosophy is to throw a big party for all the fans and give them a Tempest show they'll always remember," he explained in only slightly accented English.

Since Tempest - like its musical kin Boiled in Lead, The Moors and Wolfstone - ranks among the world's best of its kind, the band and its fans are connected by the Internet, not suprisingly.

"We've been monitoring the discussion and it's interesting," said Sorbye, a former member of the Celtic band Golden Bough. "We've been eyeing the discussion lists dedicated to the band. People are wondering what songs we'd always play and don't do live anymore. So we've combined all these notes to give the fans the show they've always wanted - plus a little bit extra they'd never expect."

No, he doesn't want to divulge just what the extras are. His brainchild, the reunion will be the story of Tempest, in words, music and song.

Since forming in 1988, Tempest has fused traditional Celtic acoustic sounds - Irish reels, Scottish ballads and Norwegian folk - with the driving energy of plugged-in guitars and drums.

"I have one foot in folk music and one foot in rock 'n' roll," said Sorbye, describing the band's sound. "The backbone is music from the British Isles. It's all Northern European. That's what I've always been into. After so many years of doing it, I think I've only scratched the surface. It never gets stale for me. It's always exciting. "

In the past 15 years, the band has released 10 albums, the most recent being "Shapeshifter," a 10-tune disc on the Magna Carta label, distributed by the powerful WEA (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic) corporation. Among the songs are "Tamosher," "Carnival" and "Cruel Brother," all propelled by Tempest's current lineup: Besides Sorbye on lead vocals and doubled-necked mandolin and mandolas, the band is Adolfo Lazo, drums; Ronan Carroll, guitar and vocals; Michael Mullen (the group's only American, by the way), fiddle and vocals; and Ariane Cap, bass and vocals.

Released last year, "Shapeshifter" signifies a returns to roots, Sorbye said. It contains five original songs, mostly written by Sorbye, and five traditional tunes.

"There's Irish, Scottish, English and Norwegian and an American song," he noted. "It covers all the bases of the roots of the music, really. I have a soft spot for that record. It opened a lot of doors for us."

Those doors include club dates in the fall and winter, followed by festival and fair season in the summer, including the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Britains's Copredy Festival and the Winnipeg Folk Festival. More locally, Tempest headlines Vacaville's Celtic Nations Festival on June 26 and 27 in Andrews Park.

Sorbye started Tempest "with a blueprint in mind."

"I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how to go about it," he said with the confident air of man who, indeed, knew exactly what he wanted to do, when and how. "There was no lengthy experimentation with the music I wanted. I found the musicians and got on the road."

Like so many youths growing up in the late 1960s and 1970s, Sorbye fell under the spell of The Beatles. He felt rock 'n' roll in the marrow of his bones, but it was an Irish fiddle that did something the Fab Four from Liverpool and George Harrison's stinging guitar leads did not: set his foot tapping in time to upbeat music.

And the songs' lyrics also spoke volumes to him, too. Their themes tend to be "timeless," Sorbye said.

"They deal with the human condition," he said. "And it tells a story. It's all about the human condition and the human condition is about survival."

On the 'Net: www.tempestmusic.com.