Bluegrass quintet The Dirty Beggars are an energetic and exciting band from Scotland who are making waves on the UK’s Americana, country and bluegrass scenes. Currently in the middle of a mini-tour around London, we caught up with them and asked them what The Dirty Beggars are all about…
Why do you exist?
Philosophical question, I’ll keep it simple! We’re 5 guys who are all living in Glasgow, Scotland. Finn Begbie, Peter Begbie, Kieran Begbie, Pedro Cameron and Stuart Printie. The three Begbies come from Peebles in the Scottish borders…we’re cousins and Pete and Finn are brothers. Nobody knows really where Pedro comes from originally and Stuart comes from Dunblane in Perthshire. We all crossed paths in Glasgow one way or another. The three cousins from Bonnie Peebles used to play and jam together through high school and towards the end when we could go to the pub we fell in with a bunch of older musicians at a local Americana live pub session.
From there, P, F and K started playing together as a proper “band” when they moved to Glasgow and only picked Pedro and Stuart up last October. Since then things have gone exponentially for us and we’ve all knitted together like a kilt! One beautiful dream really. Ultimately we exist because we all love playing and listening to bluegrass/americana/country/folk…
Where does that Appalachian blood in you come from?
We have all been exposed to hillbilly type tunes through parents and uncles and then at things like the pub session mentioned above. Some how we’ve all developed a passion for this music. None of us are city boys so there’s a bit of country boy redneck in us too. I guess the whole transatlantic thing really is true you know, Scottish Celtic music is heavily related to American traditional music and I guess the blood must be related too!
Does vinyl have a place in your heart in this fast and throwaway digital age?
Definitely. If we weren’t poor musicians/students we’d all have vinyl collections. We think they’re still the number one way to listen to and purchase bands’ music. Digital has it’s place but it’d be nice to see a better balance.
What has been the highlights of your career so far?
Landing a slot at Celtic connections festival was great for us. Also getting to support The Wilders (great band from Kansas City) was awesome too. I think our real highlights are still to come with upcoming trips to London and then to the states!
Tell us about your songs and what you plan to do with your music.
We play a wide range of songs. Obviously we like to play a lot of bluegrass standards and covers but we’ve really been hitting the road running with our original stuff too. Our songs are a good mixture of shitkicker fun footstomper numbers and more serious, mature songs we think as well as instrumental. We find it really fun when we’re arranging songs to play about with solos on fiddle, harmonica, dobro etc. and see what sounds cool. I guess our plans are just to keep on writing more and more and improving and exploring more ideas as we progress. It’d be cool to get our music out there to folks who’d want to hear it.
Are you comfortable with the whole DIY release process?
It’s had its ups and downs. We may still release on a label after summer but we like the freedom it allows. Overall it’s nice being in charge of ourselves even if it can slow things down.
Is playing live more important than making records?
I think playing live is the most honest way to get your music out there. No gimmicks or tweaking shit, just playing from the heart to an audience and making them dance and clap. There’s nothing better. Records are important too, but I don’t think we ever started a band to make records…we started a band to play shows.
Which five records or artists couldn’t you live without?
This is really tough… I’ll throw a few down… Ryan Adams, Steve Earle, Old Crow Medicine Show…seriously too tough. ya got me at 3!
